Shanghai Gold Benchmark Price

USD oz gram kilo tola

AM2030.75

PM2028.26

Historical SGE Fix

SHANGHAI GOLD PREMIUM OVER NY: 52 DOLLARS

Bitcoin morning price:, 44,235 UP 445 DOLLARS

Bitcoin: afternoon price: $43,629 DOWN 161 dollars

Platinum price closing $966.10 UP $4.80

Palladium price; $1212,50 DOWN $20.25

END

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Due to the huge rise in the dollar, we must look at gold and silver in currencies other than the dollar to understand where we are heading

I will now provide gold in Canadian dollars, British pounds and Euros

4: 15 PM ACCESS

*CANADIAN GOLD: $2,713.14 DOWN $1.10 CDN dollars per oz( * NEW ALL TIME HIGH 2,795.90 CDN DOLLARS PER OZ//DEC 1 272023)

*BRITISH GOLD: 1611.40 UP 3.70 pounds per oz// *(NEW ALL TIME HIGH//CLOSING///1655.17 BRITISH POUNDS/OZ) OCT 2/2023

*EURO GOLD: 1857.66 UP 1 euros per oz //* (ALL TIME CLOSING HIGH: 1903.75 EUROS PER OZ//DEC 1.2023)

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EXCHANGE: COMEX

EXCHANGE: COMEX
CONTRACT: DECEMBER 2023 COMEX 100 GOLD FUTURES
SETTLEMENT: 2,038.400000000 USD
INTENT DATE: 12/19/2023 DELIVERY DATE: 12/21/2023
FIRM ORG FIRM N

EXCHANGE: COMEX
CONTRACT: DECEMBER 2023 COMEX 100 GOLD FUTURES
SETTLEMENT: 2,034.500000000 USD
INTENT DATE: 12/20/2023 DELIVERY DATE: 12/22/2023
FIRM ORG FIRM NAME ISSUED STOPPED

118 C MACQUARIE FUT 59
363 H WELLS FARGO SEC 65
365 C MAREX CAPITAL M 10 10
435 H SCOTIA CAPITAL 76
657 C MORGAN STANLEY 41
661 C JP MORGAN 4
690 C ABN AMRO 5 13
737 C ADVANTAGE 66
905 C ADM 43
991 H CME 76

TOTAL: 234 234
MONTH TO DATE: 14,706

JPMorgan stopped 0.234 contracts.

FOR DEC.:

GOLD: NUMBER OF NOTICES FILED FOR DEC/2023. CONTRACT: 234 NOTICES FOR 23,400 OZ or 0.7278 TONNES

total notices so far: 14,706 contracts for 1,470,600 oz (45.7418 tonnes)

FOR DEC:

SILVER NOTICES 198 NOTICE(S) FILED FOR 990,000 OZ/

total number of notices filed so far this month : 3407 for 17,035,000 oz

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END

BOTH GLD AND SLV ARE FRAUDULENT VEHICLES

GLD

WITH GOLD UP $5.10//

INVESTORS SWITCHING TO SPROTT PHYSICAL (PHYS) INSTEAD OF THE FRAUDULENT GLD/ : / HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: /A DEPOSIT OF 0.58 TONNES OF GOLD INTO THE GLD//

INVENTORY RESTS AT 878.25 TONNES

SLV//

WITH NO SILVER AROUND AND SILVER DOWN 2 CENTS AT THE SLV// NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: V/

INVESTORS ARE SWITCHING SLV TO SPROTT’S PSLV.

CLOSING INVENTORY: 443,393 MILLION OZ

Let us have a look at the data for today

SILVER//OUTLINE

SILVER COMEX OI ROSE BY A GIGANTIC SIZED 2854 CONTRACTS TO 130,408 AND CLOSER TO THE RECORD HIGH OI OF 244,710, SET FEB 25/2020 AND THIS GIGANTIC SIZED GAIN IN COMEX OI WAS ACCOMPLISHED WITH OUR GAIN $0.28 IN SILVER PRICING AT THE COMEX ON WEDNESDAY. WE HAD A ZERO LONG LIQUIDATION WITH CONSIDERABLE T.A.S. LIQUIDATION (AND SOME SHORT COVERING BUT AT HIGHER PRICES) AT THE COMEX SESSION. WE HAD A FAIR 587 T.A.S ISSUANCE AND THESE WILL BE USED FOR MANIPULATION LATER THIS MONTH/AS WELL AS TODAY.

CRAIG HEMKE HAS POINTED OUT THAT THE CROOKS USE THE MID MONTH FOR MANIPULATION AS THEY SELL THEIR BUY SIDE OF THE CALENDAR SPREAD FIRST AND THEN KEEP THE SELL SIDE TO LIQUIDATE AT A LATER DATE. THUS WE HAVE TWO VEHICLES THE CROOKS USE FOR MANIPULATION AND BOTH ARE SPREADERS: 1) AT MONTH’S END/SPREADERS COMEX AND 2/ TAS SPREADERS, MID MONTH. TOTAL TAS ISSUED ON TUESDAY NIGHT: 587 CONTRACTS. DESPITE MANY COMPLAINTS THAT THE CROOKS HAVE VIOLATED POSITION LIMITS DUE TO THE FACT THAT THE TAS ISSUED HAVE A VALUE OF ZERO (AS TO POSITION LIMITS FOR OUR CROOKED BANKERS). THE PROBLEM OF COURSE IS THAT THE CROOKS DO NOT LIQUIDATE THE TAS TOGETHER BUT SELL THE BUY SIDE FIRST AND THEN LIQUIDATE THE SELL SIDE TWO MONTHS HENCE. IT IS OBVIOUS MANIPULATION TO THE HIGHEST DEGREE BUT IT NATURALLY FELL ON DEAF EARS WITH OUR REGULATORS (OCC) WHEN THEY RECEIVED OUR COMPLAINTS. IT THUS LOOKS LIKE THE FED (GOV’T) IS BEHIND ALL OF THESE TRADES.

WE HAVE NOW SET ANOTHER RECORD LOW AT 114,102 CONTRACTS ///JULY 3.2023// OUR BANKERS WITH THE HELP OF SPECULATORS AND HIGH FREQUENCY TRADERS WERE UNSUCCESSFUL IN KNOCKING THE PRICE OF SILVER DOWN (IT ROSE BY $0.28), AND WERE UNSUCCESSFUL IN KNOCKING ANY SILVER LONGS AS WE HAD A GIGANTIC SIZED GAIN OF 3519 OI CONTRACTS ON OUR TWO EXCHANGES.

WE MUST HAVE HAD:

A STRONG SIZED 655 ISSUANCE OF EXCHANGE FOR PHYSICALS) iiii) AN INITIAL SILVER STANDING FOR COMEX SILVER MEASURING AT 1,5 MILLION OZ (FIRST DAY NOTICE) FOLLOWED BY TODAY’S 2,130,000 OZ QUEUE JUMP + 0 CONTRACTS OF EX. FOR RISK FOR 0 MILLION OZ EX. FOR RISK //NEW TOTAL STANDING 20.185 MILLION OZ.+0 MILLION OZ (EX. FOR RISK TODAY) + 6.5 MILLION EX. FOR RISK/PRIOR= NEW TOTAL OF 26.685 MILLION OZ

//NEW STANDING FOR SILVER IS THUS 26.685 MILLION OZ

//FAIR SIZED COMEX OI GAIN/ SMALL SIZED EFP ISSUANCE/ VI) GOOD SIZED NUMBER OF T.A.S. CONTRACT ISSUANCE 587 CONTRACTS)/

0 CONTRACT EX.FOR RISK =0 MILLION OZ//NEW TOTAL FOR EX. FOR RISK + 6.5 MILLION OZ.

I AM NOW RECORDING THE DIFFERENTIAL IN OI FROM PRELIMINARY TO FINAL – added+ 1276 CONTRACTS (the cme will no longer provide preliminary no to be except through a paywall)

HISTORICAL ACCUMULATION OF EXCHANGE FOR PHYSICALS DEC. ACCUMULATION FOR EFP’S SILVER/JPMORGAN’S HOUSE OF BRIBES/STARTING FROM FIRST DAY/MONTH OF DEC:

TOTAL CONTRACTS for 15 days, total 11,663 contracts: OR 58.315MILLION OZ (777 CONTRACTS PER DAY)

TOTAL EFP’S FOR THE MONTH SO FAR: 58.315 MILLION OZ

LAST 23 MONTHS TOTAL EFP CONTRACTS ISSUED IN MILLIONS OF OZ:

MAY 137.83 MILLION

JUNE 149.91 MILLION OZ

JULY 129.445 MILLION OZ

AUGUST: MILLION OZ 140.120

SEPT. 28.230 MILLION OZ//

OCT: 94.595 MILLION OZ

NOV: 131.925 MILLION OZ

DEC: 100.615 MILLION OZ

YEAR 2022:

JAN 2022-DEC 2022

JAN 2022// 90.460 MILLION OZ

FEB 2022: 72.39 MILLION OZ//

MARCH 2022: 207.140 MILLION OZ//A NEW RECORD FOR EFP ISSUANCE

APRIL: 114.52 MILLION OZ FINAL//LOW ISSUANCE

MAY: 105.635 MILLION OZ//

JUNE: 94.470 MILLION OZ

JULY : 87.110 MILLION OZ

AUGUST: 65.025 MILLION OZ

SEPT. 74.025 MILLION OZ///FINAL

OCT. 29.017 MILLION OZ FINAL

NOV: 134.290 MILLION OZ//FINAL

DEC, 61.395 MILLION OZ FINAL

TOTALS YR 2022: 1135.767 MILLION OZ (1.1356 BILLION OZ)

JAN 2023/// 53.070 MILLION OZ //FINAL

FEB: 2023: 100.105 MILLION OZ/FINAL//MUCH STRONGER ISSUANCE VS THE LATTER TWO MONTHS.

MARCH 2023: 112.58 MILLION OZ//FINAL//STRONG ISSUANCE

APRIL 118.035 MILLION OZ(SLIGHTLY GREATER THAN THAN LAST MONTH)

MAY 66.120 MILLION OZ/INITIAL (MUCH SMALLER THIS MONTH)

JUNE: 110.395 MILLION OZ//MUCH LARGER THAN LAST MONTH

JULY 85.745 MILLION OZ (SMALLER THAN LAST MONTH)

AUGUST: 171.43 MILLION OZ (THIS MONTH IS GOING TO BE HUGE //2ND HIGHEST ON RECORD

SEPT: 72.705 MILLION OZ (SMALLER THIS MONTH)

OCT: 97.455 MILLION OZ

NOV. 50.050 MILLION OZ

DEC. 58.315 MILLION OZ//THIS IS GOING TO BE A STRONG ISSUANCE OF EFP’S FOR THIS MONTH.

RESULT: WE HAD A GIGANTIC SIZED INCREASE IN COMEX OI SILVER COMEX CONTRACTS OF 2854 CONTRACTS WITH OUR GAIN IN PRICE OF $0.28 IN SILVER PRICING AT THE COMEX//WEDNESDAY.,. THE CME NOTIFIED US THAT WE HAD A STRONG EFP ISSUANCE CONTRACTS: 665 ISSUED FOR FEB AND 0 CONTRACTS ISSUED FOR ALL OTHER MONTHS) WHICH EXITED OUT OF THE SILVER COMEX TO LONDON AS FORWARDS. WE HAVE A GOOD INITIAL SILVER OZ STANDING FOR DEC. OF 18.755 MILLION OZ FOLLOWED BY TODAY’S 2.130 MILLION OZ QUEUE JUMP /NEW TOTAL STANDING 20.185MILLION OZ//+0 MILLION EX. FOR RISK TODAY + 6.5 MILLION OZ EXCHANGE FOR RISK/PRIOR//NEW TOTAL 26.685 MILLION OZ.

NEW STANDING 26.685 million OZ /// WE HAVE A HUMONGOUS SIZED GAIN OF 3519 OI CONTRACTS ON THE TWO EXCHANGES WITH THE GAIN IN PRICE. THE TOTAL OF TAS INITIATED CONTRACTS TODAY: A GOOD SIZED 587 CONTRACTS//CONSIDERABLE FRONT END OF THE TAS CONTRACTS WERE LIQUIDATED DURING THE WEDNESDAY COMEX SESSION. THE NEW TAS ISSUANCE WEDNESDAY NIGHT (587 WILL BE PUT INTO “THE BANK” TO BE COLLUSIVELY USED AT A LATER DATE., .

WE HAD 198 NOTICE(S) FILED TODAY FOR 990,000 OZ

THE SILVER COMEX IS NOW BEING ATTACKED FOR METAL BY LONDONERS ET AL.

GOLD//OUTLINE

IN GOLD, THE COMEX OPEN INTEREST FELL BY A FAIR SIZED 2428 CONTRACTS TO 478,775 AND CLOSER TO RECORD (SET JAN 24/2020) AT 799,733 AND PREVIOUS TO THAT: (SET JAN 6/2020) AT 797,110.

THE DIFFERENTIAL FROM PRELIMINARY OI TO FINAL OI IN GOLD TODAY: -removed 265 CONTRACTS

WE HAD A FAIR SIZED DECREASE IN COMEX OI ( 2428 CONTRACTS) WITH OUR $3.60 LOSS IN PRICE//WEDNESDAY. WE ALSO HAD A RATHER LIGHT INITIAL STANDING IN GOLD TONNAGE FOR DEC.. AT 44.914 TONNES ON FIRST DAY NOTICE FOLLOWED BY TODAY’S 15,110 OZ QUEUE JUMP + 0 ISSUANCE OF EX. FOR RISK CONTRACTS // TOTAL GOLD STANDING FOR DEC SO FAR INCREASES TO 50.058 TONNES // ALL OF..THIS HAPPENED WITH OUR $3.60 LOSS IN PRICE WITH RESPECT TO WEDNESDAY’S TRADING. WE HAD A FAIR SIZED LOSS OF 1468 OI CONTRACTS (4.566) PAPER TONNES) ON OUR TWO EXCHANGES.

E.F.P. ISSUANCE

THE CME RELEASED THE DATA FOR EFP ISSUANCE AND IT TOTALED A SMALL SIZED 960 CONTRACTS:

The NEW COMEX OI FOR THE GOLD COMPLEX RESTS AT 478,775

IN ESSENCE WE HAVE A FAIR SIZED DECREASE IN TOTAL CONTRACTS ON THE TWO EXCHANGES OF 1468 CONTRACTS WITH 2428 CONTRACTS DECREASED AT THE COMEX// AND A SMALL SIZED 960 EFP OI CONTRACTS WHICH NAVIGATED OVER TO LONDON. THUS TOTAL OI LOSS ON THE TWO EXCHANGES OF 1468 CONTRACTS. WE HAD 0 CONTRACTS EXCHANGE FOR RISK TODAYFOR 0.0 TONNES/EX FOR RISK PRIOR = 4.634 TOTAL //NEW TOTAL STANDING 45.899 TONNES + 4.634 TONNES= 50.533 TONNES.. WE HAD THE FOLLOWING TAS CONTRACTS INITIATED (ISSUED): A FAIR 2144 CONTRACTS.

CALCULATIONS ON GAIN/LOSS ON OUR TWO EXCHANGES

WE HAD A SMALL SIZED ISSUANCE IN EXCHANGE FOR PHYSICALS (960 CONTRACTS) ACCOMPANYING THE FAIR SIZED LOSS IN COMEX OI (2428) //TOTAL LOSS FOR OUR THE TWO EXCHANGES: 1468 CONTRACTS. WE HAVE ( 1) NOW RETURNED TO OUR FORMER FORMAT OF BANKERS GOING LONG AND SPECULATORS GOING SHORT ,2.) FAIR INITIAL STANDING AT THE GOLD COMEX FOR DEC. AT 44.914 TONNES FOLLOWED BY TODAY’S 15,100 OZ QUEUE JUMP + 4.634 TONNES EX. FOR RISK PRIOR//NEW STANDING 50.558 TONNES / / 3) SOME LONG LIQUIDATION AND CONSIDERABLE TAS LIQUIDATION WITH SOME SHORT LIQUIDATION (COVERING) 4) FAIR SIZED COMEX OPEN INTEREST LOSS/ 5) SMALL ISSUANCE OF EXCHANGE FOR PHYSICAL PAPER///6: FAIR T.A.S. ISSUANCE: 2144 CONTRACTS

HISTORICAL ACCUMULATION OF EXCHANGE FOR PHYSICALS IN 2023 INCLUDING TODAY

DEC

ACCUMULATION OF EFP’S GOLD AT J.P. MORGAN’S HOUSE OF BRIBES: (EXCHANGE FOR PHYSICAL) FOR THE MONTH OF DEC. :

TOTAL EFP CONTRACTS ISSUED: 56,507 CONTRACTS OR 5,650,700 OZ OR 175.76TONNES IN 15 TRADING DAY(S) AND THUS AVERAGING: 3767 EFP CONTRACTS PER TRADING DAY

TO GIVE YOU AN IDEA AS TO THE SIZE OF THESE EFP TRANSFERS : THIS MONTH IN 15 TRADING DAY(S) IN TONNES 175.76TONNES

TOTAL ANNUAL GOLD PRODUCTION, 2022, THROUGHOUT THE WORLD EX CHINA EX RUSSIA: 3555 TONNES

THUS EFP TRANSFERS REPRESENTS 175.76/3550 x 100% TONNES 4,95% OF GLOBAL ANNUAL PRODUCTION

ACCUMULATION OF GOLD EFP’S YEAR 2021 TO 2023

JANUARY/2021: 265.26 TONNES (RAPIDLY INCREASING AGAIN)

FEB : 171.24 TONNES ( DEFINITELY SLOWING DOWN AGAIN)..

MARCH:. 276.50 TONNES (STRONG AGAIN/

APRIL: 189..44 TONNES ( DRAMATICALLY SLOWING DOWN AGAIN//GOLD IN BACKWARDATION)

MAY: 250.15 TONNES (NOW DRAMATICALLY INCREASING AGAIN)

JUNE: 247.54 TONNES (FINAL)

JULY: 188.73 TONNES FINAL

AUGUST: 217.89 TONNES FINAL ISSUANCE.

SEPT 142.12 TONNES FINAL ISSUANCE ( LOW ISSUANCE)_

OCT: 141.13 TONNES FINAL ISSUANCE (LOW ISSUANCE)

NOV: 312.46 TONNES FINAL ISSUANCE//NEW RECORD!! (INCREASING DRAMATICALLY)//SIGN OF REAL STRESS//SURPASSING THE MARCH 2021 RECORD OF 276.50 TONNES OF EFP

DEC. 175.62 TONNES//FINAL ISSUANCE//

TOTALS: 2,578.08 TONNES/2021

JAN:2022 247.25 TONNES //FINAL

FEB: 196.04 TONNES//FINAL

MARCH/2022: 409.30 TONNES //FINAL( THIS IS NOW A RECORD EFP ISSUANCE FOR MARCH AND FOR ANY MONTH.

APRIL: 169.55 TONNES (FINAL VERY LOW ISSUANCE MONTH)

MAY: 247.44 TONNES FINAL//

JUNE: 238.13 TONNES FINAL

JULY: 378.43 TONNES FINAL

AUGUST: 180.81 TONNES FINAL

SEPT. 193.16 TONNES FINAL

OCT: 177.57 TONNES FINAL ( MUCH SMALLER THAN LAST MONTH)

NOV. 223.98 TONNES//FINAL ( MUCH LARGER THAN PREVIOUS MONTHS//comex running out of physical)

DEC: 185.59 tonnes // FINAL

TOTAL: 2,847,25 TONNES/2022

JAN 2023: 228.49 TONNES FINAL//HUGE AMOUNT OF EFP’S ISSUED THIS MONTH!!

FEB: 151.61 TONNES/FINAL

MARCH: 280.09 TONNES/INITIAL (ANOTHER STRONG MONTH FOR EFP ISSUANCE)

APRIL: 197.42 TONNES

MAY: 236.67 TONNES (A VERY STRONG ISSUANCE FOR THIS MONTH)

JUNE: 172.667 TONNES (WEAKER ISSUANCE THIS MONTH)

JULY: 151.69 TONNES (WEAKER THAN LAST MONTH)

AUGUST: 195.28 TONNES (A STRONGER MONTH)//FINAL

SEPT: 254.709 TONNES (WILL BE LARGER THAN LAST MONTH AND A STRONG MONTH)

OCT. 248.09 TONNES. LIKE SILVER, THIS MONTH IS GOING TO BE A STRONG E.F.P. ISSUANCE.

NOV. 239.16 TONNES//WILL BE STRONG THIS MONTH,

DEC. 175.76 TONNES.

SPREADING OPERATIONS

(/NOW SWITCHING TO GOLD) FOR NEWCOMERS, HERE ARE THE DETAILS

SPREADING LIQUIDATION HAS NOW COMMENCED AS WE HEAD TOWARDS THE NEW ACTIVE FRONT MONTH OF DEC. WE ARE NOW INTO THE SPREADING OPERATION OF GOLD

HERE IS A BRIEF SYNOPSIS OF HOW THE CROOKS FLEECE UNSUSPECTING LONGS IN THE SPREADING ENDEAVOUR ;MODUS OPERANDI OF THE CORRUPT BANKERS AS TO HOW THEY HANDLE THEIR SPREAD OPEN INTERESTS:HERE IS HOW THE CROOKS USED SPREADING AS WE ARE NOW INTO THE NON ACTIVE DELIVERY MONTH OF NOV HEADING TOWARDS THE ACTIVE DELIVERY MONTH OF FEB., FOR GOLD: AND MARCH FOR SILVER

YOU WILL ALSO NOTICE THAT THE COMEX OPEN INTEREST STARTS TO RISE BUT SO IS THE OPEN INTEREST OF SPREADERS. THE OPEN INTEREST IN WILL CONTINUE TO RISE UNTIL ONE WEEK BEFORE FIRST DAY NOTICE OF AN UPCOMING ACTIVE DELIVERY MONTH (SEPT), AND THAT IS WHEN THE CROOKS SELL THEIR SPREAD POSITIONS BUT NOT AT THE SAME TIME OF THE DAY. THEY WILL USE THE SELL SIDE OF THE EQUATION TO CREATE THE CASCADE (ALONG WITH THEIR COLLUSIVE FRIENDS) AND THEN COVER ON THE BUY SIDE OF THE SPREAD SITUATION AT THE END OF THE DAY. THEY DO THIS TO AVOID POSITION LIMIT DETECTION. THE LIQUIDATION OF THE SPREADING FORMATION CONTINUES FOR EXACTLY ONE WEEK AND ENDS ON FIRST DAY NOTICE.”

WHAT IS ALARMING TO ME, ACCORDING TO OUR LONDON EXPERT ANDREW MAGUIRE IS THAT THESE EFP’S ARE BEING TRANSFERRED TO WHAT ARE CALLED SERIAL FORWARD CONTRACT OBLIGATIONS AND THESE CONTRACTS ARE LESS THAN 14 DAYS. ANYTHING GREATER THAN 14 DAYS, THESE MUST BE RECORDED AND SENT TO THE COMPTROLLER, GREAT BRITAIN TO MONITOR RISK TO THE BANKING SYSTEM. IF THIS IS INDEED TRUE, THEN THIS IS A MASSIVE CONSPIRACY TO DEFRAUD AS WE NOW WITNESS A MONSTROUS TOTAL EFP’S ISSUANCE AS IT HEADS INTO THE STRATOSPHERE.

The crooks also use the spread in the TAS account (trade at settlement). They buy the spot TAS (e.g. June) and sell the future TAS two months out (e.g. August). Then they unload the front month (i.e. unload the buy side first so the price of gold/silver falls. This occurs in the middle of the front delivery month cycle. They unload the sell side of the equation, two months down the road. The crooks violate position limits as the OCC refuse to hear our complaints.

