THE DAILY NEWS

thelivyjr
Site Admin
Posts: 73429
Joined: Thu Aug 30, 2018 1:40 p

Re: THE DAILY NEWS

Post by thelivyjr »

CNBC

"U.S Treasury yields move higher on Pelosi’s Taiwan visit"


Silvia Amaro @SILVIA_AMARO

PUBLISHED TUE, AUG 2 2022

U.S. government debt prices traded lower Tuesday morning as investors considered the outlook on future interest rate hikes and monitored U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Asia.

At around 4:20 p.m. ET, the yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note rose to 2.756% and the yield on the 30-year Treasury bond rose to 3.015%.

Yields move inversely to prices.

Traders absorbed comments from Chicago Fed President Charles Evans, who said Tuesday that the Federal Reserve could proceed with 50 or 75 basis point rate hikes at the central bank’s September meeting should inflation continue to tick lower.

“If you really thought things weren’t improving...50 is a reasonable assessment but 75 could also be okay."

"I doubt that more would be called for,” Evans said.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury note climbed on the back of those comments.

Investors are questioning whether the Federal Reserve will have to reduce the pace of monetary tightening, given that several economic readings have shown the United States economy is slowing down.

Investors are also monitoring Tuesday U.S.-China relations as Pelosi is expected to meet with Taiwanese officials despite objections from China.

St. Louis Fed President James Bullard is addressing an audience at 6:45 p.m. ET.

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/02/us-trea ... visit.html
thelivyjr
Site Admin
Posts: 73429
Joined: Thu Aug 30, 2018 1:40 p

Re: THE DAILY NEWS

Post by thelivyjr »

REUTERS

"TREASURIES-U.S. yields advance on hawkish Fed rhetoric; nervousness around Pelosi's Taiwan trip eases"


By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss

AUGUST 2, 2022

* U.S. 10-year rises from four-month low

* Fed officials walk back dovish Powell comments post-FOMC

* U.S. 2/10-year yield curve hits deepest inversion