First, here is an outline of what will be discussed tonight:

1.Today, we had the open interest at the comex, in SILVER ROSE BY A HUMONGOUS SIZED 2854 CONTRACTS OI TO 130,403 AND CLOSER TO THE COMEX HIGH RECORD //244,710(SET FEB 25/2020). THE LAST RECORDS WERE SET IN AUG.2018 AT 244,196 WITH A SILVER PRICE OF $14.78/(AUGUST 22/2018)..THE PREVIOUS RECORD TO THAT WAS SET ON APRIL 9/2018 AT 243,411 OPEN INTEREST CONTRACTS WITH THE SILVER PRICE AT THAT DAY: $16.53). AND PREVIOUS TO THAT, THE RECORD WAS ESTABLISHED AT: 234,787 CONTRACTS, SET ON APRIL 21.2017 OVER 5 YEARS AGO. HOWEVER WE HAVE NOW SET A NEW RECORD LOW OF 114,102 CONTRACTS JULY 3.2023

EFP ISSUANCE 665 CONTRACTS

OUR CUSTOMARY MIGRATION OF COMEX LONGS CONTINUE TO MORPH INTO LONDON FORWARDS AS OUR BANKERS USED THEIR EMERGENCY PROCEDURE TO ISSUE:

MARCH 135 and ALL OTHER MONTHS: ZERO. TOTAL EFP ISSUANCE: 665 CONTRACTS. EFP’S GIVE OUR COMEX LONGS A FIAT BONUS PLUS A DELIVERABLE PRODUCT OVER IN LONDON. IF WE TAKE THE COMEX OI GAIN OF 1578 CONTRACTS AND ADD TO THE 665 OI TRANSFERRED TO LONDON THROUGH EFP’S,

WE OBTAIN A HUMONGOUS SIZED GAIN OF OPEN INTEREST CONTRACTS FROM OUR TWO EXCHANGES OF 3519 CONTRACTS

THUS IN OUNCES, THE GAIN ON THE TWO EXCHANGES TOTAL 17.595 MILLION OZ

OCCURRED WITH OUR $.28 GAIN IN PRICE …..

END

OUTLINE FOR TODAY’S COMMENTARY

1a/COMEX GOLD AND SILVER REPORT

(report Harvey)

b, ) Gold/silver trading overnight Europe,//GOLD COMMENTARIES

(Peter Schiff)

c) Commentaries from: Egon von Greyerz///Matthew Piepenburg via GoldSwitzerland.com, Pam and Russ Martens

ii a) Chris Powell of GATA provides to us very important physical commentaries

b. Other gold/silver commentaries

c. Commodity commentaries//

d)/CRYPTOCURRENCIES/BITCOIN ETC

2.ASIAN AFFAIRS//

THURSDAY MORNING/WEDNESDAY NIGHT

SHANGHAI CLOSED UP 16.61 PTS OR 0.51% //Hang Seng CLOSED UP 7,32 PTS OR 0.04% /The Nikkei CLOSED DOWN 533.47PTS OR 1.59% //Australia’s all ordinaries CLOSED DOWN 0.47 % /Chinese yuan (ONSHORE) closed DOWN AT 7.1407 /OFFSHORE CHINESE YUAN CLOSED DOWN TO 7.1497 /Oil DOWN TO 73.11 dollars per barrel for WTI and BRENT UP AT 78.89/ Stocks in Europe OPENED ALL MIXED// ONSHORE YUAN TRADING ABOVE LEVEL OF OFFSHORE YUAN/ONSHORE YUAN TRADING WEAKER AGAINST US DOLLAR/OFFSHORE WEAKER

A)NORTH KOREA/SOUTH KOREA

outline

b) REPORT ON JAPAN/
OUTLINE

3 CHINA
OUTLINE

4/EUROPEAN AFFAIRS
OUTLINE

5. RUSSIAN AND MIDDLE EASTERN AFFAIRS
OUTLINE

6.Global Issues//COVID ISSUES/VACCINE ISSUES
OUTLINE

7. OIL ISSUES
OUTLINE

8 EMERGING MARKET ISSUES
9. USA

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1. COMEX DATA//AMOUNTS STANDING//VOLUME OF TRADING/INVENTORY MOVEMENTS

GOLD

LET US BEGIN:

THE TOTAL COMEX GOLD OPEN INTEREST FELL BY A FAIR SIZED 2428 CONTRACTS TO 478,775 WITH OUR LOSS IN PRICE OF $3.60 WITH RESPECT TO WEDNESDAY TRADING. WE MUST HAVE HAD SOME LONG SPEC LIQUIDATIONS IN THE COMEX SESSION WITH SOME SPEC SHORT COVERINGS DURING TODAY’S FALL IN PRICE.

EXCHANGE FOR PHYSICAL ISSUANCE

WE ARE NOW IN THE ACTIVE DELIVERY MONTH OF DEC..… THE CME REPORTS THAT THE BANKERS ISSUED A FAIR SIZED TRANSFER THROUGH THE EFP ROUTE AS THESE LONGS RECEIVED A DELIVERABLE LONDON FORWARD TOGETHER WITH A FIAT BONUS.,

THAT IS 960 EFP CONTRACTS WERE ISSUED: : FEB 960 & ZERO FOR ALL OTHER MONTHS:

TOTAL EFP ISSUANCE: 960 CONTRACTS

ON A NET BASIS IN OPEN INTEREST WE GAINED THE FOLLOWING TODAY ON OUR TWO EXCHANGES: A FAIR SIZED TOTAL OF 1468 CONTRACTS IN THAT 960 LONGS WERE TRANSFERRED AS FORWARDS TO LONDON AND WE HAD A FAIR SIZED LOSS OF 2428 COMEX CONTRACTS..AND THIS FAIR LOSS ON OUR TWO EXCHANGES HAPPENED WITH OUR LOSS IN PRICE OF $3.60//WEDNESDAY COMEX. AS PER OUR NEWBIE TRADE AT SETTLEMENT (TAS) MANIPULATION OPERATION (WHICH CRAIG HEMKE HAS POINTED OUT HAPPENS DURING MID MONTH IN THE DELIVERY CYCLE), THE CME REPORTS THAT THE TOTAL T.A.S. ISSUANCE FOR WEDNESDAY NIGHT WAS A FAIR SIZED 2144 CONTRACTS. THROUGHOUT THE PAST SEVERAL WEEKS, THE BANKERS SOLD OFF THE LONG SIDE OF THE SPREAD WHICH OF COURSE CONTINUES TO MANIPULATE THE PRICE OF GOLD SOUTHBOUND. (THEY KEEP THE SHORT SIDE OF THE CALENDAR SPREAD WHICH WILL BE LIQUIDATED TWO MONTHS HENCE)//.

// WE HAVE A LIGHT AMOUNT OF GOLD TONNAGE STANDING: DEC (50.533 TONNES) ( ACTIVE MONTH)

HERE ARE THE AMOUNTS THAT STOOD FOR DELIVERY IN THE PRECEDING 12 MONTHS OF 2021-2022:

DEC 2021: 112.217 TONNES

NOV. 8.074 TONNES

OCT. 57.707 TONNES

SEPT: 11.9160 TONNES

AUGUST: 80.489 TONNES

JULY: 7.2814 TONNES

JUNE: 72.289 TONNES

MAY 5.77 TONNES

APRIL 95.331 TONNES

MARCH 30.205 TONNES

FEB ’21. 113.424 TONNES

JAN ’21: 6.500 TONNES.

TOTAL YEAR 2021 (JAN- DEC): 601.213 TONNES

YEAR 2022:

JANUARY 2022 17.79 TONNES

FEB 2022: 59.023 TONNES

MARCH: 36.678 TONNES

APRIL: 85.340 TONNES FINAL.

MAY: 20.11 TONNES FINAL

JUNE: 74.933 TONNES FINAL

JULY 29.987 TONNES FINAL

AUGUST:104.979 TONNES//FINAL

SEPT. 38.1158 TONNES

OCT: 77.390 TONNES/ FINAL

NOV 27.110 TONNES/FINAL

Dec. 64.000 tonnes

(TOTAL YEAR 656.076 TONNES)

2023:

JAN/2023: 20.559 tonnes

FEB 2023: 47.744 tonnes

MAR: 19.0637 TONNES

APRIL: 75.676 tonnes

MAY: 19.094 TONNES + 1.244 tonnes of exchange for risk = 20.338

JUNE: 64.354 TONNES

JULY: 10.2861 TONNES

AUGUST: 38.855 TONNES(INCLUDING .6842 EXCHANGE FOR RISK)

SEPT: 15.281 TONNES FINAL

OCT. 35.869 TONNES + 1.665 EXCHANGE FOR RISK =37.0355 tonnes

NOV: 18.7122 TONNES + 16.2505 EX. FOR RISK = 34.9627 TONNES

DEC. 45.899 + 4.634 TONNES OF EXCHANGE FOR RISK = 50.533TONNES

THE SPECS/HFT WERE SUCCESSFUL IN LOWERING GOLD’S PRICE( IT LOST $3.60) //// BUT WERE UNSUCCESSFUL IN KNOCKING ANY SPECULATOR LONGS AS WE HAD A SMALL SIZED GAIN OF 1203 TOTAL CONTRACTS ON OUR TWO EXCHANGES. WE HAD A FAIR T.A.S. LIQUIDATION ON THE FRONT END OF TUESDAY’S TRADING . THE T.A.S. ISSUED ON WEDNESDAY NIGHT, WILL BE “PUT INTO THE BANK” TO BE USED AT A LATER DATE AT THE COLLUSIVE CHOOSING OF OUR BANKERS. WE ALSO EXPERIENCED CONSIDERABLE SPECULATOR SHORT COVERING

WE HAVE LOST A TOTAL OI OF 4.566 PAPER TONNES FROM OUR TWO EXCHANGES, ACCOMPANYING OUR INITIAL GOLD TONNAGE STANDING FOR DEC. (44.914 TONNES) ON FIRST DAY NOTICE, FOLLOWED BY TODAY’S 15,100 OZ QUEUE JUMP (FOR 0.4696 TONNES)//NEW TOTAL STANDING FALLS TO 45.899 + 4.634 TONNES EXCHANGE FOR RISK : NEW TOTAL 50.533 TONNES../ ALL OF THIS WAS ACCOMPLISHED WITH OUR LOSS IN PRICE TO THE TUNE OF $3.60

WE HAD -removed 265 CONTRACTS TO THE COMEX TRADES TO OPEN INTEREST (CROOKS)

NET LOSS ON THE TWO EXCHANGES 1468 CONTRACTS OR 146800 OZ OR 4.566 TONNES.

Estimated gold volume today:// 113,728 poor

final gold volumes/yesterday 130,244 poor

//speculators have left the gold arena

DEC 21

/ /// THE DEC. 2023 GOLD CONTRACT

Gold	Ounces
Withdrawals from Dealers* Inventory in oz*	nil
Withdrawals from Customer* Inventory in oz*	19,049.918 OZ ASAHAI HSBC Manfra .
Deposit to the Dealer* Inventory in oz*	nil
Deposits to the Customer* Inventory, in oz*	nil oz
No of oz served (contracts) today	234 notice(s) 23,400 OZ 0.7278 TONNES
No of oz to be served (notices)	49 contracts 4900 oz 0.1524 TONNES
Total monthly oz gold served (contracts) so far this month	14,706 notices 1,470,600 oz 45.7418 TONNES
Total accumulative withdrawals of gold from the Dealers* inventory this month*	NIL oz
Total accumulative withdrawal of gold from the Customer* inventory this month*	x

0 dealer deposit:

total dealer deposits: nil oz

customer deposits: 0

we had 3

3) customer withdrawals

I) out of Ashai: 501.69 oz

ii) out of HSBC: 18,451.775 oz

iii) Out of Manfra: 96.564 3 kilobars)

total withdrawals 19,049.918 oz

Adjustments; 2

1.dealer to customer/

a) HSBC 25.905 oz

b) JPMorgan: 96.453 oz (3 kilobars)

CALCULATIONS FOR THE AMOUNT OF GOLD STANDING FOR DEC.

For the front month of DECEMBER we have an oi of 283 contracts having LOST 291 contracts. We had 442

contracts served upon WEDNESDAY, so we GAINED or an additional 151 CONTRACTS OR 15100 OZ (0.4696 tonnes) will stand for delivery at the comex

JAN. LOST 78 contracts FALLING TO 3070 contracts.

FEB LOST 2993 CONTRACTS FALLING TO 366,918

We had 234 contracts filed for today representing 23,400 oz

Today, 0 notice(s) were issued from J.P.Morgan dealer account and 0 notices were issued from their client or customer account. The total of all issuance by all participants equate to 234 contract(s) of which 0 notices were stopped (received) by j.P. Morgan dealer and 0 notice(s) was (were) stopped ( received) by J.P.Morgan//customer account and 0 notice(s) received (stopped) by the squid (Goldman Sachs)

To calculate the INITIAL total number of gold ounces standing for the DEC. /2023. contract month, we take the total number of notices filed so far for the month (14,706x 100 oz ), to which we add the difference between the open interest for the front month of DEC. (283 CONTRACTS) minus the number of notices served upon today 234 x 100 oz per contract equals 1,475,500 OZ OR 45.899 TONNES + 4.634 TONNES EX. FOR RISK ISSUED/PRIOR/ (FOR DELIVERY HERE) = 50.058 TONNES.

thus the INITIAL standings for gold for the DEC. contract month: No of notices filed so far (14,706) x 100 oz + (283) {OI for the front month} minus the number of notices served upon today (234) x 100 oz) which equals 1,460,400 oz standing OR 45.424 TONNES + 4.634 tonnes of ex. for risk = 50.533 TONNES

TOTAL COMEX GOLD STANDING FOR DEC: 50.533 TONNES WHICH IS LIGHT FOR THE BIGGEST ACTIVE DELIVERY MONTH IN THE CALENDAR. THEY PROBABLY KNOW THAT NO REAL GOLD IS PRESENT AT THE COMEX.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

COMEX GOLD INVENTORIES/CLASSIFICATION

NEW PLEDGED GOLD:

241,794.285 oz NOW PLEDGED /HSBC 5.94 TONNES

204,937.290 PLEDGED MANFRA 3.08 TONNES

83,657.582 PLEDGED JPMorgan no 1 1.690 tonnes

265,999.054, oz JPM No 2

1,152,376.639 oz pledged Brinks/

Manfra: 33,758.550 oz

Delaware: 193.721 oz

International Delaware:: 11,188.542 oz

total pledged gold: 1,559,349.955 OZ 48.50 tonnes

TOTAL OF ALL GOLD ELIGIBLE AND REGISTERED GOLD: 20,046,555.173 OZ

TOTAL REGISTERED GOLD 10,259,054.909 (319.09 tonnes).

TOTAL OF ALL ELIGIBLE GOLD: 9,787,500.264 OZ

REGISTERED GOLD THAT CAN BE SERVED UPON: 8,699795 oz (REG GOLD- PLEDGED GOLD) 270,59 tonnes

END

SILVER/COMEX

DEC 21

//2023// THE DEC 2023 SILVER CONTRACT

Silver	Ounces
Withdrawals from Dealers* Inventory*	NIL oz
Withdrawals from Customer Inventory	1,206,647.961 oz oz Delaware Asahi .
Deposits to the Dealer* Inventory*	nil OZ ASAHI
Deposits to the Customer Inventory	600,158.610oz Brinks
No of oz served today (contracts)	198 CONTRACT(S) (999,000 OZ)
No of oz to be served (notices)	630 contracts (3,150,000 oz)
Total monthly oz silver served (contracts)	3407 Contracts (17,035,000 oz)
Total accumulative withdrawal of silver from the Dealers* inventory this month*	NIL oz
Total accumulative withdrawal of silver from the Customer* inventory this month*

i) 0 dealer deposit

total dealer deposit: nil oz

i) We had 0 dealer withdrawal

total dealer withdrawals: 0 oz

We had 1 deposits customer account:

i)Into Brinks 600,158.610 oz

total customer deposits: 600,158.610 oz

JPMorgan has a total silver weight: 133.1390 million oz/274.022 million or 48.54%

Comex withdrawals 2

i) Out of Delaware: 5846.181 oz

ii) Out of Asahi: 1,200,801.780 oz

total withdrawals 1,206,647.961 oz

Adjustments; 0

TOTAL REGISTERED SILVER: 46.719 MILLION OZ//.TOTAL REG + ELIGIBLE. 274.022 million oz

CALCULATIONS FOR THE NEW STANDING FOR SILVER FOR DECEMBER:

silver open interest data:

FRONT MONTH OF DEC /2023 OI: 828 CONTRACTS HAVING GAINED 298 CONTRACT(S).

WE HAD 128 CONTRACTS SERVED ON WEDNESDAY, SO WE GAINED 426 CONTRACTS OR 2,130,000 OZ UNDERWENT A MASSIVE

QUEUE JUMP TAKING DELIVERY OVER AT THE COMEX

JAN GAINED 62 CONTRACTS UP TO 1867 CONTRACTS

FEB GAINED 81 CONTRACTS TO STAND AT 453

MARCH GAINED 2083 CONTRACTS TO 107,663.

TOTAL NUMBER OF NOTICES FILED FOR TODAY: 198 for 990,000 oz

Comex volumes// est. volume today 44,816// poor

Comex volume: confirmed yesterday 51,124 poor

To calculate the number of silver ounces that will stand for delivery in DEC. we take the total number of notices filed for the month so far at 3407 x 5,000 oz = 17,035,000 oz

to which we add the difference between the open interest for the front month of DEC. (828) and the number of notices served upon today 198 x (5000 oz) equals the number of ounces standing.

Thus the standings for silver for the DEC/2023 contract month: 3407 (notices served so far) x 5000 oz + OI for the front month of DEC. (828) – number of notices served upon today (198 )x 500 oz of silver standing for the DEC contract month equates to 20.185 MILLION OZ. to which we add 0 million oz of exchange for risk today and then add prior exchange for risk of 6.5 million oz//

New total standing: 26.685 million oz.

There are 46.719 million oz of registered silver.

The record level of silver open interest is 234,787 contracts set on April 21./2017 with the price on that day at $18.42. The previous record was 224,540 contracts with the price at that time of $20.44

END

GLD AND SLV INVENTORY LEVELS//

BOTH GLD AND SLV ARE MASSIVE FRAUDS!

DEC 21/WITH GOLD UP $5.10 TODAY: HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD:A DEPOSIT .58 TONNES OF 2.02 TONNES OF GOLD INTO THE GLD//. // INVENTORY RESTS AT 878.25 TONNES

DEC 20/WITH GOLD DOWN $3.60 TODAY: HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD:A WITHDRAWAL OF 2.02 TONNES OF GOLD FROM THE GLD//. // INVENTORY RESTS AT 877.67 TONNES

DEC19/WITH GOLD UP $12.15 TODAY: NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD:. // INVENTORY RESTS AT 879.69 TONNES

DEC18/WITH GOLD UP $5.50 TODAY: HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD:. /A DEPOSIT OF 173 TONNES INTO THE GLD// INVENTORY RESTS AT 879.69 TONNES

DEC14/WITH GOLD UP $47.35 TODAY: HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD:. /A DEPOSIT OF 2.42 TONNES FROM THE GLD// INVENTORY RESTS AT 877.96 TONNES

DEC13/WITH GOLD UP $3.90 TODAY: HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD:. /A WITHDRAWAL OF 2.89 TONNES FROM THE GLD// INVENTORY RESTS AT 875,65 TONNES

DEC12/WITH GOLD DOWN $0.60 TODAY: HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD:. /A WITHDRAWAL OF 2.01 TONNES FROM THE GLD// INVENTORY RESTS AT 878.54 TONNES

DEC11/WITH GOLD DOWN $21.20 TODAY: NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD:. // / / // INVENTORY RESTS AT 880.55 TONNES

DEC 8/WITH GOLD DOWN $30,80 TODAY: SMALL CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD:. // / / // A WITHDRAWAL OF .28 TONNES OF GOLD FROM THE GLD/// INVENTORY RESTS AT 880.55 TONNES

DEC 7/WITH GOLD DOWN $.20 TODAY: NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD:. // / / // // INVENTORY RESTS AT 880.83 TONNES

DEC 6/WITH GOLD UP $11.70 TODAY:SMALL CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A WITHDRAWAL OF 0.29 TONNES OF GOLD FROM THE GLD. // / / // // INVENTORY RESTS AT 880.83 TONNES

DEC 5/WITH GOLD DOWN $5.85 TODAY:HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A DEPOSIT OF 2.30 TONNES OF GOLD FROM THE GLD. // / / // // INVENTORY RESTS AT 881.12 TONNES

DEC 4/WITH GOLD DOWN $43.15 TODAY:HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A DEPOSIT OF 2.31 TONNES OF GOLD FROM THE GLD. // / / // // INVENTORY RESTS AT 878.82 TONNES

DEC 1/WITH GOLD UP $32.05 TODAY:HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A WITHDRAWAL OF 2.02 TONNES OF GOLD FROM THE GLD. // / / // // INVENTORY RESTS AT 876.51 TONNES

NOV 30/WITH GOLD DOWN $8.70 TODAY:HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A WITHDRAWAL OF 2.02 TONNES OF GOLD FROM THE GLD. // / / // // INVENTORY RESTS AT 878.53 TONNES

NOV 29/WITH GOLD UP $7.20 TODAY:HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A WITHDRAWAL OF 1.73 TONNES OF GOLD FROM THE GLD. // / / // // INVENTORY RESTS AT 880.55 TONNES

NOV 28/WITH GOLD UP $26.45 TODAY:NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: // / / // // INVENTORY RESTS AT 882.28 TONNE

NOV 27/WITH GOLD UP $9,85 TODAY:NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: // / / // // INVENTORY RESTS AT 882.28 TONNES

NOV 24/WITH GOLD UP $11.20 TODAY:HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A WITHDRAWAL OF 1.15 TONNES OF GOLD FROM THE GLD// / / // // INVENTORY RESTS AT 882.28 TONNES

NOV 22/WITH GOLD DOWN $8.45 TODAY:NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD / / // // INVENTORY RESTS AT 883.43 TONNES

NOV 21/WITH GOLD UP $21.65 TODAY:NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD / / // // INVENTORY RESTS AT 883.43 TONNES

NOV 20/WITH GOLD DOWN $4.15 TODAY:HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD A MAMMOTH DEPOSIT OF 12.98 TONNES INTO THE GLD:/ / // // INVENTORY RESTS AT 883.43 TONNES

GLD INVENTORY: 878.25 TONNES

Now the SLV Inventory/( vehicle is a fraud as there is no physical metal behind them

DEC 21/WITH SILVER DOWN 2 CENTS TODAY:NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV/: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//////INVENTORY RESTS AT 443.393 MILLION OZ

DEC 20/WITH SILVER UP 28 CENTS TODAY:NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV/: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//////INVENTORY RESTS AT 443.393 MILLION OZ

DEC 19/WITH SILVER UP 27 CENTS TODAY:BIG CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV/: A MASSIVE DEPOSIT OF 2.747 MILLION OZ INTO THE SLV////INVENTORY RESTS AT 443.393 MILLION OZ

DEC 18/WITH SILVER DOWN 9 CENTS TODAY:BIG CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV/: A WITHDRAWAL OF 0.794 MILLION OZ FROM THE SLV////INVENTORY RESTS AT 440.646 MILLION OZ

DEC 14/WITH SILVER DOWN 8 CENTS TODAY:BIG CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV/: A MASSIVE WITHDRAWAL OF 3.00000 MILLION OZ FROM THE SLV////INVENTORY RESTS AT 441.470 MILLION OZ

DEC 13/WITH SILVER DOWN 8 CENTS TODAY:BIG CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV/: A DEPOSIT OF 10.326 MILLION OZ FROM THE SLV////INVENTORY RESTS AT 444.470 MILLION OZ

DEC 12/WITH SILVER DOWN 5 CENTS TODAY:BIG CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV/: A WITHDRAWAL OF 594,000 OZ FROM THE SLV////INVENTORY RESTS AT 434.144 MILLION OZ

DEC 11/WITH SILVER DOWN 19 CENTS TODAY:NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV/: A ////INVENTORY RESTS AT 434.735 MILLION OZ

DEC 8/WITH SILVER DOWN 80 CENTS TODAY:NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV/: A DEPOSIT OF 1.648 MILLION OZ INTO THE SLV////INVENTORY RESTS AT 434.735 MILLION OZ

DEC 7/WITH SILVER DOWN 15 CENTS TODAY:NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV/: // //://// //INVENTORY RESTS AT 433.090 MILLION OZ

DEC 6/WITH SILVER DOWN 25 CENTS TODAY:NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV/: // //://// //INVENTORY RESTS AT 433.090 MILLION OZ

DEC 5/WITH SILVER DOWN 34 CENTS TODAY:SMALL CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV/: A WITHDRAWAL OF 0.305 MILLION OZ FROM THE SLV// //://// //INVENTORY RESTS AT 433.090 MILLION OZ

DEC 4/WITH SILVER DOWN 90 CENTS TODAY:HUGE CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV/: A WITHDRAWAL OF 0.7333 MILLION OZ FROM THE SLV// //://// //INVENTORY RESTS AT 433.395 MILLION OZ

DEC 1/WITH SILVER UP 15 CENTS TODAY:HUGE CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV/: A WITHDRAWAL OF 1.923 MILLION OZ FROM THE SLV// //://// //INVENTORY RESTS AT 434.128 MILLION OZ

NOV 30/WITH SILVER UP 20 CENTS TODAY:NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV/ //://// //INVENTORY RESTS AT 436.051 MILLION OZ

NOV 29/WITH SILVER UP 15 CENTS TODAY:HUGE CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV” A MASSIVE WITHDRAWAL OF 4.122 MILLION OZ FROM THE SLV// //://// //INVENTORY RESTS AT 436.051 MILLION OZ

NOV 28/WITH SILVER UP 64 CENTS TODAY:NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV //://// //INVENTORY RESTS AT 440.173 MILLION OZ

NOV 27/WITH SILVER UP 32 CENTS TODAY:HUGE CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV //:////A WITHDRAWAL OF 1,008,000 OZ FROM THE SLV. //INVENTORY RESTS AT 440.173 MILLION OZ

NOV 24/WITH SILVER UP 70 CENTS TODAY:HUGE CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV //:////A WITHDRAWAL OF 549,000 OZ FROM THE SLV. //INVENTORY RESTS AT 441.181 MILLION OZ

NOV 22/WITH SILVER DOWN 21 CENTS TODAY:NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV //://// //INVENTORY RESTS AT 441.730 MILLION OZ

NOV 21/WITH SILVER UP 32 CENTS TODAY:HUGE CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV A DEPOSIT OF 2.794 OZ FROM THE SLV//://// //INVENTORY RESTS AT 441.730 MILLION OZ

NOV 20/WITH SILVER DOWN 26 CENTS TODAY:HUGE CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV A WITHDRAWAL OF 1,824,000 OZ FROM THE SLV//://// //INVENTORY RESTS AT 438.936 MILLION OZ

CLOSING INVENTORY 443.393 MILLION OZ//

PHYSICAL GOLD/SILVER COMMENTARIES

1:Peter Schiff/Mike Maharrey

END

2,c) Commentaries from: Egon von Greyerz///Matthew Piepenburg via GoldSwitzerland.com, Pam and Russ Martens, John Rubino

END

3. CHRIS POWELL//GATA GOLD COMMENTARIES:

END

4. OTHER GOLD/SILVER //COMMENTARIES//PODCASTS…

Gold Price Tops $2040 as Poland’s Politics Turn on World No.2 Gold-Buying Central Bank

Thursday, 12/21/2023 16:14

The GOLD PRICE rose Thursday, briefly topping the $2040 mark as global stock markets fell with longer-term interest rates and the new Prime Minister of Poland – the world’s No.2 official-sector gold buyer in 2023 – was rebuked by its President for seeking to replace the country’s central bank chief.Second only to China’s central bank in reporting heavy gold purchases this year, the People’s Bank of Poland (NBP) is on course to have added more than 130 tonnes to its bullion reserves across 2023, raising its total holdings around 50% by weight.Rising towards 360 tonnes in total, Poland’s central-bank gold holdings have almost tripled since current governor Adam Glapinski – an ally of the right-wing Law and Justice Party (PiS), which lost power in October’s parliamentary elections to a centrist coalition headed by former Prime Minister and ex- president of the European Council Donald Tusk – took office in mid-2016.Chart of gold reserves held by this year’s top 3 buyers. Source: World Gold Council”I do not agree with all those who criticise the Monetary Policy Council and the governor of the National Bank of Poland,” said Poland’s President Andrzej Duda in a radio interview on Thursday, also rebuking Tusk for shutting down state-owned media which the new Prime Minister claims became too politicized under the PIS.Tusk this week dismissed Poland’s representative to the World Bank, PiS-appointee Jacek Kurski – a move condemned as unlawful by the NBP in a press release – and repeated his plan to remove Glapinski as central bank governor but rowed back from wanting to prosecute him for “unlawful” quantitative easing during the Covid pandemic and for cutting interest rates ahead amid a controversy over the true pace of inflation ahead of the 2023 election.”While Glapinski should be at the vanguard of those who protect the political neutrality of the NBP,” said Tusk yesterday, “we note that he has failed this test.”The neighboring Eurozone’s chief central banker Christine Lagarde earlier this month wrote to Glapinski agreeing that EU member-state policymakers can expect to be protected against political interference affecting their independence.”All the measures we will take,” countered Tusk, “including concerning Glapinski, are aimed at rebuilding the full political independence of the central bank.”Gold priced in the Zloty edged higher on Thursday, but held almost 15% below the record set in early 2022, when the gold price spiked on Russia’s all-out invasion of Poland’s neighbor Ukraine.Euro gold prices meantime traded in the middle of this week’s €15 per ounce range at €1857, while the UK gold price in Pounds per ounce rose close to 2-week highs above L1612 after weaker-than-expected inflation saw betting jump that the Bank of England will start to cut Sterling interest rates sooner than later.With central banks as a group, led by China, more than offsetting a slowdown in private-sector gold investment this year on estimates from consultancy Metals Focus for the mining industry’s World Gold Council, Poland’s purchases have accounted for more than 1/10th of the estimated 1,100- tonne addition to official-sector holdings.” Gold reserves matter to perceptions of the state and its economic strength,” said Glapinski back in 2021 after announcing his plans for the NBP to begin a steady program of gold bullion purchases.That October he was recognized as “the captain of the flagship of Polish economic life” by finance magazine Gazeta Bankowa, awarding him a ‘Polski Kompas’ statuette for taking “uncompromising, considered and effective decisions during the Covid crisis” and for the policy of buying gold, “whose holdings continue to grow in the NBP’s vault.

end

5 a. IMPORTANT COMMENTARIES ON COMMODITIES /

END

5 B GLOBAL COMMODITY ISSUES/FOOD IN GENERAL//FREIGHT

END

6.CRYPTOCURRENCY//DIGITAL CURRENCY// COMMENTARIES/

end

1.YOUR EARLY CURRENCY VALUES/GOLD AND SILVER PRICING/ASIAN AND EUROPEAN BOURSE MOVEMENTS/AND INTEREST RATE SETTINGS THURSDAY MORNING.7:30 AM

ONSHORE YUAN: CLOSED DOWN AT 7.1407

OFFSHORE YUAN: DOWN TO 7.1497

SHANGHAI CLOSED UP 16.66 PTS OR 0.59%

HANG SENG CLOSED UP 7.32 PTS OR 0.04%

2. Nikkei closed DOWN 535.47 PTS OR 0.59%

3. Europe stocks SO FAR: ALL RED

USA dollar INDEX DOWN TO 101.70 EURO RISES TO 1.0981 UP 38 BASIS PTS

3b Japan 10 YR bond yield:RISES TO. +.595 Japan buying 100% of bond issuance)/Japanese YEN vs USA cross now at 142.73/JAPANESE YEN NOW RISING AS WELL AS LONG TERM 10 YR. YIELDS RISING //EVENTUALLY THIS WILL BREAK THE JAPANESE CENTRAL BANK

3c Nikkei now ABOVE 17,000

3d USA/Yen rate now well ABOVE the important 120 barrier this morning

3e Gold UP /JAPANESE Yen UP CHINESE ONSHORE YUAN: DOWN// OFFSHORE: DOWN

3f Japan is to buy INFINITE TRILLION YEN worth of BONDS. Japan’s GDP equals 5 trillion USA

Japan to buy 100% of all new Japanese debt and NOW they will have OVER 50% of all Japanese debt.

3g Oil DOWN for WTI and DOWN FOR Brent this morning

3h European bond buying continues to push yields lower on all fronts in the EMU. German 10yr bund UP TO +1.9665***/Italian 10 Yr bond yield DOWN to 3.585** /SPAIN 10 YR BOND YIELD DOWN TO 2.899…**

3i Greek 10 year bond yield UP TO 3.052

3j Gold at $2039.90 silver at: 24.25 1 am est) SILVER NEXT RESISTANCE LEVEL AT $30.00

3k USA vs Russian rouble;// Russian rouble DOWN 1 AND 12 /100 roubles/dollar; ROUBLE AT 92.08//

3m oil into the 73 dollar handle for WTI and 78 handle for Brent/

3n Higher foreign deposits moving out of China// huge risk of outflows and a currency depreciation. This can spell financial disaster for the rest of the world/

JAPAN ON JAN 29.2016 CONTINUES NIRP. THIS MORNING RAISES AMOUNT OF BONDS THAT THEY WILL PURCHASE UP TO .5% ON THE 10 YR BOND///YEN TRADES TO 142,73// 10 YEAR YIELD AFTER FIRST BREAKING .54% LAST YEAR NOW EXCEEDS THAT LEVEL TO 0.595% STILL ON CENTRAL BANK (JAPAN) INTERVENTION

30 SNB (Swiss National Bank) still intervening again in the markets driving down the FRANC. It is not working: USA/SF this 0.8588 as the Swiss Franc is still rising against most currencies. Euro vs SF: 0.9433 well above the floor set by the Swiss Finance Minister. Thomas Jordan, chief of the Swiss National Bank continues to purchase euros trying to lower value of the Swiss Franc.

USA 10 YR BOND YIELD: 3.862 DOWN 2 BASIS PTS…

USA 30 YR BOND YIELD: 3.995 DOWN 1 BASIS PTS/

USA 2 YR BOND YIELD: 4.356 DOWN 1 BASIS PTS

USA DOLLAR VS TURKISH LIRA: 29.15…(TURKEY SET TO BLOW UP FINANCIALLY)

GREAT BRITAIN/10 YEAR YIELD: DOWN 1 BASIS PTS AT 3.5605

end

2.a Overnight: Newsquawk and Zero hedge.

Futures Rebound From Worst Market Rout In Three Months

BY TYLER DURDEN

THURSDAY, DEC 21, 2023 – 08:19 AM

One of the ironic consequences of yesterday’s sharp, 0DTE-driven 1.5% selloff which was the biggest for the S&P since Sept 26 and which snapped a 9-day winning streak, is that with the market hitting the most overbought level in years earlier in the day, the liquidation reset the Relative Strength Indicator of the S&P back below 70, and thus no longer in overbought territory, which paradoxically has made a gradual year-end meltup even more likely once traders realize that nothing substantial has changed, the Fed has still pivoted dovish and that much of the technical overhang that prevented a move even higher may now be gone.

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And sure enough, this morning we find that US futures are already well in the green, rebounding from Wednesday’s dump as the spotlight returns to – what else – prospective interest rate cuts from the Federal Reserve and other central banks, even as the market ignores warnings from those very same central banks’ officials that risk has risen too far, too fast. While Europe’s Stoxx 600 index dropped, tracking the weak Thursday close on Wall Street, futures for the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq 100 climbed more than 0.5% as of 7:50am ET, poised to recover from a bout of selling that saw them notch their worst declines in weeks. At the same time, the dollar resumed its slide against other Group-of-10 currencies, while Treasury 10-year yields — down more than 40 basis points this month — held just off five-month lows. Oil had risen earlier in the session, only to slump to session low after Angola announced that it was leaving OPEC+. US econ data includes 3Q final GDP, jobless claims, the Dec Philly Fed business outlook (8:30am), November leading index (10am) and December Kansas City Fed manufacturing activity (11am).

In premarket trading, Boeing shares rose 1.8% as China is said to approve the first 787 jet delivery since April 2021. Cryptocurrency-exposed stocks rose as Bitcoin once again rebounded from yesterday’s dump and rose above $44,000. Among the bigger movers were Coinbase +2.2%, Riot Platforms +3.3%, Cipher Mining +6.8%, TeraWulf +8.2%, Bit Digital +6.3% and others. Here are some other notable premarket movers:

BlackBerry US-listed shares fall 3.7% after the security software company’s forecast for fourth-quarter revenue fell short of the average analyst estimate.
Micron shares rise 5.9% after the company forecasted adjusted revenue for the second quarter that topped the average analyst estimate. Analysts note that pricing is recovering across the chipmaker’s product suite.
Salesforce shares rise 2.2% after Morgan Stanley upgrades to overweight from equal-weight, saying that the stock continues to trade at a discount to its large cap software peers.

Turning back to yesterday’s rout and following up on our note from yesterday, prevailing consensus is that the stock tumble was the immediate result of ODTE, options, noting that hefty “put” volumes likely led option holders to dump the underlying equities.

But immediately the narrative turned to damage control, with many (i.e., the bulls) arguing that the broader picture of slowing inflation and rate-cut bets should allow markets to rally further, to wit: “If you look at tightening cycles through history, once the market buys into the belief that the Fed’s done, you do see a pretty sharp rally in bonds,” said Matt Stucky, portfolio manager at Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management. “Rallies from the relief the Fed is no longer a big headwind can last a while.”

Further to that point, Citi strategists told clients to buying pullbacks, adding investors should “expect volatility ahead, but with an eventual Fed pivot as a north star.”

Meanwhile, indicating that there is total messaging confusion over at the Fed, on Wednesday’s Philly Fed President Patrick Harker added to the rate-cut conviction Wednesday, saying it’s important that interest rates head lower, though he cautioned the central bank should not move too fast and not “right away.” In doing so, he refuted much of the attempts to walk back the dovish pivot from Fed speakers earlier in the week, and thereby only encouraged continued buying.

Looking ahead, traders will assess fresh economic data, including US GDP and jobless claims figures, due later Thursday, with the latter expected to have ticked up slightly from the previous week. Nike earnings should provide insights on the state of US consumers. Then Friday brings UK GDP data, US consumer sentiment and so-called core personal-consumption expenditures price index — the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge.

European stocks were lower, catching down to the Thursday US rout, with the Stoxx 600 losing 0.5%. Real estate, tech and personal goods sectors — all of which are underperforming, with basic resources the only industry managing to gain ground. Among individual stock movers, Vodafone Group Plc jumped more than 2% in London after Bloomberg reported Swisscom AG is weighing an offer for the firm’s Italian business. Here are some of the other most notable movers:

Commerzbank rises as much as 3.3% after the German bank intends to launch a €600m share buyback in early January after securing approval from the European Central Bank
Cementir rises as much as 4% and hits a three-month high after Stifel maintained its buy rating on the concrete and cement producer and raised its price target to €13.50 from €10
Aixtron shares increase up to 1.7% and is the best performing semiconductor-related stock in Europe after US memory chip firm Micron rose following a strong revenue forecast
Sydbank rises as much as 1.3% after the bank boosted its net income guidance for the full year; it now sees net income DKK3.20 billion to DKK3.35 billion vs. estimate of DKK3.19 billion
Norsk Hydro declines up to 4.4% after the aluminum company warned it will book impairments against several mining and refining assets because of weak alumina and bauxite markets
Philips shares drop as much as 2.7% after the Dutch medical device maker issued a voluntary recall notification for its Panorama 1.0T HFO magnetic resonance imaging system
Smart Metering Systems falls as much as 6.8% after shareholder PrimeStone and its founders said they intend to vote against the takeover offer tabled by KKR due to the price

Earlier in the session, Asian stocks snapped a two-day winning streak, following Wall Street lower, as Japanese benchmarks lost their momentum from a central bank decision-led rally. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index fell as much as 0.7%, heading for its lowest close in a week, as tech and consumer discretionary shares declined. Toyota Motor was among the biggest drags after its subsidiary’s offices were raided over a safety scandal and the automaker recalled 1 million cars in the US.

Hang Seng and Shanghai Comp started in the green with the former initially conforming to the broader risk tone before ebbing lower with Tech and Energy among its biggest losers. Mainland China was supported following a hefty PBoC liquidity operation via 7 and 14-day reverse repos.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 slipped at the open and underperformed throughout the session, and consumer-geared sectors were among the worst performers, whilst JPY dynamics did not help the index.
Australia’s ASX 200 saw the deepest losses in its Tech and Gold sectors, and the index briefly fell under 7,500.

The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index is down 0.2%. The Japanese yen is the best performer among the G-10 currencies, rising 0.4% versus the greenback.

In rates, Treasuries initially fell across the curve, with US 10-year yields rising 4bp to 3.88%, before recovering much of the loss and trading at 3.85% last in an extremely illiquid market. Bunds and gilts are little changed after paring earlier gains. In European rates, Italian bonds outperform, spurred by additional pricing of ECB easing and sending the 10-year yield to a 16-month low. US session focus includes weekly jobs data, GDP and $20 billion 5-year TIPS reopening at 1pm.

In commodities, oil prices are lower, with WTI falling 0.4% to trade near $73.90, after Angola announced it would withdraw from OPEC+ as many had already expected. Spot gold adds 0.1%.

Looking to the day ahead, data releases from the US include the final Q3 GDP, initial jobless claims, December Philadelphia Fed business outlook (8:30am), November leading index (10am) and December Kansas City Fed manufacturing activity (11am). Meanwhile from central banks, we’ll hear from the ECB’s Lane. Finally, today’s earnings releases include Nike.

Market Snapshot

S&P 500 futures up 0.6% to 4,777.00
MXAP down 0.4% to 164.47
MXAPJ down 0.2% to 513.84
Nikkei down 1.6% to 33,140.47
Topix down 1.0% to 2,325.98
Hang Seng Index little changed at 16,621.13
Shanghai Composite up 0.6% to 2,918.72
Sensex up 0.5% to 70,827.87
Australia S&P/ASX 200 down 0.4% to 7,504.12
Kospi down 0.5% to 2,600.02
STOXX Europe 600 down 0.3% to 476.45
German 10Y yield little changed at 1.96%
Euro little changed at $1.0943
Brent Futures up 0.3% to $79.90/bbl
Gold spot up 0.2% to $2,036.37
US Dollar Index little changed at 102.38

Top Overnight News

European stocks slipped, following losses in the US and Asia as traders dial back optimism over possible Federal Reserve interest-rate cuts and trim positions before the long Christmas weekend.
Citigroup Inc. has decided to exit the distressed-debt trading business, the latest retrenchment in Chief Executive Officer Jane Fraser’s effort to reshape the firm in pursuit of higher returns.
Europe’s biggest asset manager is shorting the pound on the conviction that the Bank of England will start cutting interest rates in the first half of 2024.
This year’s hottest derivatives trade, and perhaps also its most divisive, stole the limelight one final time for 2023 as market watchers cast zero-day options as the villains behind Wednesday’s rally-ending slump in US equities.
The frenzied adoration of South Korean retail traders for everything EV battery-related has sparked a meteoric rally of one cathode producer, making it the world’s best-performing stock this year.

A more detailed look at global markets courtesy of Newsquawk

APAC stocks traded mostly lower as the downbeat sentiment from Wall Street reverberated despite a lack of major catalysts to spark the global equity selloff, although Mainland Chinese markets eventually eked out gains. ASX 200 saw the deepest losses in its Tech and Gold sectors, and the index briefly fell under 7,500. Nikkei 225 slipped at the open and underperformed throughout the session, and consumer-geared sectors were among the worst performers, whilst JPY dynamics did not help the index. Hang Seng and Shanghai Comp started in the green with the former initially conforming to the broader risk tone before ebbing lower with Tech and Energy among its biggest losers. Mainland China was supported following a hefty PBoC liquidity operation via 7 and 14-day reverse repos.

Top Asian News

Japanese government raises FY23/24 GDP growth forecast to +1.6% (prev. +1.3%); raises FY24/25 forecast to 1.3% (prev. 1.2%), according to Reuters citing the Cabinet Office.
Japanese PM Kishida’s Cabinet set to approve draft budget for fiscal year starting April that will reduce spending for the first time in 12 years, according to Nikkei. Japan’s fiscal 2024 proposal calls for JPY 1tln in reserves for programs to ease the burden of inflation and promote wage hikes.
Japanese unions reportedly target over JPY 1,600/hr minimum wage by 2035, according to NHK.
Analysts cited by Chinese Securities Journal see room for moderate “downward movement in the follow-up LPR”.
PBoC injected CNY 195bln through 7-day reverse repos at 1.80% and CNY 226bln via 14-day reverse repos at 1.95%; both rates maintained.
South Korea to relax capital gains tax threshold for large shareholders, says capital gains tax for listed shares will hit those holding more than KRW 5bln starting 2024, according to the Finance Ministry.
Japanese FX Diplomat Kanda says if Japan is not attractive as an investment decision, it is natural for the JPY to weaken
China’s MOFCOM says the US is abusing export control measures
China’s large banks are to cut deposit rates on Friday, via Guangzhou Daily; China’s major commercial banks to cut time deposits on Friday, via Reuters citing sources; 1yr & 2yr expected to be cut by 10bp & 20bp respectively, 3yr & 5yr by 25bp
China’s Ministry of Finance says it is adjusting the import tax for some goods; adjusting import/export tariffs from January 1st. Products include ethylene and propylene. To cut export tariffs on high-purity aluminium.
China bans exports of some rare-earth processing technologies, via Bloomberg

European bourses, Eurostoxx50 (-0.5%), posts significant losses as the region reacts to the late doors Wall St. selloff. Marked underperformance in the AEX (-0.7%), hampered by heavyweight Philips (-2.1%). European sectors have a negative bias; Autos lag hampered by WSJ reports that the Biden administration is mulling raising tariffs on EVs. US Equity Futures are firmer, NQ (+0.7%), across the board attempting to reverse some of the hefty losses seen in yesterday’s session; Chip names extend gains post-Micron earnings; MU (+6.5%), NVDA (+1.3%), AMD (+1.0%)

Top European news

ECB’s de Guindos “Once we see inflation is clearly converging in a stable manner to our target of 2%, monetary policy might then start to ease. But it’s still too early for that to happen. The data have been favourable but still not enough for us to change our monetary policy. It’s therefore too early to talk about a cut in interest rates.”
JPMorgan says the risk of Turkey pivoting from orthodox monetary policy moves is not significant

DXY is in consolidation mode amid quieter trade; the index is contained between 102.25-45.
EUR meanders around the unchanged mark against the Dollar and marginally firmer against the Pound.
GBP holds a slight negative bias against the Dollar post-borrowing figures, though trade is secured between a tight range of 1.2651-1.2613.
The Yen is the G10 best performer vs. the Dollar as the gap continues to close on the pre-BoJ announcement level of 142.65.
PBoC set USD/CNY mid-point at 7.1012 vs exp. 7.1401 (prev. 7.0966)

Fixed Income

USTs are incrementally firmer but around 5 ticks shy of the WTD 112.31+ best, despite a poor 20yr auction.
Gilts are once again the standout outperformer in a continuation of Wednesday’s CPI-driven dovish move.
Bunds retain an underlying bid though with overall action contained as attention turns to ECB’s Lane.

Commodities

WTI and Brent display contained and rangebound action and well within yesterday’s parameters as newsflow remains light; market participants await developments in the Red Sea.
Note, crude benchmarks have most recently come under some modest pressure and have tilted incrementally into the red, despite a lack of fresh fundamental drivers.
Dutch TTF remains bid as Red Sea concerns continue and we await any update on Wednesday’s reporting of a corridor being formed.
Spot Gold is around unchanged on the session, in sympathy with a lacklustre Dollar and Base Metals trade with little direction.
Global crude steel output +3.3% Y/Y to 145.5mln tonnes, China +0.4% to 76.1mln tonnes, according to Worldsteel.

Geopolitics

The Biden administration is reportedly mulling raising tariffs on some Chinese goods, including EVs, WSJ sources said, in an attempt to bolster US clean energy against cheaper Chinese exports. Other targets for potential tariff-rate increases are Chinese solar products and EV battery packs, sources added.
US Senator Rubio calls on the Biden administration to sanction Chinese chip designer Brite Semiconductor following the Reuters report that Brite offers chip design services to at least six Chinese military suppliers and is part-owned by SMIC.
US Central Command says rocket fired at Al Assad Air Base in Iraq on Dec. 20, with no injuries or damage caused, according to Reuters.
North Korea’s Kim said the recent ICBM launch showed North Korea’s strategy not to hesitate even a nuclear attack when the enemy provokes it with nukes, according to KCNA.
Russian and Chinese militaries held strategic consultations in Beijing on Dec 20th, according to the Chinese Defence Ministry. The two sides had an in-depth exchange of views on the international and regional security situation and relations between the two militaries.
Chinese Finance Ministry said China will suspend some tariff cuts on imports from Taiwan from Jan 1st 2024, according to Reuters.
India’s Basmati rice exports could be impacted if challenges around the Red Sea persist, via Reuters citing sources

US Event Calendar

08:30: 3Q GDP Annualized QoQ, est. 5.2%, prior 5.2%
- 3Q Personal Consumption, est. 3.6%, prior 3.6%
- 3Q GDP Price Index, est. 3.6%, prior 3.6%
- 3Q Core PCE Price Index QoQ, est. 2.3%, prior 2.3%
08:30: Dec. Initial Jobless Claims, est. 215,000, prior 202,000
- Dec. Continuing Claims, est. 1.88m, prior 1.88m
08:30: Dec. Philadelphia Fed Business Outl, est. -3.0, prior -5.9
10:00: Nov. Leading Index, est. -0.5%, prior -0.8%
11:00: Dec. Kansas City Fed Manf. Activity, est. -4, prior -2

DB’s Henry Allen concludes the overnight wrap

I’m going on my Christmas leave tomorrow, so this will be the last edition of the EMR in 2023. Many thanks for all your support and interactions over the last 12 months, and wishing you and your families a very merry Christmas and a happy new year. We’ll be back again in 2024.

After an astonishing melt-up over recent weeks, markets suddenly shifted gear late in the US session yesterday, with the S&P 500 (-1.47%) posting its biggest daily decline since September. Indeed, just 19 companies in the entire index were higher on the day, which is the lowest number since March at the height of the banking turmoil, so this was an incredibly broad-based decline. The turnaround happened around 90 minutes before the US close, and although there wasn’t an obvious catalyst that was responsible, we had just seen the fastest advance for the S&P 500 in over 3 years, so maintaining that momentum was always likely to prove difficult.

The losses came as part of a broader risk-off move, and yesterday’s selloff saw investors grow even more confident about the chances of rate cuts from the Fed in 2024. In fact, futures are now pricing a 92% chance of a cut by March, along with 152bps of cuts in total by the December 2024 meeting. That’s equivalent to more than six 25bp rate cuts next year, which is normally the sort of pace of you see around a recession, and is a more aggressive pace than the dot plot last week, which only signalled three cuts. So there’s a clear divergence between the Fed’s own signals and market pricing, which has remained even as several officials have actively pushed back on the reaction since the FOMC last week.

With growing expectations of rate cuts, the 10yr Treasury yield fell another -8.4bps yesterday to 3.85%, which is its lowest level since July. And the more policy-rate-sensitive 2yr yield was down -10.8bps to 4.33%, its lowest since May. But the bond rally had already been clear earlier in the session thanks to some fresh downside surprises on inflation yesterday. In particular, the UK CPI print showed headline CPI falling to +3.9% in November (vs. +4.3% expected), which was beneath every economist’s estimate on Bloomberg. Core CPI also fell back to +5.1% (vs. +5.6% expected), so the details also looked very positive as well. In turn, that led investors to ramp up the chance of rate cuts from the Bank of England next year and led to a strong outperformance for UK gilts. For instance, the 10yr gilt yield ended the day -12.5bps lower at 3.52%, which is its lowest level since early April. And at the front end, the 2yr gilt yield fell -17.3bps to 4.06%, which is its lowest since May.

That narrative of falling inflation then got further support from the German PPI release, which showed that PPI was at -7.9% year-on-year in November (vs. -7.5% expected). That helped 10yr bund yields (-4.6bps) to close beneath 2% for the first time since December 2022, and those moves were echoed elsewhere, with yields on 10yr OATs (-4.6bps) at their lowest since January, and yields on 10yr BTPs (-4.0bps) at their lowest since December 2022 as well.

Before the late selloff, we had actually had another round of positive US data yesterday. That included the Conference Board’s consumer confidence measure, which was back up to a 5-month high of 110.7 (vs. 104.5 expected), whilst the monthly improvement was actually the strongest since March 2021. The details were also positive, with the present situation and the expectations components both moving higher, and there was more optimism about the labour market too. For example, the share saying jobs were plentiful moved up to a 5-month high of 40.7%, and the share saying they were hard to get fell back to 13.2%. There were also more positive signs from the US housing market, with existing home sales inching up from their 13-year low to an annualised rate of 3.82m (vs. 3.78m expected) in November.

Nevertheless, the S&P 500 (-1.47%) still lost substantial ground yesterday, meaning the index closed -2.05% beneath its all-time high from January 2022. Within the S&P 500, FedEx was a major underperformer (-12.05%) after disappointing results the previous evening, which showed declines in air freight and cargo volumes in the quarter ending November 30. Otherwise, small-cap stocks underperformed, with the Russell 2000 down -1.89%. However, earlier in the day in Europe, the STOXX 600 (+0.19%) closed at a 23-month high before the US selloff, and the FTSE 100 (+1.02%) was one of the biggest outperformers after the UK inflation release.

Overnight in Asia, equities have put in a more divergent performance. On the one hand, the Nikkei (-1.62%) and the KOSPI (-0.79%) have both lost ground, but there have been gains for the CSI 300 (+0.82%), the Shanghai Comp (+0.42%), and the Hang Seng (+0.11%). Looking forward, there’s also been a recovery in futures on the S&P 500, which are up +0.34% currently. And there’s been a slight bounceback in the 10yr Treasury yield as well, which is up +1.8bps this morning to 3.87%.

To the day ahead now, and data releases from the US include the weekly initial jobless claims, the third estimate of Q3 GDP, and the Conference Board’s leading index for November. Meanwhile from central banks, we’ll hear from the ECB’s Lane. Finally, today’s earnings releases include Nike.

2 B) NOW NEWSQUAWK (EUROPE/REPORT)

European bourses weaker, US Futures firmer, DXY flat & JPY bid; US IJC due – Newsquawk US Market Open

THURSDAY, DEC 21, 2023 – 06:03 AM

European bourses are weaker whilst US Futures are firmer, attempting to pare back the prior day’s losses
Dollar is lacklustre in holiday-thinned trade, Yen outperforms
Fixed benchmarks are incrementally firmer with outperformance in Gilts continuing Wednesday’s CPI-driven dovish move
Crude futures are tilting lower though within recent ranges; Spot gold remains unchanged amid similar USD action
Looking ahead, US GDP Final, PCE, Philly Fed Business Index, IJC, Canadian Retail Sales, Japanese CPI, CBRT Policy Announcement, ECB 5-yearly Capital Key Adjustment, ECB’s Lane, Supply from the US.

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EUROPEAN TRADE

EQUITIES

European bourses, Eurostoxx50 (-0.5%), posts significant losses as the region reacts to the late doors Wall St. selloff.
Marked underperformance in the AEX (-0.7%), hampered by heavyweight Philips (-2.1%).
European sectors have a negative bias; Autos lag hampered by WSJ reports that the Biden administration is mulling raising tariffs on EVs.
US Equity Futures are firmer, NQ (+0.7%), across the board attempting to reverse some of the hefty losses seen in yesterday’s session; Chip names extend gains post-Micron earnings; MU (+6.5%), NVDA (+1.3%), AMD (+1.0%)
Click here and here for the sessions European pre-market equity newsflow, including earnings.
Click here for more details.

FX

DXY is in consolidation mode amid quieter trade; the index is contained between 102.25-45.
EUR meanders around the unchanged mark against the Dollar and marginally firmer against the Pound.
GBP holds a slight negative bias against the Dollar post-borrowing figures, though trade is secured between a tight range of 1.2651-1.2613.
The Yen is the G10 best performer vs. the Dollar as the gap continues to close on the pre-BoJ announcement level of 142.65.
PBoC set USD/CNY mid-point at 7.1012 vs exp. 7.1401 (prev. 7.0966)
Click here for more details.
Click here for the Option Expires for the NY Cut.

FIXED INCOME

USTs are incrementally firmer but around 5 ticks shy of the WTD 112.31+ best, despite a poor 20yr auction.
Gilts are once again the standout outperformer in a continuation of Wednesday’s CPI-driven dovish move.
Bunds retain an underlying bid though with overall action contained as attention turns to ECB’s Lane.
Click here for more details.

COMMODITIES

WTI and Brent display contained and rangebound action and well within yesterday’s parameters as newsflow remains light; market participants await developments in the Red Sea.
Note, crude benchmarks have most recently come under some modest pressure and have tilted incrementally into the red, despite a lack of fresh fundamental drivers.
Dutch TTF remains bid as Red Sea concerns continue and we await any update on Wednesday’s reporting of a corridor being formed.
Spot Gold is around unchanged on the session, in sympathy with a lacklustre Dollar and Base Metals trade with little direction.
Global crude steel output +3.3% Y/Y to 145.5mln tonnes, China +0.4% to 76.1mln tonnes, according to Worldsteel.
Click here for more details.

NOTABLE EUROPEAN HEADLINES

ECB’s de Guindos “Once we see inflation is clearly converging in a stable manner to our target of 2%, monetary policy might then start to ease. But it’s still too early for that to happen. The data have been favourable but still not enough for us to change our monetary policy. It’s therefore too early to talk about a cut in interest rates.”
JPMorgan says the risk of Turkey pivoting from orthodox monetary policy moves is not significant

DATA RECAP

UK Lloyds Business Barometer (Dec) 35 (Prev. 42); Own Price Expectations: 59 (Prev. 61)
UK PSNCR, GBP (Nov) 12.453B GB (Prev. 13.329B GB, Rev. 11.808B GB); GBP 13.409B GB (Prev. 13.972B GB, Rev. 15.103B GB)
UK PSNB Ex Banks GBP (Nov) 14.333B GB vs. Exp. 12.9B GB (Prev. 14.896B GB, Rev. 16.027B GB)
French Business Climate Manufacturing (Dec) 100.0 vs. Exp. 98.0 (Prev. 99.0)

NOTABLE US HEADLINES

Norwegian safety regulator says it has opened an inquiry into Tesla (TSLA) suspension issues; says a decision on whether to recommend recalling affected vehicles could be made by Christmas, via Reuters
UPS (UPS) EUR 1.74bln claim for EU compensation in blocked merger has been rejected
Micron Technology Inc (MU) Q1 2024 (USD): Adj. EPS -0.95 (exp. -0.97), Revenue 4.726bln (exp. 4.64bln). Q2 revenue view 5.1-5.5bln (exp. 5.03bln), EPS view -0.35 to -0.21 (exp. -0.62). Adj. FCF USD 1.4bln (exp. 1.25bln). Adj. op. expenses USD 992mln (exp. 952mln). Micron expects business fundamentals to improve throughout 2024 with record industry TAM projected for calendar year 2025. Shares rose 4.8% after market. Click here for commentary.
Click here for the US Early Morning Note.

GEOPOLITICS

The Biden administration is reportedly mulling raising tariffs on some Chinese goods, including EVs, WSJ sources said, in an attempt to bolster US clean energy against cheaper Chinese exports. Other targets for potential tariff-rate increases are Chinese solar products and EV battery packs, sources added.
US Senator Rubio calls on the Biden administration to sanction Chinese chip designer Brite Semiconductor following the Reuters report that Brite offers chip design services to at least six Chinese military suppliers and is part-owned by SMIC.
US Central Command says rocket fired at Al Assad Air Base in Iraq on Dec. 20, with no injuries or damage caused, according to Reuters.
North Korea’s Kim said the recent ICBM launch showed North Korea’s strategy not to hesitate even a nuclear attack when the enemy provokes it with nukes, according to KCNA.
Russian and Chinese militaries held strategic consultations in Beijing on Dec 20th, according to the Chinese Defence Ministry. The two sides had an in-depth exchange of views on the international and regional security situation and relations between the two militaries.
Chinese Finance Ministry said China will suspend some tariff cuts on imports from Taiwan from Jan 1st 2024, according to Reuters.
India’s Basmati rice exports could be impacted if challenges around the Red Sea persist, via Reuters citing sources

CRYPTO

Bitcoin holds above the USD 43k mark, whilst Ethereum (+2.2%) eclipses by USD 2.2k.

APAC TRADE

APAC stocks traded mostly lower as the downbeat sentiment from Wall Street reverberated despite a lack of major catalysts to spark the global equity selloff, although Mainland Chinese markets eventually eked out gains.
ASX 200 saw the deepest losses in its Tech and Gold sectors, and the index briefly fell under 7,500.
Nikkei 225 slipped at the open and underperformed throughout the session, and consumer-geared sectors were among the worst performers, whilst JPY dynamics did not help the index.
Hang Seng and Shanghai Comp started in the green with the former initially conforming to the broader risk tone before ebbing lower with Tech and Energy among its biggest losers. Mainland China was supported following a hefty PBoC liquidity operation via 7 and 14-day reverse repos.

NOTABLE HEADLINES

Japanese government raises FY23/24 GDP growth forecast to +1.6% (prev. +1.3%); raises FY24/25 forecast to 1.3% (prev. 1.2%), according to Reuters citing the Cabinet Office.
Japanese PM Kishida’s Cabinet set to approve draft budget for fiscal year starting April that will reduce spending for the first time in 12 years, according to Nikkei. Japan’s fiscal 2024 proposal calls for JPY 1tln in reserves for programs to ease the burden of inflation and promote wage hikes.
Japanese unions reportedly target over JPY 1,600/hr minimum wage by 2035, according to NHK.
Analysts cited by Chinese Securities Journal see room for moderate “downward movement in the follow-up LPR”.
PBoC injected CNY 195bln through 7-day reverse repos at 1.80% and CNY 226bln via 14-day reverse repos at 1.95%; both rates maintained.
South Korea to relax capital gains tax threshold for large shareholders, says capital gains tax for listed shares will hit those holding more than KRW 5bln starting 2024, according to the Finance Ministry.
Japanese FX Diplomat Kanda says if Japan is not attractive as an investment decision, it is natural for the JPY to weaken
China’s MOFCOM says the US is abusing export control measures
China’s large banks are to cut deposit rates on Friday, via Guangzhou Daily; China’s major commercial banks to cut time deposits on Friday, via Reuters citing sources; 1yr & 2yr expected to be cut by 10bp & 20bp respectively, 3yr & 5yr by 25bp
China’s Ministry of Finance says it is adjusting the import tax for some goods; adjusting import/export tariffs from January 1st. Products include ethylene and propylene. To cut export tariffs on high-purity aluminium.
China bans exports of some rare-earth processing technologies, via Bloomberg

DATA RECAP

South Korean PPI Growth YY (Nov) 0.6% (Prev. 0.8%)
South Korean PPI Growth MM (Nov) -0.4% (Prev. -0.1%)
South Korean Dec 1-20 exports +13.0% Y/Y; imports -9.2% Y/Y, according to the Customs Agency
Hong Kong Consumer Price Index (Nov) 2.6% vs. Exp. 2.7% (Prev. 2.7%)
Chinese FDI (YTD) (Nov) -10.0% (Prev. -9.4%)

2C ASIA AFFAIRS

THURSDAY MORNING/WEDNESDAY NIGHT

2 d./NORTH KOREA/ SOUTH KOREA/
//

NORTH KOREA/SOUTH KOREA

END

2e) JAPAN

3 CHINA

CHINA/TAIWAN/USA

Do not blame Graham one bit for blowing a gasket: Xi warns Biden on China’s plans to reunify Taiwan as the USA president remains silent

(zerohedge)

Uber-Hawk Graham Blows A Gasket At Report Xi Warned Biden He Plans To Reunify Taiwan With China

WEDNESDAY, DEC 20, 2023 – 04:40 PM

Never wanting to waste an opportunity to out-hawk everyone else, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham issued a blistering response to fresh reports that Chinese President Xi Jinping directly warned President Joe Biden during their recent summit in San Francisco that China will move to unify Taiwan with the mainland.

Graham expressed outrage and called for bipartisan efforts to work toward urgently beefing up Taiwan’s defenses and military capabilities. “This story as reported is beyond unnerving,” Graham stated on X Wednesday. “I will be working with Democratic and Republican Senators to do two things quickly. First, create a robust defense supplemental for Taiwan and second, draft pre-invasion sanctions from hell to impose on China if they take action to seize Taiwan.”

The senator from South Carolina then warned Beijing directly, saying: “To communist China, if you think you can bully your way into destroying world order without consequences, you will be making Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine look wise.”

Specifically he was responding to widely circulating NBC report published Tuesday which for the first time unveils new details surrounding Xi’s San Francisco trip in mid-November.

Multiple current and former officials said Xi very bluntly told Biden that Taiwan will be reunified and that the only undecided factor is the timing. “Xi told Biden in a group meeting attended by a dozen American and Chinese officials that China’s preference is to take Taiwan peacefully, not by force,” according to the sources.

And further unexpected was how specific Xi got in his words to Biden:

The Chinese leader also referenced public predictions by U.S. military leaders who say that Xi plans to take Taiwan in 2025 or 2027, telling Biden that they were wrong because he has not set a time frame, according to the two current and one former official briefed on the meeting.

Xi was likely more emboldened to convey a tough, direct message given the White House rejected earlier requests regarding a sought after statement on Taiwan.

The White House is said to have rejected the following request going into the summit:

Chinese officials also asked in advance of the summit that Biden make a public statement after the meeting saying that the United States supports China’s goal of peaceful unification with Taiwan and does not support Taiwanese independence, they said.

While Beijing’s longtime official policy has emphasized peaceful reunification of the self-ruled island, US officials said they were particularly alarmed by the timing of the message given China’s recent and ongoing behavior of stepped-up aggression aimed at Taiwan. Meanwhile… another nightmare scenario…

Stretching back to the Trump administration and through Biden, Washington has approved a series of record defense aid and weapons packages for Taiwan, which has even in recent months includes hundreds of millions of dollars worth approved.

Back in February of this year, Graham issued a similarly irate statement in response to China. He responded at the time to prior reports that China was mulling lethal aid for Russia for its war in Ukraine. “If you jump on the Putin train, you’re dumber than dirt,” he had said.

end

CHINA/USA

the policies of Biden, the Magnificent caused this from China and it will hurt. Beijing imposes export controls on rare earth processing. The war with China heats up.

(zerohedge)

Beijing Imposes Export Controls On Rare-Earth Processing Tech As Mineral War With US Heats Up

THURSDAY, DEC 21, 2023 – 07:45 AM

Following the meeting between President Joe Biden and President Xi Jinping at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation event in San Francisco last month, the hopes for de-escalation in Sino-US relations seem to have fallen apart after China announced export controls on rare-earths technologies.

China is the world’s top processor of rare earths and has placed an export ban on technology to extract and separate rare-earth metals, according to Bloomberg, citing a document from the Ministry of Commerce.

The move comes as Washington and its allies try to reduce reliance on China’s stranglehold of the global rare earths market. There are 17 rare earth metals, and Beijing controls about 85% of the global refining capacity. These metals are found in everything from electric vehicles to wind turbines to military hardware.

Infographic: China Dominates the Rare Earth Market | Statista

Beijing first hit the US with export bans for gallium and germanium in July due to its anger at the Biden administration’s broader semiconductor chip export ban. Tit for tat, eh?

In a separate report overnight, the Wall Street Journal cited sources that said the Biden administration is considering tariffs on certain Chinese products, such as electric vehicles, to strengthen the US’ clean-energy sector. This could be due to cheap Chinese clean energy products flooding the market, at a time when solar, wind, and hydrogen are in a bust cycle:

Beijing’s broadening of export restrictions underscores how the East and the West are weaponizing industrial raw materials and technologies against each other. The primary issue for the West is that it has a grand re-shoring of supply chain vision but is far from becoming a reality.

END

4.EUROPEAN AFFAIRS//UK /SCANDINAVIAN AFFAIRS

PRAGUE/CZECH REPUBLIC

Mass shooting at Prague University. Many killed as the flee the Charles Bridge

Mass Shooting At Prague University Leaves Several Dead & WoundedRDEN

THURSDAY, DEC 21, 2023 – 10:09 AM

Multiple fatalities are being reported in an active situation amid a mass shooting in Prague, Czech Republic. Bystanders have been observed fleeing the grounds of Charles University’s Faculty of Arts in Prague as a huge police response ensues.

One unverified report describes the developing scene as follows: “Prague According to media reports, the attacker used a long-barreled weapon with optics. There are reports of casualties and injuries. At the moment, the entire Jan Palach Square and the surrounding area are completely closed off.”

A police statement has confirmed that several are dead and wounded at the scene, and police soon after have announced that the Prague shooter has been “eliminated”.

The below bridge which people are fleeing across, the Charles Bridge (aka Karluv Most), is among the most popular central tourist attractions in Prague.

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The shooter with a rifle may have been on a roof of one of the university buildings, a newly emerged (but unverified) photo suggests.

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A scene inside a barricaded classroom at the university as police begin clearing and securing buildings:

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developing…

Several dead in shooting in Czech capital of Prague, attacker ‘eliminated’

“The shooter has been eliminated !!! The entire building is currently being evacuated and there are several dead and dozens of injured,” the police announced online.

By DANIELLE GREYMAN-KENNARD, REUTERSDECEMBER 21, 2023 16:48Updated: DECEMBER 21, 2023 17:22

Soccer Football - Europa Conference League - Final - Fiorentina v West Ham United - Prague, Czech Republic - June 7, 2023 Police officers are seen in the Old Town ahead of the match (photo credit: Bernadett Szabo/Reuters) — Soccer Football – Europa Conference League – Final – Fiorentina v West Ham United – Prague, Czech Republic – June 7, 2023 Police officers are seen in the Old Town ahead of the match(photo credit: Bernadett Szabo/Reuters)

Dozens were injured and several killed in a shooting attack at Charles University in the Czech capital of Prague, local police confirmed over X on Thursday afternoon, later confirming the shooter had been “eliminated.

“The shooter has been eliminated !!! The entire building is currently being evacuated and there are several dead and dozens of injured,” the police announced online.

The police confirmed that, based on initial information, there were injured and dead at the scene. The nature of the attack remains unknown.

Warnings to stay away

The surrounding area of Náměstí Jan Palach has been closed down and police are advising people to stay away.

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Czech media reported that the site of the incident was the Faculty of Philosophy at a local university.

Christmas market in Prague (credit: INGIMAGE)

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Czech Charles University told staff in an email to “stay put” and lock the doors following a report of a shooting at one of its buildings in Prague.

“Stay put, don’t go anywhere, if you’re in the offices, lock them and place furniture in front of the door, turn off the lights,” said an email to staff at the Philosophy Faculty of Charles University, seen by Reuters.

This is a developing story.

end

At Least 15 Killed At Prague University In Sniper-Style Rooftop Mass Shooting

THURSDAY, DEC 21, 2023 – 11:05 AM

Update(1105ET): Emerging news wire statements citing Prague emergency response services cite a much larger than expected death toll. Initially, vague police reports said several were dead and wounded, but there may have been at least 11 killed, including the gunman, and nine more seriously wounded. This means twenty or more people were struck by bullets, from a shooter who appeared to have taken up position sniper-style on a high rooftop:

SHOOTING IN PRAGUE LEFT 11 PEOPLE DEAD,CTK CITES RESCUE SERVICE

SHOOTING IN PRAGUE LEFT NINE PEOPLE SERIOUSLY WOUNDED, CTK SAYS

Police say the shooter has been killed, but likely there are still bystanders holed up in buildings:

An email sent to staff and students at the Faculty of Arts of Charles University, seen by Reuters, had said a shooter was in one of its buildings and had told staff to “stay put”.

“Don’t go anywhere, if you’re in the offices, lock them and place furniture in front of the door, turn off the lights,” the email said. One X user posted a photo of a group of students, hiding crouched on a ledge of the building.

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The below unconfirmed image appears to show the shooter with a high-powered rifle with optics taking out people in the university square below…

Currently, reports are circulating that the alleged shooter has been identified David Kozak – which also say he died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

* END

At Least 15 Killed, Including Shooter’s Father, In Prague University Massacre; Suspect “Eliminated”

RDEN

THURSDAY, DEC 21, 2023 – 12:45 PM

Update(1245ET): The tragedy is already being called one of the Czech Republic’s worst mass shootings in its history, as the police have revised to death toll to at least 15 killed, including the shooter – who committed suicide – and his own father.

“Where tourists, students and others would normally be enjoying the view of the iconic monument instead reflected chaos and terror on Thursday afternoon,” the Associated Press described of the chaotic scene. According to the latest from Axios:

The shooter, who was a student at the university, has been “eliminated,” per police. His father was found dead earlier on Thursday, the BBC reported.
“I would like to express my deep regret and sincere condolences to the families and relatives of the victims that the shooting claimed,” Petr Pavel, the president of the Czech Republic, said on X.

According to new statements from Interior Minister Vit Rakusan, “There is no indication that this crime has any link to international terrorism” – in reference to the 24-old shooter. Rakusan added:

“I want to assure the public that there is no immediate danger now,” he said after the gunfire at the university’s Philosophical Faculty ended.

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* * *

5 RUSSIA//UKRAINE AND MIDDLE EASTERN AFFAIRS

ISRAEL/HAMAS/

Hamas kills bid to revive ceasefire deal, hostage release -WSJ

Part of the Hamas leadership was in Cairo to discuss the, now axed, ceasefire deal.

By JERUSALEM POST STAFFDECEMBER 20, 2023 23:56Updated: DECEMBER 21, 2023 00:46

People display signs, chant, and sing as they await arrest during a protest in the US Capitol rotunda to call for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza and oppose a military aid package for Israel, in Washington, US December 19, 2023. (photo credit: REUTERS/Allison Bailey) — People display signs, chant, and sing as they await arrest during a protest in the US Capitol rotunda to call for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza and oppose a military aid package for Israel, in Washington, US December 19, 2023.(photo credit: REUTERS/Allison Bailey)

Hamas has allegedly rejected an Israeli offer for a one-week ceasefire in exchange for the release of hostages, saying they wouldn’t discuss releasing the hostages until a full ceasefire first goes into effect, Egyptian officials said, according to the Wall Street Journal report on December 20.

Ismail Haniyeh, the head of the political wing of the terrorist organization, met with intelligence officials in Cairo earlier today to discuss Israel’s offer but allegedly said that he was there to obtain a full ceasefire and more humanitarian aid.

Palestinian Islamic Jihad would have been included in talks for the first time, however, they demanded a ceasefire before any negotiations begin. They also demanded all Palestinian prisoners be released in exchange for 100 hostages.

“I will spare no effort on this, and the demand is to bring everyone,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.

The IDF’s advance into Khan Yunis has progressed with increased surrenders of Hamas fighters and the unveiling of more of the Hamas tunnel network.

Iran's Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian meets with Palestinian group Hamas' top leader, Ismail Haniyeh in Doha, Qatar December 20, 2023. (credit: Iran's Foreign Ministry/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS) — Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian meets with Palestinian group Hamas’ top leader, Ismail Haniyeh in Doha, Qatar December 20, 2023. (credit: Iran’s Foreign Ministry/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS)

Part of the Hamas leadership was in Cairo to discuss the now-axed ceasefire deal as well as incorporate the increase of aid into the Gaza Strip.

“Hamas’s stance remains: they don’t have a desire for humanitarian pauses. Hamas wants a complete end to the Israeli war on Gaza,” a Palestinian official said.Advertisement

Ceasefire delayed

A ceasefire vote at the UN was also pushed back due to disagreements over the language of the resolution, in particular the process by which aid would arrive in the Strip. Some parties pushing for exclusive UN monitoring while the US is pushing back.

Currently, Israel monitors the limited humanitarian aid coming via the Rafah crossing from Egypt and the Israel-controlled Kerem Shalom crossing.

Reuters contributed to this report.

END

IDF announces 3 more soldiers killed in Gaza battles, bringing ground op toll to 137

This composite photo shows Lt. Omri Shwartz (L), Sgt. Lavi Ghasi (C) and Lt. Yaacov Elian. (Israel Defense Forces)

The army announces three more troops were killed fighting Hamas in the northern Gaza Strip, bringing the death toll in Israel’s ground offensive against the terror group to 137.

The soldiers are named as:

Sgt. Lavi Ghasi, 19, from Hashmonaim, an infantryman in the Nahal Brigade’s 931st Battalion.

Lt. Yaacov Elian, 20, from Ramat Gan, a cadet in the Bahad 1 officers school’s Gefen Battalion who was previously was a Givati squad commander.

Lt. Omri Shwartz, 21, from Shadmot Dvora, a cadet in the Gefen Battalion who was previously a soldier in the Paratrooper Brigade’s Reconnaissance Battalion.

According to the IDF, an officer and two other Gefen cadets were seriously hurt in the incident in which Shwartz and Elian were killed.

The army also says another five soldiers were seriously hurt during battles in Gaza: Two from the Nahal Brigade’s 50th Battalion, one from the Oketz canine unit, an officer in the 460th Armored Brigade’s 532nd Battalion, and a reserve soldier in the Kiryati Brigade’s 9218th Battalion.

END

ISRAEL/HAMAS

Israel killed four senior Hamas brigade commanders, three left – IDF

By JERUSALEM POST STAFFDECEMBER 21, 2023 16:08

The IDF has successfully targeted four out of seven senior Hamas brigade commanders, the Israeli military’s Arabic spokesperson Avichay Adraee wrote Thursday on X.

“The IDF continued to dismantle Hamas’s Gaza brigades,” Adraee wrote. “Of the seven senior brigade commanders, four have so far been liquidated, leaving only three senior commanders within the chain of command.”

The three commanders included Ezz al-Din al-Haddad, a commander in Hamas’s al-Qassam Brigades, and two battalion commanders, Imad Aslim and Jabr Hasan Aziz.

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The IDF spokesperson further warned the Hamas terrorists that if the remaining leaders do not surrender to Israeli forces, “we will work to arrange another meeting that will bring them together soon.”

END

Hamas: Col. in charge of crossing, three others killed in Israeli strike near Rafah

By REUTERSDECEMBER 21, 2023 13:17

Hamas said on Thursday that Colonel Bassam Ghaben, the Hamas-appointed director of the Israeli-controlled Kerem Shalom commercial crossing, and three other Palestinians were killed in an Israeli strike near the gate of Rafah crossing.

There was no immediate Israeli response to a Reuters request for comment.

END

IDF destroys Hamas terror leaders’ Gaza City tunnel network

The demolition of the subterranean structure followed the revelation that the IDF had taken control of Hamas’s Gaza City “senior quarter,” the IDF noted.

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF, TOVAH LAZAROFFDECEMBER 21, 2023 20:19Updated: DECEMBER 21, 2023 20:27

https://player.jpost.com/public/player.html?player=jpost&media=3641928&url=https://www.jpost.com/israel-hamas-war/article-779067The IDF destroys Hamas operational tunnels in Palestine Square, December 21, 2023 (IDF SPOKESPERSON’S UNIT)

Soldiers for the Yahalom special operations unit of the IDF’s Combat Engineering Corps, along with troops from the 401st Brigade combat team, destroyed the secret underground web of tunnels seized on Wednesday by Israeli forces, the IDF said on Thursday.

The demolition of the subterranean structure followed the revelation that the IDF had taken control of Hamas’s Gaza City “senior quarter,” the IDF added. The network of tunnel branches reportedly contained apartments, offices, and living quarters of senior Hamas officials.

Tunnels beneath an urban center

The tunnels led to above-ground sites in the Shejaia neighborhood’s Palestine Square.

The Jerusalem Post reported on Wednesday that Hamas leaders Ismail Haniyeh, Yahya Sinwar, and Muhammad Deif had used this network to manage the organization’s operation and movement through the center of Gaza City, which has nicknamed the area “Commander’s Square.”

Colonel Beni Aharon noted that the tunnels were used to store equipment taken from civilians that could enable Hamas leadership to shelter there for an extended period of time.

The IDF destroys Hamas operational tunnels in Palestine Square, December 21, 2023 (credit: IDF SPOKESPERSON'S UNIT) — The IDF destroys Hamas operational tunnels in Palestine Square, December 21, 2023 (credit: IDF SPOKESPERSON’S UNIT)

Further, the location of the tunnels was apparently strategically constructed in an area between a high-class residential area that includes a college, a hotel, a school for the deaf, and a fancy bridal shop.

The demolition of the tunnel network was carried out in a controlled manner, the IDF reported.

Jared Kushner, Ivanka Trump tour Gaza border town, view IDF compilation of footage from October 7

Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner tour Kibbutz Kfar Aza on December 21, 2023. (Noam Moskowitz/Knesset)

Former senior advisers to former US president Donald Trump Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump arrived in Israel yesterday for a solidarity visit.

Earlier today, Trump’s daughter and son-in-law toured Kibbutz Kfar Aza, one of the dozens of towns massacred during Hamas’s October 7 onslaught.

The tour was led by Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana.

The IDF compilation of footage from the October 7 attacks was also screened for the couple.

END
Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner visit decimated Kibbutz in Israel’s South
The couple arrived in the Jewish State earlier that morning in a move to express solidarity with the country as it wages a war against Gaza-based Hamas.
By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
https://player.jpost.com/public/player.html?player=jpost&media=3641864&url=https://www.jpost.com/
Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump visit Kfar Aza, December 21, 2023. (Credit: Natan Weil | Knesset Spokesperson)
Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, the daughter and former senior advisor to former US president Donald Trump, arrived in Israel, the Knesset spokesperson announced on Thursday.
The couple arrived in the Jewish State earlier that morning in a move to express solidarity with the country as it wages a war against the Gaza-based Islamist terror organization, Hamas.
Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana accompanied the pair on the first stop of their 24-hour visit to Israel.
In Kfar Aza, mere kilometers from the Hamas hotbed of Shejaia, Trump and Kushner heard testimonies from local residents who lived in the community up until the Hamas attack.
The former residents spoke about their experiences on October 7, as well as of their neighbors and friends who were kidnapped and butchered by Hamas.
One of the residents who spoke with the couple, Shachar Schnorman, who had the date “07.10.23” tattooed on his hand, stated that he and his wife, Ayelet Cohen, were the first, and so far only, residents to return to the community.Jared Kushner stands in the wreckage of Kfar Aza. December 21, 2023. (credit: NOAM MOSHKOWITZ/KNESSET SPOKESPERSON)
Go to the full article >>

WEST BANK/ISRAEL

Large scale IDF operations underway in West Bank – report

By WALLA!DECEMBER 21, 2023 04:52

The IDF is conducting large-scale arrests throughout the West Bank on Wednesday night, according to Palestinian media reports cited by Walla.

The main operations are reportedly concentrated in the towns of Az-Zahariya and Bani Naim located south of Hebron, as well as in the city of Jericho and the Ein al-Sultan refugee camp located north of Jericho.

END

Devastation of Gaza border towns a ‘gut punch,’ says Huckabee during evangelical tour

Touring Kfar Aza, where Hamas killed dozens on October 7, prominent evangelicals call to eradicate terror group, say American Christians need to be better informed on war

By SAM SOKOL

Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee (C) and Likud MK Danny Danon (R) tour the ruins of Kibbutz Kfar Aza near the Gaza border on December 20, 2023. (Sam Sokol/Times of Israel)

Standing outside a row of burned and shattered homes in Kibbutz Kfar Aza near the Gaza border, Mike Huckabee declared Wednesday that “if we don’t stand with Israel, we stand for chaos,” during the first day of what the former Arkansas governor said was possibly his most important trip in over fifty years of visits to the Jewish state.

Taking part in an evangelical pre-Christmas solidarity mission, Huckabee described the experience of walking through the kibbutz — where dozens of the residents were murdered during Hamas’s brutal attack on October 7 — as a “gut punch” that reinforced his resolve to express solidarity with the Israeli people.

Some 1,200 people were killed, mostly civilians, by the Hamas terror group on October 7 when it led a devastating onslaught in which some 240 people were kidnapped to Gaza. Israel responded by launching a military campaign in the Gaza Strip to destroy Hamas and release the hostages.

“The evangelical community is, I think, overwhelmingly united in recognizing that Israel has a right to exist and a right to defend itself from those who try to question its existence,” Huckabee told The Times of Israel, adding that he felt he had to see the devastation with his own eyes.

“As governor, I walked through scores of communities that had been hit by tornadoes, ripped apart and leveled to the ground,” he recalled, as artillery and machine gun fire boomed in the distance from Gaza. “And I was used to seeing that kind of destruction, but that’s because a weather system hit and hurt. What I’m seeing here happened because people who claimed to be human beings acted like something other than human beings and did evil.”

“I thought that we need, as Americans, to say with conviction to our Jewish friends in Israel: we stand with you,” he continued. “What you’ve been through is a level of savagery that no human being should experience. And [we need] to say boldly to the people in the US who are parading in the streets, completely misunderstanding what this is about, that there is no moral equivalency.”

Mike Huckabee (left) shakes hands with Moshe Lavi, whose brother-in-law Omri Miran was kidnapped from Kibbutz Nir Oz on October 7, in Tel Aviv on December 20, 2023. (Sam Sokol/Times of Israel)

Huckabee is a long-time supporter of Israel and frequently takes positions on the right of the Israeli political spectrum, calling the country’s claim to the West Bank stronger than American ties to Manhattan and laying bricks in 2018 as ground was broken on a new housing complex in the settlement of Efrat.

Reframe the hostage crisis

Huckabee was invited to visit, along with other prominent retired American evangelical politicians, by Joel C. Rosenberg, a Jerusalem-based Israeli Christian interfaith activist, and Likud MK Danny Danon, a former Israeli ambassador to the UN who took former British and Australia prime ministers Boris Johnson and Scott Morrison on a similar tour.

“We brought a lot of groups of diplomats, leaders and reporters. It’s important. We’re doing it almost every week,” Danon told The Times of Israel.

“When they go back to their countries, they talk about their experiences, and it has a huge impact. I learned from my time at the United Nations that you never know who is the friend of someone else and you have to build a network of supporters. And that’s what we are doing here.”

Daniel Shek, a former Israeli diplomat who works with the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, appeared to agree with Danon following a meeting earlier in the day between the delegation and relatives of several of the 129 hostages believed remaining in Gaza — not all of them alive.

While Shek couldn’t quantify how much influence the evangelicals could have on the effort to free the hostages, he said, “When people of goodwill come here and say they want to help, I will do everything in my power to help them help us.”

“I know these people have a serious amount of influence on large audiences in the US, which is wonderful,” he added.

During their meeting, Dafna Sella — three of whose relatives were killed and nine kidnapped in the onslaught — implored the visitors to help “reframe” the hostage crisis as a “multinational humanitarian issue.”

Former US ambassador Ken Blackwell (center) walks through the ruins of Kibbutz Kfar Aza on December 20, 2023. (Sam Sokol/Times of Israel)

Likewise, Moshe Lavi, whose brother-in-law Omri Miran was abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz, called on them to “continue sharing these stories and advocating for the hostages with your community members.”

“There are a lot of false narratives being advanced and if they are not resisted or contradicted they will take hold,” Ken Blackwell, a former US ambassador to the UN Commission on Human Rights who worked for Jerusalem mayor Teddy Kollek in the 1970s, declared as the group drove down to Kfar Aza.

“We have various forums we speak into. We’re commentators on major news programs, we’re radio talk show hosts, we can have an impact and that’s what we must do,” he said.

False narratives

But it remains unclear how much influence they can exert even on members of their own religious communities.

Americans have shown themselves deeply divided on Israel’s ongoing military operations in Gaza, with many young people expressing significantly lower levels of support than their older counterparts.

This trend of decreasing support for Israel among the young also extends to the evangelical community, long seen as one of the most supportive religious streams in the United States. In 2021, a survey of 700 evangelical Christians between the ages of 18 and 29 found that only 33.6 percent said that they sided with Israel over the Palestinians.

Blackwell admitted as much, blaming what he said were “major news media who are advancing these false narratives” for changes in evangelical opinion.

For his part, Huckabee claimed that American universities had “indoctrinated” young evangelicals and that it was “up to us to fill those gaps” in education. “These are not informed opinions of people who have any knowledge of Israel or the Middle East,” he said.

A sign memorializes 19-year old Nitzan Libstein outside his home, where he was killed by Hamas terrorists on October 7, 2023. (Sam Sokol/Times of Israel)

In Kfar Aza, the evangelicals walked through the ruined houses amid the rubble and detritus of lives suddenly interrupted without warning. Skirting a crater, they stepped over downed branches and made their way past a home where someone had scrawled the words “Viva Israel” in the soot.

Photos of the dead and kidnapped were displayed on signs outside of their respective homes, which were pocked with holes from bullets and grenades and charred from the blazes set by Hamas terrorists.

Stunned by the hatred

“I’m stunned,” Sam Brownback, a former Kansas governor who also served as US ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom, said as he stood amid the remains of the kibbutz’s Youth Village.

“I’ve been in Israel many times. I’m stunned at the demonstration of hatred, the depth of hatred, that you see here.”

“It’s like walking through the set of ‘Saving Private Ryan,’” concurred Rosenberg, who runs the All Israel News website and hosts a show on the Trinity Broadcasting Network, for which he was taping a segment in the kibbutz.

Driving back to Jerusalem Wednesday evening, Skip Heitzig, the pastor of Albuquerque, New Mexico’s Calvary megachurch, argued that the solution for falling support for Israeli was doubling down on preaching the Bible.

“Part of the reason that younger Christians have turned their back on Israel is theological. They have a misinformed view of God’s promises to Israel and they have replacement theology,” he said, referring to the doctrine that the church is the new Israel. “So the idea of literal Israel isn’t relevant for them.”

But putting out a different viewpoint can help, he argued, saying that a series of sermons he had delivered on the topics of Israel and antisemitism had been downloaded some two million times in recent months.

“From the pulpit and our radio broadcast and social media, we’ll get the message out,” he said.

END

WEST BANK/ISRAEL

END

LEBANON/NORTHERN ISRAEL

Israel said to hit Lebanon border town after overnight attacks

Lebanon’s al-Manar news outlet reports that an Israeli airstrike hit Kafr Kila, a border town opposite Metula.

The Hezbollah-affiliated outlet claims three missiles hit an empty home.

There is no immediate comment from the military, but the strike comes after unusually heavy cross-border fire into Israel overnight.

end

Hezbollah fires overnight rocket salvo at northern towns after IDF strikes in Lebanon

Kiryat Shmona says 2 projectiles landed in city, causing damage but no injuries; Lebanese state media reports Israeli fighter jets hit targets over 20 kilometers from border

By TOI STAFF and EMANUEL FABIAN

Hezbollah fired rockets at Kiryat Shmona and other northern towns shortly after midnight Wednesday, following a day of escalating cross-border attacks between Israel and the Lebanese terror organization.

The Iran-backed group issued a statement saying it launched Katyusha rockets at Kiryat Shmona in response to Israel’s continued targeting of villages and civilian homes, while vowing not to allow harm to civilians or for Lebanese communities to become no man’s land.

There was no immediate statement from the Israel Defense Forces on the rocket fire.

The Kiryat Shmona Municipality said the salvo included at least eight rockets, two of which landed in the city, causing damage to infrastructure, homes, a preschool and cars.

There were no reports of injuries.

The municipality said the other five projectiles were intercepted, while one rocket fell in an open area.

הירי לקריית שמונה ויישובים באצבע הגליל: זוהו מספר נפילות בקריית שמונה, בהן פגיעה במבנה – אין נפגעים. בחיזבאללה נטלו אחריות על הירי @rubih67 @kaisos1987
צילום: עיריית קריית שמונה pic.twitter.com/0L7P17GFw2

— כאן חדשות (@kann_news) December 20, 2023

The Hezbollah rocket attack came after Israeli warplanes conducted airstrikes deep inside Lebanon late Wednesday evening, hitting a forested area near the town of Bouslaya, more than 20 kilometers (12 miles) from the border, Lebanese state media reported.

An IDF announcement said fighter jets struck a Hezbollah command center in southern Lebanon in response to the repeated attacks on the border.

The IDF says fighter jets struck a Hezbollah command center in southern Lebanon in response to repeated attacks on the border.

Meanwhile, four rockets were fired from Syria at the Golan Heights, setting off sirens in Mas’ade and Ein Quiniyye. The IDF says it shelled the source… pic.twitter.com/E1f9k5mfau

— Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian (@manniefabian) December 20, 2023

Meanwhile, four rockets were fired from Syria at the Golan Heights, setting off sirens in Mas’ade and Ein Quiniyye. The IDF said it shelled the source of the fire and targeted a Syrian Army position in response.

Troops also opened fire at a number of terror operatives who approached the Lebanon border, close to Metula, the IDF said.

Earlier, the military said it carried out a wave of strikes on Hezbollah sites. It said the targets included military buildings, rocket launch sites, a command center and a weapons depot belonging to the terror group.

The IDF said tanks and artillery also shelled areas along the Lebanon border to “remove threats.”

Smoke rises after rockets were fired from Lebanon into Israel, in the Mount Dov area, December 20, 2023. (Ayal Margolini/Flash90)

Additionally, sirens sounded in northern Israel after two surface-to-air missiles were fired from Lebanon at an Israeli aircraft. The IDF said the aircraft was not hit in the incident.

Several rockets were also fired at Israel during the incident, and the IDF used an interceptor missile.

In the morning, the IDF carried out preemptive strikes against Hezbollah targets, which the army said included military sites where the terror group’s members operated and other infrastructure.

It is rare for Israel to strike first amid the ongoing clashes with Hezbollah, though not unheard-of.

לפני זמן קצר, כלי טיס של חיל האוויר תקפו שורת מטרות של ארגון הטרור חיזבאללה בשטח לבנון.

בין המטרות שנתקפו, מספר תשתיות טרור לצד אתרים צבאיים בהם פעלו מחבלי הארגון pic.twitter.com/fXlNPK5Aeb

— צבא ההגנה לישראל (@idfonline) December 20, 2023

Also on Wednesday, Lebanon’s National News Agency reported that an Israeli sniper had shot and killed a man in his car near the Lebanese border town of Kfar Kila. Hezbollah, which normally announces the deaths of its fighters, did not claim the man as a member. The group later announced that one of its fighters had been killed in an Israeli strike on a house in the town of Markaba on Wednesday evening.

Touring the north, IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi said Wednesday that Israel “will not return to the previous situation” on the border, and will ensure “another, far safer condition” for residents of border communities.

“However things go, there will be a lot done here in the coming year,” he said

Israel has increasingly warned that if the international community does not push Hezbollah forces away from its border through diplomatic means, it will take action. In recent days, officials from the US and France visiting the region have sought to head off an escalation on the Lebanese front.

IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi speaks to soldiers in northern Israel, December 20, 2023 (IDF)

Israel has said it will no longer tolerate the presence of Hezbollah along the northern frontier after Hamas’s October 7 massacre, in which thousands of terrorists burst into Israel from Gaza, killing some 1,200 people and kidnapping over 240, mostly civilians.

Since that date, Hezbollah-led forces have attacked Israeli communities and military posts along the border on a near-daily basis, with the group saying it is doing so to support Gaza amid the war there.

So far, the skirmishes on the border have resulted in four civilian deaths on the Israeli side, as well as the deaths of seven IDF soldiers. There have also been a number of rocket attacks from Syria, without any injuries.

On the Lebanese side, more than 130 have been killed, according to an AFP tally. The toll includes at least 110 Hezbollah members — some of whom were killed in Syria — 16 Palestinian terror operatives, a Lebanese soldier, and at least 17 civilians, three of whom were journalists.

Agencies contributed to this report.

END

CYPRUS/IRAN/ISRAEL

Cyprus foils alleged Iranian plot to kill Israelis, in joint operation with Mossad

llustrative: Officers stand by a police van after entering the grounds of the courthouse complex in the southwest coastal city of Paphos, Cyprus, Dec. 5, 2022. (AP Photo/Petros Karadjias)

NICOSIA, Cyprus — Cyprus has disrupted an alleged Iranian plot to target Israeli businessmen with the arrest of two Iranian asylum-seekers who were in contact with another Iranian associated with the Revolutionary Guard, a Cypriot official says.

The official tells the Associated Press the two Iranian men have been in police custody since November 3 and procedures are underway to deport them.

The official, who speaks on condition of anonymity because he’s not allowed to speak publicly about national security matters, says the suspects’ detention was the culmination of a joint operation with Israel’s Mossad security service.

Cypriot security services had been surveilling the two Iranian men for several weeks and detained them just before what authorities believe would have been the arrival of a squad to carry out killings, the official says. The targeted individuals were primarily Israeli businessmen, the official says.

Cypriot authorities say the suspects’ Iranian handler moved in and out of Cyprus through the ethnically divided island nation’s breakaway Turkish Cypriot north and would cross a UN-controlled buffer zone into the internationally recognized south to establish contact with the two. His identity and whereabouts were not revealed but the official said he worked for Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

IRAN/HOUTHIS/ISRAEL/USA/

end

/RUSSIA//GERMANY/AUSTRIA

Do not blame Putin at all: putin seizes a multi billion dollar stakes in OMV and Wintershall Dea

(OilPrice.com)

Putin Seizes Multi-Billion-Dollar OMV And Wintershall Stakes In Russian Ventures

THURSDAY, DEC 21, 2023 – 06:30 AM

By Tsvetana Paraskova of OilPrice.com

Germany’s Wintershall Dea and Austria’s OMV are being stripped of their multi-billion-dollar stakes in joint ventures developing natural gas projects in Russia under a decree by Vladimir Putin.

The Russian president has signed a decree ordering that the shares of the two Western energy companies in the Yuzhno-Russkoye field and in the Achimov projects in Russia’s Arctic be transferred to newly set up Russian firms. OMV and Germany’s BASF and its joint venture with LetterOne, Wintershall Dea, held minority stakes in the development of the Yuzhno-Russkoye field.

According to Putin’s decree, all corporate agreements that have been in force so far are no longer valid.

The move is part of Russia’s efforts to protect its national interests “amid the illegal and unfriendly actions of the West in relation to Russian assets,” according to the decree cited by Reuters.

Wintershall Dea is in the process of exiting Russian operations while OMV announced an exit last year.

Commenting on Putin’s latest decree, a spokesperson for Wintershall Dea told Reuters in a written response to questions that “The presidential decree is further confirmation: Russia is no longer a reliable economic partner and is unpredictable – in every respect.”

BASF told Reuters on Wednesday it learned of the order for asset seizures from the news and it was in the process of analyzing all the facts.

OMV and Wintershall Dea are not the first major Western oil and gas firms to have their Russian assets transferred to newly created Russian entities.Last year, a decree from Putin stipulated that a newly set up state Russian company would take over the rights and obligations of Sakhalin Energy Investment Co., the joint venture running the Sakhalin-2 oil and gas project.

Shell and Japan’s Mitsui and Mitsubishi were minority shareholders in Sakhalin Energy Investment Co, whose biggest shareholder is Gazprom. Shell had already announced it was pulling out of Russia due to the invasion of Ukraine before the decree was issued.

end

Lt Col Richard Hecht

Fighting (Rocket) Fire with (Rocket) Fire

From Active Missile Defense to Active Operations in Southern Gaza

LT. COL. RICHARD HECHTDEC 21

READ IN APP

In today’s newsletter, I’ll share a little bit about our view on defending from the ongoing rocket attacks on Israel, update on a major tunnel network exposed in downtown Gaza, and share some operational updates. But first, if this is your first time reading this, don’t forget to subscribe below.

Subscribed

Very Active Missile Defense

The IDF takes its acronym – Israel Defense Forces – very seriously. As October 7th tragically proved, Israel needs defending from a wide range of threats.

Uniquely, Israel’s homefront – civilians – are frequently the target here.

I shared in a previous post how the rocket threat from Gaza emerged – slowly and then rapidly – with a major terrorist effort to smuggle and develop military-grade rockets that can attack anywhere in Israel.

Share Mission Brief from LTC Richard Hecht (Official IDF Substack)

We address these threats with a three-prong approach:

Stop the attack before they happen: If we can identify a rocket launch pad – or a rocket launching crew about to launch a rocket – we try to get in there first.
Civil defense (aka concrete rooms): Beginning in 1950, every building in New York had a required number of parking spots. In Israel, since 1992, every building needs a fortified safe room. Because Israeli civilian buildings are typically the target.
Technology. Israel is a world leader in active missile defense – another way of saying that the IDF is able to literally shoot missiles out of the sky, whether short-range Qassam rockets or long-range cruise missiles. This relies on an extensive network of different systems and is prohibitively expensive…but we put our money where our values are.

I’m proud of how we do this.

During IDF operational activity, we abort strikes when we see unexpected civilian presence. You can see an example of this below.

But Hamas intentionally invests in attacking Israeli civilians…so we invest in intercepting those rockets. Even the locations from which they fire these rockets reflect their approach. Approximately 900 launches were carried out from civilian sites such as mosques, schools, hospitals and cultural centers…and more recently, from the humanitarian safer zone in southern Gaza. Here’s a map of the rocket trajectory of the 116 rockets launched from the humanitarian zone since it opened on October 18.

So let’s talk about the Israeli Air Force’s role in Aerial Defense.

In the complex arena of modern aerial warfare, the Israeli Air Force (IAF) plays a pivotal role in safeguarding the nation’s skies. Here’s one bada** way it happens:

Below is an F-35i “Adir” – one of the most sophisticated airplanes in the world – shooting a cruise missile down southeast of Israel.

But where it’s really at is the active missile defense systems, most famous of which is the Iron Dome, which can intercept short-range rockets too.

Just think about it for a second.

In just seconds, a rocket is launched, a radar system detects its trajectory, assesses whether it should be intercepted, and a rocket is launched to blow it up in mid-air.

Front and Center This War

Active missile defense has played a key role in this war. Over 10,000 rockets have been fired at Israel so far. While about 10% are failed launches that land inside Gaza, huge numbers of the others must be intercepted to save lives.

In this war, the Israeli Air Forces Aerial Defense Array has been deployed more extensively than ever before, carrying out interceptions from Mt. Dov in the north to the Red Sea in the south, including:

Iron Dome
David’s Sling
MIM-104 Patriot
Arrow

While the Arrow is the newest to join the active missile defense, the Iron Dome may be the most popular, having saved thousands of lives over the last twelve years.

Each battery has several dozen soldiers in tents, with modest living conditions characterized by the need to maintain mobility, picking up and moving at any moment given the fluid nature of security priorities in the country. An electric generator and some prefabricated buildings form the battery’s facilities housing the soldiers who remain constantly vigilant in order to protect Israeli homes.

The result? The IAF has intercepted thousands of rockets over the past seventy six days. Andwith more enemies using UAVs, active missile defense has played a larger role in intercepting these threats as well.

The array’s successes were realized, among other things, as a result of the deep cooperation effort between the IDF and the defense industries, as well as between the IDF and the United States Armed Forces, which are force multipliers in this war.

By the way, I served in the Air Force’s air defense corp back in 1994 (and have the old picture to prove it):

Share Mission Brief from LTC Richard Hecht (Official IDF Substack)

Below the ground too

Yesterday, the IDF released footage of a massive network of tunnels in downtown Gaza. The system included a huge 150-meter hall, access points camouflaged in an eyeglasses store in Palestine Square, and much, much more.

It’s hard to understand just how extensive this is…or how central it is. Imagine massive tunnels under Times Square in New York or 9 de Julio in Buenos Aires, all dedicated to terrorism.

Here’s a small taste of what it looks like.

Operational Update

The 99th Division expanded the IDF’s operational activity to south of Gaza City, neutralizing hundreds of terrorists, and discovering weapons concealed in children’s dolls in Bakshi. Soldiers from the 179th and 646th Brigades successfully eliminated terrorists, destroyed rocket launchers and other military gear.
Other IDF activities included striking a terrorist compound in Khan Yunis, striking terrorist-operated vessels in Gaza, and eliminating terrorists in Al-Shati. Over 230 terror targets in Gaza were struck by IDF aircraft.
On the northern front, IAF fighter jets and IDF tanks and artillery responded to Hezbollah attacks by targeting military structures, launch posts, and infrastructure in Lebanon. Hezbollah launches towards Dovev, Avivim, and Har Dov resulted in two Israeli civilians being lightly injured. An IAF aircraft neutralized a terrorist cell responsible for launches towards Arab al-Aramshe.
On the humanitarian front, a Red Crescent hospital in Rafah is expected to begin recieving patients in the coming days. In addition, the first phase of establishing a water line from mobile desalination facilities in Egypt was completed. As of December 17, UN trucks have are able to undergo security checks and enter Gaza directly via Kerem Shalom, increasing the daily volume of humanitarian aid entering Gaza. Yesterday 166 humanitarian aid trucks were inspected and transferred to the Gaza Strip, 91 trucks via Nitzana/Rafah Crossing and 65 via Kerem Shalom.

Quote of the Day

“We are in an additional significant phase of strikes in new areas where we are currently operating with force…it will continue onward, with pressure on the enemy above ground, and below ground”

Commander of the Southern Command, MG Yaron Finkelman, while in Khan Yunis with the forces of the 98th Division yesterday (Wednesday)

Here’s to a quieter weekend.

Richard

end

GLOBAL VACCINE/COVID ISSUES

DR PAUL ALEXANDER:

Was US tax-payer money used to fund China’s Wuhan lab and gain-of-function risky potentially deadly virus research? Yes! 100%, we know this, but I think you will learn one day that COVID was largely a

US manufactured pathogen, if this was what was released (intent or not) & I believe at the highest, darkest, black-ops part of US government; maybe a case could be made? yes, but something went wrong

DR. PAUL ALEXANDERDEC 21

READ IN APP

https://www.bbc.com/news/57932699

‘Did the US fund virus research in China?

Yes, it did contribute some funds.

Dr Fauci, as well as being an adviser to President Biden, is the director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the US government’s National Institutes of Health (NIH).’

END

The Sun report: “Devious’ new Covid variant is behind severe bouts of bug as immunity hits record lows before Christmas”; ok, my view, just junk reporting as usual, scare fear-porn, believe NOTHING

written here, go on with your life, NO more, not one of those COVID vaccines, boosters, NONE! take care of the elderly high-risk, protect them strongly, rest of world live NORMAL, no lockdowns etc.

DR. PAUL ALEXANDERDEC 21

READ IN APP

Use nasal-oral washes (povidone iodine, hydrogen peroxide, diluted, swish, spit, no swallow, 3 x day about), vitamin D, get good rest, eat well, ventilate homes, wash hands, XLEAR (Xylitol) nasal spray, have access to antibiotics, early treatment etc.

Live normal lives, COVID is done, no lockdown lunacy, this is BS scare tactics to get you vaccinated, and under no condition do you put any of these unsafe mRNA technology shots in the arms of healthy children. None! Leave your child alone! Let them live normal.

END

Dr. Roger Hodkinson & myself were in an exchange regarding this seminal piece by Walter M Chestnut & AwakeNotWoke; we agree & Roger was clear that attck on cellular mitochondria by the mRNA vaccine

can explain the brain fog & fatigue post vaccine as both as a result of reduced ATP availability; remember, ATP energy packs are critical to your cellular, muscle contrations, nervous impulses etc.

DR. PAUL ALEXANDERDEC 21

READ IN APP

AwakeNotWoke shared a good stack by WALTER M CHESNUT that I share, great scholarship, great input always by Awake: “Draining the Batteries: The Spike Protein Endothelium <> Mitochondria Feedback

DR. PAUL ALEXANDER·DEC 18

‘As readers of this Substack know, yesterday I published a post discussing how the mutually destructive feedback loop of Spike Protein Endothelial damage inducing Mitochondrial damage which then further damages the Endothelium (etc.), explains why those with Long COVID suffer from exercise intolerance. I now believe it can also explain a portion of the …

Read full story

Adenosine triphosphate (ATP) is a nucleotide ^[2] that provides energy to drive and support many processes in living cells, such as muscle contraction, nerve impulse propagation, condensate dissolution, and chemical synthesis.

Anything cellular physiological process needs ATP once it needs energy to proceed, its the energy currency.

END

SLAY NEWS

The latest reports from Slay News

German Health Minister Admits Covid Shots Don’t Work Germany’s top health official has publicly admitted that Covid mRNA shots do nothing to prevent the virus.READ MORE

Bill Gates Prepares for ‘Pandemic X’ with New ‘Needle-Free’ mRNA Vaccines Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates is pumping vast sums of cash into a new “needle-free” mRNA vaccine technology in preparation for the so-called “Pandemic X.”READ MORE

Jonathan Turley Slams Colorado Supreme Court’s ‘Dead Wrong’ Trump Ruling: ‘Fundamentally Flawed’Legal scholar Jonathan Turley has responded to the Colorado Supreme Court’s Tuesday ruling to remove President Donald Trump from the 2024 ballot.READ MORE

El Salvador Leader Blasts America’s Lack of ‘Democracy’ after Trump Removed from Colorado Ballot El Salvador President Nayib Bukele has issued a fiery response to the Democrat-controlled Colorado Supreme Court’s decision to remove President Donald Trump from the 2024 ballot.READ MORE

‘Defund the Police’ Democrat Demands Cop Patrols to Protect His Home: ‘Height of Hypocrisy’A radical Democrat congressman has demanded the Austin Police Department provide security patrols at his home.READ MORE

CNN’s Jim Acosta Pushes Biden’s Narrative on Economy, Gets Shut Down by Top Democrat Pollster CNN’s Jim Acosta was shut down by an expert while trying to promote Democrat President Joe Biden’s narrative about the economy.READ MORE

Hunter Biden Given ‘Green Light to Commit Crimes’ in Anticipation of Presidential Pardon before Father Leaves Office Reports are beginning to emerge to suggest that Democrat President Joe Biden is planning to issue a presidential pardon for his son Hunter before he leaves office.READ MORE

CNN Reporter: Democrats Need Trump’s Policies to Tackle Border Crisis CNN Senior White House Correspondent MJ Lee has admitted that the Democrats need to bring back President Donald Trump’s policies in order to tackle the out-of-control border crisis.READ MORE

Colorado’s Democrat-Controlled Supreme Court Blocks Trump from 2024 Ballot, Cites ‘Insurrection’Colorado’s Democrat-controlled Supreme Court has ruled that President Donald Trump is “disqualified” from appearing on the state’s 2024 Republican primary election ballot.READ MORE

Driver Who Crashed into Biden’s Motorcade Charged with DUI and ‘Inattentive Driving’A driver has been charged after crashing his car into an SUV that was part of Democrat President Joe Biden’s motorcade on Sunday night in Wilmington, Delaware.READ MORE

Gov Hochul Creates Slavery Reparations Commission in New York New York’s Democrat Governor Kathy Hochul has just signed a bill to establish a slavery reparations commission for the state.READ MORE

Federal Judge to Expose Jeffrey Epstein’s ‘Client List,’ Unseal 180 Redacted Names A federal judge has ordered Jeffrey Epstein’s “client list” to be made public by unsealing dozens of documents exposing the names of 180 powerful people linked to the disgraced late financier.READ MORE

Biden Hit with Legal Challenge over Crackdown on Gas Appliances in American Homes Democrat President Joe Biden has just been hit with a legal challenge over his administration’s crackdown on traditional gas-powered furnaces in Americans’ homes.READ MORE

EVOL NEWS

EU Developing ‘Fast Vax’ for ‘Next Pandemic’READ MORE…

LATEST NEWS:

Cabrera cleared to return to PGA Tour after prisonRead more…Vivek Ramaswamy Will Boycott Colorado’s GOP Primary In Protest Decision To Disqualify Trump From BallotRead more…Biden’s Department of Interior Offers Most Restrictive Offshore Oil Drilling Plan in US historyRead more…WATCH: President Trump Makes Special Christmas Promise!Read more…Former U.S. Attorney Predicts SCOTUS Will Unanimously Overturn Colorado’s Ballot RulingRead more…JUST IN: Colorado GOP Will Withdraw From Primary, Convert To Caucus System If Trump Ballot Decision StandsRead more…BREAKING: Vivek Ramaswamy pledges to withdraw from Colorado GOP primary unless Trump is allowed on ballot, DEMANDS DeSantis, Christie, Haley do the sameRead more…California-Based Green Energy Company That Received Millions From Biden Regime FailingRead more

NEWS ADDICT

LATEST REPORTS FOR NEWS JUNKIES

Top Doctor Exposes ‘Biggest Hoax’ in Medicine A top doctor has come forward to blow the whistle and expose “the biggest hoax” in medicine.READ THE FULL REPORT

EU Developing ‘Fast Vax’ for ‘Next Pandemic’The European Union (EU) has started developing a “fax vax” in preparation for the “next pandemic.”READ THE FULL REPORT

Lindsey Graham: Claim That ‘Biden Knew Nothing About His Son’s Activities’ Is Falling Apart Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) has declared that the narrative peddled by the Democrats and the White House in response to the impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden is “falling apart.”READ THE FULL REPORT

VIEW MORE NEWS

LATEST REPORTS FOR NEWS JUNKIES

MICHAEL EVERY/PHIL MAREY/OR OTHER EXECS //RABOBANK

The Red Sea Crisis Has Created Winners And Losers: The US Is A Loser, The Winners Again Are China And Russia

THURSDAY, DEC 21, 2023 – 11:05 AM

By Benjamin Picton of Rabobank

Outside Reversal

US stocks ended the session down bad yesterday after initially rallying on rate cut bets that had carried over from Europe. The S&P500 printed an outside reversal candlestick as it fell by (almost) 1.5%. This was despite another sharp fall in bond yields which saw the US 2-year down 11bps to 4.335% and the 10-year down 8bps to 3.85% after UK CPI recorded a big downside surprise to fall from 4.6% in October to 3.9% in October (below even the most optimistic forecast on the Bloomberg survey). Oil prices didn’t move much. Brent closed at $79.19/bbl, gold continued its consolidation above the $2000/ounce technical level and the VIX index rose by more than 9% (!) just one week after it threatened to take out the January 2020 lows.

So what gives? Is this the end of the melt-up in stocks that has been running hot since the Fed signaled a pivot last week? If it is, it seems strange that it would happen on a day when yields fell so sharply. The textbooks tell us that we SHOULD expect higher bond prices when stocks fall, but anyone who has traded this market over the last couple of years knows that in reality the correlations there are closer to 1 than they are to -1.

FedEx – a bellwether stock reputedly favored by Alan Greenspan as an indicator of economic activity – led losses by declining more than 12% in the session. This perhaps underscores suggestions that Americans are buying less stuff even as retail turnover figures rise due to higher prices paid.

A possible explanation for the selloff is the issue of the Houthi’s crippling the world’s third busiest (after the Strait of Malacca and the Singapore Strait) shipping lane. The Red Sea handles 12% of global maritime trade and 30% of containerised trade. Given the enormity of the impact of this disruption – and the signalling value of the thus far impotent response from the USA and allies – it would be logical to deduce that stocks are finally starting to price in some margin of safety for the huge geopolitical shock that has now moved from the realm of known risk to realized risk.

But there are signs that markets still don’t get it. If the reversal in stocks a reflection of geopolitical risk premia being priced in, why such small moves in oil and gold? Bloomberg reported on Tuesday that the Red Sea’s importance as a conduit for trade in hydrocarbons has surged by 140% since the Ukraine War rejigged supply chains to see cheap Russian crude flowing East and South to China and India while Europe is left to compete for cargoes from Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern origins.

Saudi Arabian crude is similar in composition to Russian product, but interruptions to Red Sea shipping risk rekindling problems experienced earlier in the year when Saudi production cuts forced buyers to substitute for light-sweet crude from the United States. Light-sweet crude yields less diesel in the refining process, which contributed to the big blowout in crack spreads earlier in the year. Perhaps the potential for more expensive diesel is part of the reason why energy-intensive industry was particularly bearish on the outlook in the recent German IFO survey?

Major shipping companies including Maersk, MSC and Hapag-Lloyd are now diverting shipping away from the Red Sea and instead making the much longer journey around the Cape of Good Hope. This adds 7-15 days to journey times, increases demand for bunker fuel to move those cargoes and reduces the availability of ships and containers as those vessels are tied up for longer to deliver the same volume of cargo. Does anyone remember what happened in 2020 when shipping supply chains got snarled up and containers were piling up in the Port of Los Angeles instead of making their way back to Shanghai? Surely, we should have learned our lesson that global supply chains are fragile and that pushing down on the balloon at one end makes a big difference in pressure at the other end, but the risk premia still doesn’t look priced-in to me.

Even more concerning than the immediate impact on global supply chains is what the Red Sea crisis says about the United States’ ability to project power and police vital trade routes. The WSJ picked up on this yesterday when they suggested that ‘US Naval Deterrence is Going, Going, Maybe Even Gone’. The cheek of Iranian-backed Houthis in openly targeting US and allied warships with drone and missile attacks – so far without major repercussions – is raising questions about the capacity and willingness of the USA to protect its strategic interests.

This impression that the United States is stretched too thin was reinforced by suggestions that offers of convoy protection were made, but only for US-flagged ships. These offers are rumoured to have been refused by major shippers unless protection was also extended to their foreign-flagged vessels, meaning that European shippers might have tried to strongarm the US Navy into allowing them to free-ride on US military might. Maybe they’re taking notes from NATO?

Concerningly, Marine Tracker data suggests that the launch of Operation Prosperity Guardian has not been sufficient to prevent freight companies from diverting their largest container ships away from the coast of Yemen. The loss of prestige for the global hegemon will not have gone unnoticed by America’s adversaries, who will be emboldened by any signs of weakness.

Adding to the concern has been the lukewarm response of major allies invited to join Operation Prosperity Guardian. Canada committed no ships and opted instead to only send a clutch of staff officers while Australia (an AUKUS ally who fought with the United States in Iraq, Vietnam and Korea) also refused US requests to send a warship to the Red Sea.

The Australian Government claims the refusal was due to a preference to focus on interests in the Asia-Pacific region, but local media has suggested that it is actually because none of Australia’s 7 frigates and 3 air-warfare destroyers are appropriately equipped to deter attacks from cheap Houthi (Iranian) drones for any length of time. If this really is the case, it is an astonishing gap in capability that highlights the extent to which conventional fleets face disruption from small, cheap and agile adversaries. That doesn’t bode well for the security of supply chains elsewhere.

Of course, the situation in the Red Sea has created winners as well as losers. The winners again appear to be Russia and China. The former benefits from further destabilization of Europe, where economic pressures were already splintering solidarity of support for Ukraine. Russia’s Shadow Fleet of oil tankers is also being granted safe passage by the Houthi’s, meaning that they retain access to the most efficient regional supply chain, while Western democracies are forced to take the long war around.

The main alternative shipping route for getting goods from Asia into Europe is to traverse the Bering Strait and the Northern Sea Route, which is shorter even than going through Suez and is becoming increasingly navigable due to the effects of climate change. The only problem is that it is almost entirely Russia-adjacent!

China also benefits from European destabilization and higher energy costs for European manufacturers who are having their lunch eaten by Chinese competitors. Those competitors already enjoy greater scale, greater state support and greater access to cheap Russian energy supplies. Watching the United States divert further naval assets into the Red Sea to underwrite the business-as-usual trade (so far with limited success) must also bring a smile to the face of any PLAN Admiral focused on the goals of Taiwan reunification and Chinese territorial claims in the South China Sea.

So, there are plenty of good reasons for why valuation-stretched equities might print an outside reversal, but the real question is whether this is indeed a turning point, or just a false signal. The price action in the final days leading into Christmas is going to be very interesting indeed.

END

7//OIL ISSUES//NATURAL GAS ISSUES//ELECTRICAL GRID ISSUES// RENEWABLE ENERGY ISSUES//USA AND GLOBE

Oil Tumbles After Angola Announces It Is Leaving OPEC

THURSDAY, DEC 21, 2023 – 08:29 AM

Confirming a move which had been widely expected after the internal acrimony at the last OPEC+ meeting, moments ago Angola – also known as China’s gas station in Africa – announced it was leaving OPEC, the country’s news agency ANGOP reported on Thursday, quoting the African producer’s oil minister Diamantino de Azevedo.

The decision was taken at a meeting of the Council of Ministers, led by the President of the Republic, João Lourenço, the news agency noted. Jornal de Angola also reported the news.

As OilPrice notes, Angola and another African OPEC member, Nigeria, had a spat with the other cartel members before the latest meeting regarding their oil production quotas.

At a meeting in June, Angola and Nigeria were given lower crude oil production quotas as part of the OPEC+ agreement, after the two producers had underperformed and failed to pump to their quotas for years, due to a lack of investment in new fields and maturing older oilfields.

The most recent spat within OPEC about the African countries’ quotas was one of the reasons for the cartel to postpone its latest meeting within a few days.

African OPEC members Angola, Congo, and Nigeria were forced to commit to lower output in 2024, and the originally scheduled November 26 meeting could potentially have pressured them to make further production cuts, as the Saudis expressed discontent over compliance with the deal as it shoulders the bulk of the burden.

Before the meeting at the end of November, Angola said it was not considering quitting the cartel.

“There’s no thinking in that direction,” Angola OPEC governor Estevao Pedro told Bloomberg at the time, assuring markets that Africa’s second-largest producer had no intentions of rocking the boat to that extent.

However, it seems now that Angola doesn’t see an OPEC membership as beneficial anymore after the recent spats over its production quota.

Angola, which joined OPEC in 2007, holds untapped oil and gas resources estimated at 9 billion barrels of proven crude oil reserves and 11 trillion cubic feet of proven natural gas reserves.

The news sent oil, which had caught a bid in recent days on fears about a protracted Red Sea blockage, sharply lower and back to Tuesday levels.

END

8. EMERGING MARKETS//AUSTRALIA NEW ZEALAND ISSUES//

ARGENTINA

END

YOUR EARLY CURRENCY/GOLD AND SILVER PRICING/ASIAN CLOSING MARKETS AND EUROPEAN BOURSE OPENING AND CLOSING/ INTEREST RATE SETTINGS THURSDAY MORNING 7;30AM//OPENING AND CLOSING

EURO VS USA DOLLAR: 1.0981 UP .0038

USA/ YEN 142.73 DOWN 0.801 NOW TARGETS INTEREST RATE AT 1.00% AS IT WILL BUY UNLIMITED BONDS TO GETS TO THAT LEVEL…//YEN STILL FALLS//

GBP/USA 1.2657 UP .0091

USA/CAN DOLLAR: 1.3352 DOWN .0007 (CDN DOLLAR UP 7 BASIS PTS)

Last night Shanghai COMPOSITE CLOSED UP 16.61 PTS OR 0.51%

Hang Seng CLOSED UP 7,32 PTS OR 0.04%

AUSTRALIA CLOSED DOWN 0.47% // EUROPEAN BOURSE: ALL MOSTLY RED

Trading from Europe and ASIA

I) EUROPEAN BOURSES: ALL RED

2/ CHINESE BOURSES / :Hang SENG UP 7.32 PTS OR 0.04%

/SHANGHAI CLOSED UP 16.61 PTS OR 0.51%

AUSTRALIA BOURSE CLOSED DOWN .47%

(Nikkei (Japan) CLOSED DOWN 535.47 PTS OR 1.59%

INDIA’S SENSEX IN THE GREEN

Gold very early morning trading: 2037.70

silver:$24.25

USA dollar index early THURSDAY morning: 101.70 DOWN 34 BASIS POINTS FROM WEDNESDAY’s CLOSE.

THURSDAY MORNING NUMBERS ENDS

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

And now your closing THURSDAY NUMBERS 11: 30 AM

Portuguese 10 year bond yield: 2.661% DOWN 3 in basis point(s) yield

JAPANESE BOND YIELD: +0.590% UP 4 AND 6//100 BASIS POINTS /JAPAN losing control of its yield curve/

SPANISH 10 YR BOND YIELD: 2.885DOWN 5 in basis points yield

ITALIAN 10 YR BOND YIELD 3.573 DOWN 6 points in basis points yield ./ THE ECB IS QE’ ING ITALIAN BONDS (BUYING ITALIAN BONDS/SELLING GERMAN BUNDS)

GERMAN 10 YR BOND YIELD: 1.9555 DOWN 3 BASIS PTS

END

IMPORTANT CURRENCY CLOSES FOR THURSDAY

Closing currency crosses for day /USA DOLLAR INDEX/USA 10 YR BOND YIELD/1:00 PM

Euro/USA 1.0995 UP 0.0051 or 51 basis points

USA/Japan: 142.09 DOWN 1.432 OR YEN UP 143 basis points/

Great Britain/USA 1.2666 UP .0027 OR 27 BASIS POINTS //

Canadian dollar UP .0061 OR 61 BASIS pts to 1.3299

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The USA/Yuan, CNY: closed ON SHORE CLOSED (UP) …7.1391

THE USA/YUAN OFFSHORE: (YUAN CLOSED (UP)…. (7.1424)

TURKISH LIRA: 29.16 EXTREMELY DANGEROUS LEVEL/DEATH WATCH/HYPERINFLATION TO BEGIN.//ON DEATH WATCH

the 10 yr Japanese bond yield at +0.590…VERY DANGEROUS

Your closing 10 yr US bond yield DOWN 4 in basis points from WEDNESDAY at 3.872% //trading well ABOVE the resistance level of 2.27-2.32%) very problematic

USA 30 yr bond yield 4.002 DOWN 2 in basis points ON THE DAY/12.00 PM

USA 2 YR BOND YIELD: 4.335 DOWN 3 BASIS PTS.

Your 12:00 AM bourses for Europe and the Dow along with the USA dollar index closing and interest rates: WEDNESDAY: CLOSING TIME 12:00 PM

London: CLOSED DOWN 20.95 POINTS or 0.27%

German Dax : CLOSED DOWN 45.63 PTS OR 0.27%

Paris CAC CLOSED DOWN 12.03 PTS OR 0.16%

Spain IBEX UP 3.30 PTS OR 0.03%

Italian MIB: CLOSED DOWN 86.25 PTS OR 0.29%

WTI Oil price 73.92 12: EST

Brent Oil: 79.19 12:00 EST

USA /RUSSIAN ROUBLE /// AT: 92.15; ROUBLE DOWN 1 AND 19//100

GERMAN 10 YR BOND YIELD; +1.955 DOWN 3 BASIS PTS

UK 10 YR YIELD: 3.548 DOWN 4 BASIS PTS

CLOSING NUMBERS: 4 PM

Euro vs USA: 1.1001 UP 0.0058 OR 58 BASIS POINTS

British Pound: 1.2687 UP .0048 or 48 basis pts

BRITISH 10 YR GILT BOND YIELD: 3.5690% UP 2 BASIS PTS//

JAPAN 10 YR YIELD: 0.590%

USA dollar vs Japanese Yen: 142.25 DOWN 1.285 //YEN UP 129 BASIS PTS//

USA dollar vs Canadian dollar: 1.3288 DOWN 0.0071 CDN dollar UP 71 basis pts)

West Texas intermediate oil: 73.82

Brent OIL: 79.31

USA 10 yr bond yield UP 1 BASIS pts to 3.889%

USA 30 yr bond yield UP 1 BASIS PTS to 4.001%

USA 2 YR BOND: DOWN 2 PTS AT 4.352 %

USA dollar index: 102.03 UP 23 BASIS POINTS

USA DOLLAR VS TURKISH LIRA: 29.16 (GETTING QUITE CLOSE TO BLOWING UP/

USA DOLLAR VS RUSSIA//// ROUBLE: 92.15 DOWN 1 AND 18/100 roubles

GOLD 2044.30 3:30 PM

SILVER: 24.37 3:30 PM

DOW JONES INDUSTRIAL AVERAGE: UP 322.38 % PTS OR 0.37%

NASDAQ UP 203,25 PTS OR 1.33%

VOLATILITY INDEX: 13.51 DOWN .16 PTS 1.17%

GLD: $189.43 UP 1.33 OR 0.71%

SLV/ $22.31 UP .27 OR 1.23%

end

USA AFFAIRS

TODAY’S TRADING IN GRAPH FORM:

Bitcoin, Bullion, & Big-Tech Bounce As Rate-Cut Hopes Roar Higher

THURSDAY, DEC 21, 2023 – 04:00 PM

Personal Consumption growth slowed (3 months ago) and so did Core PCE inflation (to 2%); Jobless claims fell (to 2023 lows) as the LEI continued to tumble, signaling recession in 1H24.

So, ‘goldilocks’, ‘soft landing’, ‘everything is awesome’, or ‘we are all going to hell’ – pick your own narrative… as economic data remains sluggish and financial conditions dramatically ‘loose’…

Source: Bloomberg

All of which prompted a dovish response in STIRs, with the odds of a March rate-cut higher still, now at 80%)…

Source: Bloomberg

And expectations for the number of rate-cuts next year higher (now around 160bps)…

Source: Bloomberg

Echoing yesterday’s malarkey, 0-DTE traders pushed the markets around to the downside with an initial downswing around 1130ET and then again from around 1330ET. And then as the market refused to fold in the afternoon (like it did yesterday), 0-DTE call-buyers swamped it and sparked a surge higher in the main indices…

Source: SpotGamma

VIX spiked intraday back above 14.5, but then in the afternoon, vol-sellers re-appeared

Small Caps were the best performer, up 1.5% on the day and The Dow was the laggard, though all the majors were green. However, as the chart shows, today’s recovery was considerably less of a gain than the losses yesterday afternoon – still down around 0.5% from the 1430ET raid plunge yesterday…

MAG7 stocks opened higher, traded down into the red briefly then recovered…

Source: Bloomberg

Treasury yields were higher across the curve but not significantly relative to recent chaos, with the long-end slightly lagging (30Y +4bps, 2Y +1.5bps)…

Source: Bloomberg

With the yield curve (2s30s) steepening

Source: Bloomberg

The Dollar dived, falling back below the post-Powell lows, back to its weakest since early August…

Source: Bloomberg

Bitcoin rallied back up to $44,000 once again and faded…

Source: Bloomberg

Gold jumped back up to recent highs…

Source: Bloomberg

Oil prices ended slightly lower, but well off their lows, with WTI just below $74…

Source: Bloomberg

Finally, the market seems very sure that this is not about to happen…

Source: Bloomberg

Do you feel lucky?

END

AFTERNOON TRADING//

TUCKER CARLSON

II USA DATA

final Q3 GDP and personal consumptions revised sharply lower

(zerohedge)

Final Q3 GDP, Personal Consumption Revised Sharply Lower As Core PCE Slumped To 2.0%

THURSDAY, DEC 21, 2023 – 09:11 AM

Normally the market could care less about data that is at least 3 months old, like for example today’s 3rd estimate of Q3 GDP for the quarter ended Sept 30 or, well, three months ago, but on days like today when algos are desperate for bad news to validate the Fed’s dovish pivot and extend on premarket gains, it appears that everyone ignored the very strong initial claims print which came in near record lows…

… and instead focused exclusively on both the GDP number, which at 4.9% (or 4.86% to be precise) was revised sharply lower from the 5.2% reported in the 2nd estimate (and below the 5.2% estimate), as well as the Core PCE Print which at 2.0% was a big drop from the 2.3% previously (and expected) and right in line with the Fed’s inflation target.

According to the BEA, “the increase in the third quarter primarily reflected increases in consumer spending and inventory investment. Imports, which are a subtraction in the calculation of GDP, increased.”

The update from the “second” estimate reflected downward revisions to consumer spending, inventory investment, and exports that were partly offset by upward revisions to state and local government, business investment, housing investment, and federal government spending. Here are some more details:

Personal consumption was revised down to 2.11% of the bottom line GDP print, from 2.44% in the second estimate and 2.69% in the first. So par for the course for the ~~Obama 3.0~~ Biden admin.
Fixed Investment was 0.46% of GDP, up from 0.42%
Change to Private Inventories added 1.27%, down from 1.40% previously
Net exports were a tiny contribution of 0.03% (0.59% exports vs -0.56% imports), a flip from the modest drag of -0.04% in the second estimate
Government consumption added 0.99%, up from 0.94% in the second estimate

Visually, the data looked like this:

In Q3, the value added of private goods-producing industries increased 10.2 percent, private services-producing industries increased 4.1 percent, and government increased 2.0 percent. Overall, 14 of 22 industry groups contributed to the third-quarter increase in real GDP.

Within private goods-producing industries, the increase was led by nondurable goods manufacturing and construction.
Within private services-producing industries, the increase was led by retail trade, information, and finance and insurance. Partly offsetting these increases was a decrease in utilities.
The increase in government reflected an increase in state and local government that was partly offset by a decrease in federal government.

But even more important than the (meaningless) GDP components was the price data, which came far weaker than expected and was a notable drop from the previous estimate, to wit:

GDP Price Deflator 3.3%, Exp. 3.6%, Last 3.6%
PCE Prices 2.6%, Last 2.8%
Core PCE Price Deflator 2.0%, Exp. 2.3%, Last 2.3%

Translation: three months ago, when the Fed was still pointing to more rate hikes in 2023, core PCE had already fallen to the Fed’s target and only the lack of “accurate” data is what apparently prevented the Fed from turning more dovish. Of course, the same lagged effect of accurate data is why the Fed’s rate cuts will be coming just as inflation is once again starting to run away to the upside, guaranteeing a catastrophic repeat of the 1970s Arthur Burns Fed.

END

Initial Jobless Claims Near Record Lows, Continuing Claims At 2-Year-Highs

THURSDAY, DEC 21, 2023 – 08:37 AM

After tumbling nears 2023 lows in the prior week, the number of Americans filing for jobless benefits rose de minimisly from a revised 203k to 205k – basically at the year’s lows…

Source: Bloomberg

California and Georgia saw the largest drop in initial claims while Ohio saw the biggest increase…

California’s claims data has been anything but stable…

Source: Bloomberg

Continuing Claims were flat at 1.865mm Americans, holding around their highest since 2021…

Source: Bloomberg

Does near record low initial jobless claims really fit with a Fed expecting to cut rates at least three times next year?

end

Stagflation, here we come!

(zerohedge0

Philly Fed Flops – New Orders Plunge As Prices Paid Jump

THURSDAY, DEC 21, 2023 – 09:07 AM

The Philly Fed’s latest survey shows that manufacturing activity in the region continued to decline overall in December, printing -10.5, will below the -3.0 expected and -5.9 in November.

Source: Bloomberg

That is the 17th monthly decline of the last 19 months – as long a contractionary period as was seen during the GFC.

But, the picture from the Philly Fed is even more troubling as new orders tumbled dramatically (into contraction from +1.3 to -25.6) while prices paid accelerated (more than 33 percent of the firms reported increases in input prices, while 8 percent reported decreases). Employment also fell into contraction.

Source: Bloomberg

We love the smell of stagflation in the morning.

end

US Leading Indicators Slump Signals “Short & Shallow Recession” In 1H24

THURSDAY, DEC 21, 2023 – 11:25 AM

The Conference Board’s Leading Economic Indicators (LEI) continued its decline in November, dropping 0.5% MoM (in line with expectations), while October’s -0.8% decline was revised down to -1.0%.

The biggest positive contributor to the leading index was stock prices at +0.18
The biggest negative contributor was average consumer expectations at -0.22

This is the 20th straight MoM decline in the LEI (and 21st month of 23) – the longest streak of declines since ‘Lehman’ (22 straight months of declines from June 2007 to April 2008)

“The US LEI continued declining in November, with stock prices making virtually the only positive contribution to the index in the month,” said Justyna Zabinska-La Monica, Senior Manager, Business Cycle Indicators, at The Conference Board.

“Housing and labor market indicators weakened in November, reflecting warning areas for the economy.

The Leading Credit Index™ and manufacturing new orders were essentially unchanged, pointing to a lack of economic growth momentum in the near term.

Despite the economy’s ongoing resilience – as revealed by the US CEI – and December’s improvement in consumer confidence, the US LEI suggests a downshift of economic activity ahead.

As a result, The Conference Board forecasts a short and shallow recession in the first half of 2024.”

Despite ‘soft landing’ hype, the LEI is showing no signs at all of ‘recovering’, tumbling back below the peak in March 2006…

And on a year-over-year basis, the LEI is down 7.6% (down YoY for 17 straight months) – close to its biggest YoY drop since 2008 (Lehman) outside of the COVID lockdown-enforced collapse…

The annual growth rate of the LEI continues to be negative, but may have reached a bottom…

The trajectory of the US LEI continues to signal a recession over the next 12 months

Is this why The Fed pivoted?

END

III USA ECONOMIC COMMENTARIES

“This Is Off The Charts”: Economist Claims 2024 Will Bring ‘Biggest Crash Of Our Lifetime’ In US

THURSDAY, DEC 21, 2023 – 07:20 AM

An economist who focuses on consumer spending has issued a dire warning about the U.S. economy in the coming year.

“Since 2009, this has been 100 percent artificial, unprecedented money printing and deficits: $27 trillion over 15 years, to be exact,” economist Harry Dent told Fox Business on Dec. 19. “This is off the charts, 100 percent artificial, which means we’re in a dangerous state.

“I think 2024 is going to be the biggest single crash year we’ll see in our lifetime.

“We need to get back down to normal, and we need to send a message to central banks,” he said. “This should be a lesson I don’t think we’ll ever revisit. I don’t think we’ll ever see a bubble for any of our lifetimes again.”

As Jack Phillips reports at The Epoch Times, Mr. Dent, who owns the HS Dent Investment Management firm, told the outlet that U.S. markets are currently in a bubble that started in late 2021 amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Things are not going to come back to normal in a few years. We may never see these levels again. And this crash is not going to be a correction,” he said.

“It’s going to be more in the ’29 to ’32 level. And anybody who sat through that would have shot their stockbroker,” Mr. Dent said, making references to the stock market crash in 1929 that led to the Great Depression throughout the 1930s.

“If I’m right, it is going to be the biggest crash of our lifetime, most of it happening in 2024. You’re going to see it start and be more obvious by May.

“So, if you just get out for six to 12 months and stuff stays at the highest valuation history, maybe you miss a little more gains if I’m wrong. If I’m right, you’re going to save massive losses and be able to reinvest a year or year-and-a-half from now at unbelievably low prices and magnify your gains beyond compare.”

Mr. Dent’s predictions of a market crash are nothing new. In 2009, he wrote “The Great Depression Ahead,” a book that forecasted a significant market crash.

In the past few weeks, several analysts have been making similar predictions of a significant stock market crash in the near future.

“Based on prevailing market valuations, we estimate that poor total returns are likely for the S&P 500 in the coming 10–12 years, that equity market returns, relative to bonds, are likely to be among the worst in history, and that a market loss on the order of [minus] 63 percent over the completion of this cycle would be consistent with prevailing valuations and a century of market history,” Hussman Investment Trust President John Hussman, who called the 2008 crash, wrote in a note in October.

Wrong Prediction?

However, in a recent note, investment banking firm Goldman Sachs raised its 2024 S&P 500 target by 8 percent, to 5,100, forecasting a tailwind for U.S. stocks from falling inflation and declining interest rates.

“Looking forward, the new regime of both improving growth and falling rates should support stocks with weaker balance sheets, particularly those that are sensitive to economic growth,” the firm wrote late last week.

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said last week that the U.S. central bank’s consequential tightening of monetary policy is likely over as inflation falls faster than expected, and that a discussion of cuts in benchmark rates is coming “into view.”

The shift from the Fed helped to push the S&P 500 near a record high and sent bond yields tumbling. Goldman strategists expect the Fed to cut rates by 25 basis points at each of its policy meetings in March, April, and May, followed by quarterly cuts that will bring down benchmark rates to a range of 4 percent to 4.25 percent by year-end from the current range of 5.25 percent to 5.5 percent.

The bullish outlook from Goldman Sachs comes as other firms have increased their expectations for interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve. Bank of America Global Research, for example, now sees the Fed cutting rates by 100 basis points next year, beginning with a 25 basis-point cut in March, compared with its previous estimate of 75 basis points.

The U.S. central bank raised rates in a bid to offset decades-high inflation. Data provided by the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that the Consumer Price Index that measures inflation rose by 0.1 percent in November 2023 on a seasonally adjusted basis and was up by 3.1 percent year over year.

Reuters contributed to this report.

end

San Fran Office Market Has Not Bottomed

WEDNESDAY, DEC 20, 2023 – 07:20 PM

The Federal Reserve’s pivot from aggressive monetary tightening to the possibility of (pre-emptice) rate-cuts has spurred talk about whether 2024 will be a ‘no landing’ or ‘soft landing’ scenario (avoiding a recession). Optimists have been pointing to the rates market that shows nearly six cuts priced in by the end of the next year. However, it is hard not to consider the fact that by anticipating these cuts, the market could be signaling more economic stress to come than The Fed expects (with its growth and employment forecasts).

For severely strained building owners across the US, these hopes of interest rate cuts, which would lower the borrowing costs, could not come soon enough as there is still no sign of a bottom in this distressed market.

Take, for instance, the San Francisco office market, where a new report from local newspaper SFGate, citing CBRE data, shows office vacancy in the crime-ridden metro area hit new highs in the fourth quarter of 2023. The vacancy rate topped 35.9%, a jump from last quarter’s 34%. CBRE said this is another 1.4 million square feet of occupancy loss (equating to an entire Salesforce Tower).

CBRE said 6.7 million square feet of office space flooded the market in San Fran this year – the second-worst year since 2020. This was primarily due to large sublease spaces being emptied.

Despite the flood of office space, asking rents have fallen too slowly to attract demand. In the last quarter, there was only a slight decline of 2.5% in asking rents.

Colin Yasukochi, executive director of CBRE’s Tech Insights Center, told the paper San Fran’s CRE market has yet to bottom and expects vacancy rates to rise through the first half of 2024.

Yasukochi noted, “The office market should stabilize and begin recovery as economic conditions improve and interest rates decline during the second half of 2024.”

Recent office tower sales in the downtown area have been absolutely disastrous:

In early November, the tower at 201 Spear St. sold for $60 million, or about half of its 2013 value, sources confirmed to the San Francisco Chronicle.

According to the Real Deal, the 14-story tower at 115 Sansome St. recently sold for $35 million, significantly less than its $83 million value in 2016.

Another Real Deal report from last month said the 13-story tower in the North Financial District, located on 550 California Street, sold for 60% off.

Market-clearing prices have been established in the metro area due to a combination of remote work, and an imploding metro area plagued with lawlessness, due mainly to failed social justice policies pushed by radical Democrats.

A recent Bloomberg survey of professional traders might be correct about what’s coming down the pipe:

Two-thirds of the 919 respondents believe the office tower market needs to crash before a rebound can be seen.
About half believe tower prices will trough in the second half of next year.

That much-needed, though extremely painful, cleansing of the over-abundance (and over-pricing) of office space in America may now be delayed – can-kicked – as despite a handful of Fed members in recent days trying to walk back the market’s high rate cut expectations, they just hit a new high of 158bps (more than 6 rate cuts).

What would prompt such a massive and sudden reversal by The Fed – a serious, sudden recession? And that won’t be good for CRE.

CRE turmoil is expected to worsen in the first half of 2024 despite this hope that interest rate cuts will save the day.

END

IIIB USA COMMENTARIES RE ISRAEL/HAMAS WAR/ and PERVASIVE ANTISEMITISM

NY Times Blasts Harvard’s Gay In Detailed Plagiarism Review As Scandal Spirals Out Of Control

THURSDAY, DEC 21, 2023 – 10:45 AM

The New York Times has come out with a scathing article, analyzing five instances of plagiarism committed by Harvard President Claudine Gay.

To review, Gay has been credibly accused of more than 40 acts of plagiarism during her tenure at Harvard – which the university secretly investigated, threatened journalists over, and ultimately concluded was no big deal – clearing her of breaching Harvard’s “standards for research misconduct.”

Not so fast…

The Times, looking at just five examples of Gay’s plagiarism, wrote: “her papers sometimes lift passages verbatim from other scholars and at other times make minor adjustments, like changing the word “adage” to “popular saying” or “Black male children” to “young black athletes.””

In one lengthy section, Dr. Gay discusses the formation of a coalition called the Unified Movement Against Racial Discrimination.

She describes the “expulsion of four young black athletes from the volleyball team of the Tiete Yacht Club because of their color.”

Three years earlier, David Covin, then a professor at California State University, Sacramento, wrote about “the dismissal of four Black male children from the volleyball team of the Tiete Yacht Club in May, 1978, because of their color.” His paper, “Afrocentricity in O Movimento Negro Unificado,” appeared in the Journal of Black Studies.

Dr. Gay’s paper does not attribute the passage about the athletes to Dr. Covin, who died this year, nor to a source whom Dr. Covin credited in his paper. Dr. Covin’s name does not appear in the suggested further reading at the end of the paper. –NY Times

Gay even plagiarized an acknowledgements section!

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And yet, now she’s ‘correcting’ a few things. So kids, if you get caught plagiarizing (and you’re a in a protected class), you get a do-over, or five.

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“It’s troubling to see the standards we apply to undergrads seem to differ the standards we apply to faculty,” Harvard professor of government and longtime liberal stalwart, Theda Skocpol, told the Times on Wednesday.

Meanwhile… it’s just getting worse and worse for Harvard and Gay.

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When does the scandal factor exceed wokeness quotient?

end

FREIGHT ISSUES/USA

END

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON

end

USA// COVID//VACCINE/

end

SWAMP STORIES

Jack Smith Requests Written Jury Questionnaire In Trump Classified Documents Case

WEDNESDAY, DEC 20, 2023 – 10:20 PM

Authored by Caden Pearson via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

On Tuesday, federal prosecutors asked the Florida judge presiding over former President Donald Trump’s classified documents trial to approve a written jury questionnaire ahead of an in-person selection process, given the high profile of the case.

In a Dec. 19 motion to U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, special prosecutor Jack Smith’s office said, “Because the pre-trial publicity surrounding this case is substantial, the Government recommends a thorough jury selection process, including a written questionnaire completed by potential jurors before in-person voir dire.”

The jury questionnaire would form part of a comprehensive jury selection process that prosecutors seek to expedite the selection process by identifying uncontested strikes for cause and hardship before in-person voir dire, a process in which potential jurors are screened to determine their impartiality.

Citing the high profile of the case, Mr. Smith’s office also argues that using a jury questionnaire in addition to in-person voir dire will safeguard President Trump’s Sixth Amendment right to a fair and efficient jury selection process. The motion suggests that a questionnaire will streamline the process by allowing the parties and the court to conduct informed individual questioning of a narrowed pool of potential jurors.

“A written questionnaire, used as part of a comprehensive voir dire process, is a potent tool to sift out potential jury bias in cases where there has been substantial media attention,” Mr. Smith’s office said in the filing.

The motion, noting the 10-week lead time needed in other cases, seeks a Feb. 2, 2024, deadline for the parties to submit a proposed jury questionnaire to Judge Cannon and highlight any disagreement points.

Prosecutors push for this date, noting that there might not be enough time to undertake this process before the May 20, 2024 trial date should they wait to start the process after the March 1, 2024, scheduling conference.

However, Judge Cannon cast doubt on the May 20 trial date in a prior order in November, which pushed back key pre-trial deadlines. The order also noted that the trial’s start date would be “considered at a scheduling conference” in March.

In their filing on Tuesday, prosecutors said that accomplishing the juror questionnaire “requires enough time beforehand to allow for meaningful conferral among the parties and for the Court to consider and resolve disputes.” Furthermore, “Time may also be required to print questionnaires and conduct other processing,” the motion added.

As an alternative to mailing the questionnaires, Mr. Smith’s office suggested that potential jurors could be summoned to the courthouse, acknowledging that this process would also require a lead time for the court to prepare ahead of the May trial date.

Trump Legal Team Opposes Motion

President Trump’s legal team opposes the motion on the grounds that “the relief sought is premature and would not be an economical use of the parties’ time before the court has ruled on discovery demands or other motions,” according to the filing by Mr. Smith’s office.

In June, the former president was indicted on federal charges in Florida of improperly storing sensitive documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate, according to a sweeping felony indictment.

President Trump entered a plea of not guilty in the case. He has consistently asserted that the case is part of an effort by Democrats to undermine his political prospects, given the significant lead he maintains in presidential primary polls.

The former president also faces charges by Mr. Smith’s office in Washington related to his post-election efforts to challenge the process and results of the 2020 election. He faces similar state charges in Georgia.

He also faces civil fraud charges in New York related to business records toward the end of the 2016 campaign. He has pleaded not guilty to those charges brought by a Democratic attorney general whom he has accused of bias against him.

President Trump has similarly accused the judge presiding over the New York civil case, Arthur Engoron, and his chief law clerk of political bias against him. Judge Engoron has already ruled that the defendants are liable, and the trial is meant to determine penalties and resolve other legal issues in the lawsuit.

END

Turley: SCOTUS Should Rule Unanimously Against Trump Ballot Ban

THURSDAY, DEC 21, 2023 – 09:25 AM

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

In his book Profiles of Courage, John F. Kennedy discussed figures who answered the call of history and how such defining moments are “an opportunity that sooner or later is presented to us all.” That moment will now be presented to nine justices of the United States Supreme Court after a divided decision of the Colorado Supreme Court to disqualify Donald Trump in the 2024 election.

The test for the U.S. Supreme Court is not just what they should do, but how they should do it.

As an institution, the Court is often called upon to seize such moments to bring unity and clarity on our core values. That is why this insidious opinion must not only be unequivocal but unanimous.

The Colorado decision to bar Donald Trump from the ballot will be overturned because it is wrong on the history and the language of the 14th Amendment.

Dead wrong.

The question is whether the US Supreme Court will speak with one voice, including the three liberal justices.

As with the three Democratic state justices who refused to sign off on the Colorado opinion, these federal justices can now bring a moment of unity not just for the court but the country in rejecting this shockingly anti-democratic theory.

For years, the disqualification theory has been treated like some abstract parlor game for law professors.

While Democrats called for the disqualification of 120 House members, it was treated as a fringe theory.

It has now lost its charm as a legal brain teaser.

As I have previously written, the disqualification of Trump is based on the use of a long-dormant provision in Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.

After the Civil War, House members were outraged to see Alexander Stephens, the Confederate vice president, seeking to take the oath with an array of other former Confederate senators and military officers.

They had all previously taken the same oath and then violated it to join a secession movement that claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans.

That was a true rebellion.

January 6, 2021, was a riot.

That does not excuse those who committed crimes that day — but it was not an insurrection.

The majority on the Colorado Supreme Court adopted sweeping interpretations of every element of the decision to find that Trump not only incited an insurrection, but can be disqualified under this provision.

It does not matter that Trump has never been charged with even incitement or that he called for his supporters to go to the Capitol to protest “peacefully.”

In finding that Trump led an actual insurrection, the four justices used speeches going back to 2016 to show an effort to rebel before Trump was ever president.

There are ample grounds to summarily toss this opinion to the side.

However, that would not answer the call of this historic moment.

What these four justices did was a direct assault on our democratic process in seeking to bar the most popular candidate in the upcoming election.

Whatever the view of Trump, this is a decision that should rest with the voters.

No only are these four justices seeking to bar the votes of millions of voters (even barring the counting of write-in votes), but they are doing so in the name of democracy.

It is the ballot cleansing that is usually associated with authoritarian countries like Iran, where voters are protected from “unworthy” candidates.

Justice Robert Jackson once observed that he and his colleagues “are not final because we are infallible, we are infallible because we are final.”

A decision on Colorado could put this theory to rest by the sheer finality of the appeal.

However, it is not the finality that is needed at this moment. We need clarity. Clarity of purpose and principle.

The Supreme Court plays a unique role in our system at times like these.

It must at times defy us in rejecting racism as cases such as Brown v. Board of Education.

At other times, it has protected in rejecting government overreach as in cases such as Katz v. United States, demanding warrants to overcome the reasonable expectation of privacy.

This is a time where it can unify us.

The court holds the ultimate “bully pulpit” that can educate citizens on what defines us as a people.

Most people understand intuitively that what these four justices did in Colorado was wrong.

However, the court can speak as one — conservatives and liberals — in reaffirming the core values discarded by these state justices.

In that sense, it may be the greatest test of Chief Justice John Roberts.

Roberts once observed that “the most successful chief justices help their colleagues speak with one voice.”

Past chief justices from John Marshall to Earl Warren struggled to secure unanimous votes on fundamental cases to reaffirm such defining values.

The court could help unify this country in a way that may be unparalleled in its history.

It can show that justices who hold vastly different ideological views can be unified on core principles.

It can remind us that, as citizens, the Constitution is ultimately not a covenant with the government but with each other.

It is a leap of faith that, as a free people, we can decide our shared destiny and protect our shared identity.

The moment has come for nine justices to speak in one voice.

An American voice that transcends the personalities and divisions of our time.

It is a voice that speaks not to what divides us but what defines us as a people.

end

Hindenburg right again: Tingo is a massive fraud

(zerohedge)

“Astonishing Audit Failure”: SEC Charges Tingo Group With “Massive Fraud”

THURSDAY, DEC 21, 2023 – 06:55 AM

The SEC charged Tingo Group, a Nigerian “agri-fintech” company with “massive fraud” this week, claiming that almost every aspect of the company – including its partners and its financials – was fabricated. Short seller Hindenburg Research had written about the company on June 6, calling it “an exceptionally obvious scam with completely fabricated financials”.

In a release out Monday, the SEC announced that it obtained a temporary asset freeze, restraining order, and other emergency relief against the company’s founder Dozy Mmobuosi for running an “alleged multi-year scheme to inflate the financial performance metrics of his companies and key operating subsidiaries to defraud investors worldwide”.

“Mmobuosi spearheaded a scheme to fabricate financial statements and other documents of the three entities, Tingo Group Inc., Agri-Fintech Holdings Inc., and Tingo International Holdings Inc. and their Nigerian operating subsidiaries,” the SEC wrote in a release earlier this week.

Among the more egregious examples of fraud the SEC alleged was the company claiming to have $461.7 million in cash when it had only $50 in its bank accounts:

Tingo Group’s fiscal year 2022 Form 10-K filed in March 2023 reported a cash and cash equivalent balance of $461.7 million in its subsidiary Tingo Mobile’s Nigerian bank accounts. In reality, those same bank accounts allegedly had a combined balance of less than $50 as of the end of fiscal year 2022.

“Defendants also fabricated the customer relationships that formed the basis of their purported businesses,” the SEC alleged. “Mmobuosi and the entities he controls have fraudulently obtained hundreds of millions in money or property through these schemes.”

Antonia M. Apps, Regional Director of the SEC’s New York Regional Office, commented: “As alleged, Mmobuosi spearheaded a brazen scheme using phony records and fictitious entities to make the Tingo companies he controlled appear highly profitable, so that he could hoodwink investors and reap massive benefits at their expense. We filed this emergency action to expose Mmobuosi’s fraud and hold him accountable, while protecting investors from further harm.”

Hindenburg’s Nathan Anderson noted that Deloitte Israel gave Tingo a clean audit opinion for 2022 and was seeking to work with the company for 2023. He called it an “astonishing audit failure” for a Big 4 firm.

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-0&features=eyJ0ZndfdGltZWxpbmVfbGlzdCI6eyJidWNrZXQiOltdLCJ2ZXJzaW9uIjpudWxsfSwidGZ3X2ZvbGxvd2VyX2NvdW50X3N1bnNldCI6eyJidWNrZXQiOnRydWUsInZlcnNpb24iOm51bGx9LCJ0ZndfdHdlZXRfZWRpdF9iYWNrZW5kIjp7ImJ1Y2tldCI6Im9uIiwidmVyc2lvbiI6bnVsbH0sInRmd19yZWZzcmNfc2Vzc2lvbiI6eyJidWNrZXQiOiJvbiIsInZlcnNpb24iOm51bGx9LCJ0ZndfZm9zbnJfc29mdF9pbnRlcnZlbnRpb25zX2VuYWJsZWQiOnsiYnVja2V0Ijoib24iLCJ2ZXJzaW9uIjpudWxsfSwidGZ3X21peGVkX21lZGlhXzE1ODk3Ijp7ImJ1Y2tldCI6InRyZWF0bWVudCIsInZlcnNpb24iOm51bGx9LCJ0ZndfZXhwZXJpbWVudHNfY29va2llX2V4cGlyYXRpb24iOnsiYnVja2V0IjoxMjA5NjAwLCJ2ZXJzaW9uIjpudWxsfSwidGZ3X3Nob3dfYmlyZHdhdGNoX3Bpdm90c19lbmFibGVkIjp7ImJ1Y2tldCI6Im9uIiwidmVyc2lvbiI6bnVsbH0sInRmd19kdXBsaWNhdGVfc2NyaWJlc190b19zZXR0aW5ncyI6eyJidWNrZXQiOiJvbiIsInZlcnNpb24iOm51bGx9LCJ0ZndfdXNlX3Byb2ZpbGVfaW1hZ2Vfc2hhcGVfZW5hYmxlZCI6eyJidWNrZXQiOiJvbiIsInZlcnNpb24iOm51bGx9LCJ0ZndfdmlkZW9faGxzX2R5bmFtaWNfbWFuaWZlc3RzXzE1MDgyIjp7ImJ1Y2tldCI6InRydWVfYml0cmF0ZSIsInZlcnNpb24iOm51bGx9LCJ0ZndfbGVnYWN5X3RpbWVsaW5lX3N1bnNldCI6eyJidWNrZXQiOnRydWUsInZlcnNpb24iOm51bGx9LCJ0ZndfdHdlZXRfZWRpdF9mcm9udGVuZCI6eyJidWNrZXQiOiJvbiIsInZlcnNpb24iOm51bGx9fQ%3D%3D&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1736779735626080558&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fmarkets%2Fastonishing-audit-failure-sec-charges-tingo-group-massive-fraud&sessionId=4d6da4ec8777c83b4c2dd7f0d5bb4d84578e6a5e&siteScreenName=zerohedge&theme=light&widgetsVersion=2615f7e52b7e0%3A1702314776716&width=550px

“We think Tingo is a worthless and brazen fraud that should serve as a humiliating embarrassment for all involved,” Hindenburg wrote at the end of their June report. Tingo responded shortly thereafter that the Hindenburg report was full of “misleading and libellous content”.

You can read the full SEC complaint against Tingo here.

END

Giuliani Files For Bankruptcy After $148 Million Verdict

THURSDAY, DEC 21, 2023 – 01:40 PM

In the latest legal attack on Trumpworld and anyone who might support the former President (or dare question the results of the 2020 election), Rudy Giuliani filed for bankruptcy on Thursday after being ordered to pay more than $148 million to a mother-daughter duo of Georgia election workers whom he accused of manipulating ballots in the 2020 election.

Giuliani’s Chapter 11 petition, filed in US bankruptcy court in New York, lists debts up to $500 million and assets up to $10 million. This should give the former mayor some breathing room after being swamped with legal bills in multiple courtrooms.

“The filing should be a surprise to no one,” said Heath Berger and Gary Fischoff, Giuliani’s bankruptcy attorneys, in a statement reported by Bloomberg, adding that Chapter 11 protection allows Giuliani to appeal the case in Georgia.

The bankruptcy filing was spurred by the Dec. 15 verdict that found Giuliani must pay Ruby Freeman and her daughter Wandrea “Shaye” Moss $148 million for harm to their reputations and other impacts, including lost wages and mental anguish.

“The lies Rudy Giuliani told about me and my mommy,” Moss said in front of the courthouse after the verdict, “have changed our lives.”

Giuliani’s lawyer, Joseph Sibley VI, told the court last week that an award of that scale would be the civil equivalent to the death penalty.

As the lawsuits mount, Giuliani has been struggling financially and was forced to unload his apartment on Manhattan’s Upper East Side Giuliani for $6.5 million in July.

In September, Giuliani was sued by the law firm representing him for $1.4 million in unpaid legal fees.

As noted above, Giuliani is the latest in a long line of former President Trump associates who have faced political prosecution and the weaponization of the justice system by Democratic party adversaries, aimed at not only driving them into bankruptcy but also preventing them from seeking future public office.

THE KING REPORT

GREG HUNTER

SEE YOU ON FRIDAY

Tags: economy, gold, investing, precious-metals, silver


The King Report December 21, 2023 Issue 7144	Independent View of the News
NBC: Xi warned Biden during summit that Beijing will reunify Taiwan with China Dec. 20, 2023, 4:00 AM CST Chinese President Xi Jinping bluntly told President Joe Biden during their recent summit in San Francisco that Beijing will reunify Taiwan with mainland China but that the timing has not yet been decided, according to three current and former U.S. officials. Xi told Biden in a group meeting attended by a dozen American and Chinese officials that China’s preference is to take Taiwan peacefully, not by force, the officials said… (No market reaction on release) https://nypost.com/2023/12/20/news/xi-told-biden-he-plans-to-take-taiwan-peacefully-if-possible/ Spirited equity liquidation appeared on Wednesday afternoon as big players dumped stocks ahead of their Christmas vacations. Fangs, which have been on fire, led the decline. Bonds rallied moderately; perhaps on some defensive asset allocation. Gold declined modestly while silver and platinum rallied a tad. ESHs opened a tad lower and then traded sideways during early Nikkei trading. They turned positive near 21:25 ET but traded flat until they broke down at the 3 ET European opening. ESHs traded sideways with a slight downward bias until they bottomed at 4807.50 near 9:24 ET. Conditioned buying for and after the NYSE opening pushed ESHs to a daily high of 4830.75 at 12:57 ET. ESHs and stocks then did a slow roll over until they collapsed after the 15:15 ET VIX Fix. From Wednesday’s King Report: Tuesday was the last trading session for December VIX options; today is settlement. Ergo, there could be some scheme into the 14:15 ET VIX Fix. Be alert for a reversal of any move into the VIX Fix. ESHs plunged to 4761.00 (-69.75 from high) at 15:07 ET. Traders then charged into ESHs for the late manipulation. ESHs jumped to 4782.75 at 15:17 ET. Selling resumed; ESHs fell to a new low of 4759.75 at 15:36 ET. Traders again played for a late up move. After a modest rally, ESHs sank to a new low of 4743.25 (-87.50 from high) at 16:03 ET. The post-VIX Fix December Settlement equity liquidation ignited momentum selling, and for the first time in weeks, some fear of the downside. Positive aspects of previous session Bonds rallied almost one point Negative aspects of previous session S&P 500 Index had biggest decline (1.47%) since Sept 26; NY Fang+ Index -1.51%; Nasdaq -1.5% Ambiguous aspects of previous session Commodities were mixed First Hour/Last Hour Action [S&P 500 Index]: 1st Hour from NYSE Open: Up; Last Hour: Down Pivot Point for S&P 500 Index [above/below indicates daily trend to traders]: 4724.73 Previous session S&P 500 Index High/Low: 4778.01; 4797.82 France passes controversial immigration bill – The bill aimed at tightening immigration rules was passed without the need for far-right votes, despite major opposition. The government decided to weaken measures that would have allowed some immigrants residency permits… also agreed to extend the duration of stay in France for migrants to be eligible to access welfare benefits… access to housing benefits will be also be delayed for unemployed non-EU migrants by five years. In order to gain the support of the right, the government has also introduced migration quotas which will make it more difficult for immigrants’ children to become French… https://www.dw.com/en/france-passes-controversial-immigration-bill/a-67772998 House #3 Leader GOP Rep. EliseStefanik: *The Obama Administration considered 1,000 illegal border crossings a day a “crisis.” There were over 12,600 illegal immigrant encounters on Monday*. This is more than a crisis. It’s an invasion. Here is a very simple but extremely useful trading tool/model: The 3-day EMA with 10-day EMA S&P 500 Index with 3-day Exponential Moving Average and 10-day Exponential Moving Average Aggressive traders can buy/sell when the underlying vehicle moves above/below the 10-day EMA. Cautious traders can move when the 3-day EMA moves above/below the 10-day EMA. Astute traders realize that due to the historical upward bias of the stock market, buy signals can be acted upon more aggressively while sell signals often need confirmation. Ergo, buy on an underlying upward 10-day EMA breach; sell when the 3-day EMA falls below the 10-day EMA. Today – The first significant equity decline in weeks appeared on Wednesday. Today’s action will reveal if there has been any change in equity trader psychology. Absenteeism will increase; markets will be thin. The usual suspects will continue to play equities on the long side. The key for today will be the presence or absence of large players that want to liquidate ahead of vacation and those that fear short-term psychology might have changed for stocks. Yesterday, the S&P 500 Index low was 46978.82. Bulls will try to push the index safely above 4700 to generate enthusiasm for stocks. ESHs are +8.50; USHs are +3/32; and Feb AU is -1.80 at 20:08 ET. Expected economic data: Q3 GDP 5.2%, Consumption 3.6%, GDP Price Index 3.6%, Core PCE Price Index 2.3%; Initial Jobless Claims 215k, Continuing Claims 1.88m; Dec Phil Fed Business Outlook -3.0; Nov LEI 0.5%; Dec KC Fed Mfg. Activity -4 S&P 500 Index 50-day MA: 4453; 100-day MA: 4434; 150-day MA: 4416; 200-day MA: 4328 DJIA 50-day MA: 34,839; 100-day MA: 34,640; 150-day MA: 34,463; 200-day MA: 34,136 (Green is positive slope; Red is negative slope) S&P 500 Index – Trender trading model and MACD for key time frames Monthly: Trender and MACD are positive – a close below 3919.56 triggers a sell signal Weekly: Trender and MACD are positive – a close below 4424.99 triggers a sell signal Daily: Trender and MACD are positive – a close below 4676.42 triggers a sell signal Hourly: Trender and MACD are negative – a close above 4783.14 triggers a buy signal There’s A Direct Line between Joe Biden’s Deep State and Trump Getting Removed from Colorado’s Ballot – Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) President and CEO Noah Bookbinder is a member of the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Homeland Security Advisory Council (HSAC) tasked with giving real-time advice to DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, the DHS website says… Bookbinder is a former trial attorney for the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) public integrity section and former chief counsel for criminal justice for the Senate Judiciary Committee. He repeatedly donated to former President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign during his tenure with the Senate, Federal Elections Commission (FEC) records show… https://dailycaller.com/2023/12/20/joe-biden-dhs-trump-removed-colorado-ballot/ GOP Sen. @marcorubio: The U.S. has put sanctions on other countries for doing exactly what the Colorado Supreme Court has done today GOP Sen. @JDVance1: Foreign leaders now condemning the extraordinary and insane move by Colorado to remove the frontrunner from the ballot. This is a dangerous moment for our country. If this happened in Russia or China, there would be bipartisan condemnation. GOP Rep. @laurenboebert: *The Left is trying to destroy any semblance of a free and fair election.* If the liberal Colorado Supreme Court’s ruling stands, our country as we know it is over. America was founded on a government that is free from tyranny. I do have hope that this will be a massive wake up call for all those who forget how fragile our freedoms truly are! TURLEY: “This country is a powder keg and this court is just throwing matches at it… for people that say they are trying to protect democracy, this is hands down the most anti-democratic opinion I’ve seen in my lifetime.” https://t.co/g9bz6JWmbb @RonDeSantis: *The Left invokes “democracy” to justify its use of power, even if it means abusing judicial power* to remove a candidate from the ballot based on spurious legal grounds… @theblaze: DeSantis reacts to Colorado Supreme Court power grab: “There was no trial on any of this. Could we just say that Biden can’t be on the ballot because he let in 8 million illegals into the country and violated the Constitution?” https://twitter.com/theblaze/status/1737506077674016981 Attorney @DC_Draino: If Colorado is taking Trump off the ballot, Florida and Texas should take Biden off the ballot. Allowing 8M+ illegal aliens into America is the greatest form of insurrection. See how slippery this slope gets? @RobertKennedyJr: Trump blocked from the ballot in Colorado. When a court in another country disqualifies an opposition candidate from running, we say, “That’s not a real democracy.” Now it’s happening here. @DavidGiglioCA: People saying you shouldn’t worry about the Colorado ruling because it’s going to get overturned by SCOTUS are missing the plot. *The fact that a Supreme Court in any state was willing to make such an egregious ruling is horrifying. The courts are turning away from the law in favor of activism.* Ex-DJT advisor @StephenM: Using the Left’s rules: *1. Biden can be removed from the ballot for orchestrating the border invasion* *2. Biden officials can be criminally prosecuted in state and federal court for their border crimes* *3. Biden and his co-conspirators can be held civilly liable for the open border* Ex liberal icon @ggreenwald: As Biden collapses in the polls, and Trump rises, Democrats are going to resort to increasingly desperate — and anti-democratic — means to ensure Trump can’t run, all while they insist that only they are the Guardians of Democracy. This is playing with real fire: @charliekirk11: Joe Biden responds to the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision to remove Trump from the 2024 ballot: “He certainly supported an insurrection. No question about it. None. Zero. He seems to be doubling down on about everything.” https://twitter.com/charliekirk11/status/1737528251692851635 @AriFleischer: If Biden were smart, he’d denounce the CO Supreme Court ruling. He’d call it wrong and show confidence he can win without throwing Trump off the ballot. But he won’t do that because he is too afraid of the progressive left and too weak to stand up to them. BBG @business: Biden in Milwaukee accuses Trump and Republicans of embracing economic policies that hurt Black Americans. (Dems are conditioned to play the race card when they are in trouble.) @RNCResearch: *Biden demonstrates his VIGOR by half-jogging a single step.* (He does this regularly when the cameras are on him.) https://twitter.com/RNCResearch/status/1737520026771493172 @VernonForGA: @BaracObama is the cause and the reason of election interference, by allowing the FBI (@Comey) and the DOJ to carry out surveillance of a presidential candidate, including lying to a FISA court, and setting a trap for General Flynn. They were trying to help @HillaryClinton win. And when Trump won, Democrats in congress wanted to pick the president. Day one they colluded with the FBI and the media in their attempt to oust Trump. Things will never be the same, including the courts, military, CDC, Homeland Security, and last but not least, the media. Black political scientist & author Dr. Carol M. Swain @carolmswain: Here’s the mugshot of the man (Obama) who fundamentally changed America using tactics from the Marxist playbook. Marxists have perfected the art of elevating certain minorities to help them to their dirty work. https://twitter.com/carolmswain/status/1737515860225593770 Opinion: Biden ‘finishing the job’ for his predecessor *The Barack Obama of 2008 routinely pledged on the campaign trail to “fundamentally change America as we know it.” In many ways, he succeeded…* https://www.peoriatimes.com/opinion/article_79049176-0c5d-11ec-bb54-d38d15935d89.html ABC investigative reporter @wsteaks: New: Speaker Mike Johnson and daughter were profiled attending ‘purity ball’ in 2015 German TV news segment https://twitter.com/wsteaks/status/1737533906394460364 @greg_price11: *The idea of a parent encouraging their daughter to wait until marriage is more objectionable to the media than a parent turning their kid trans.*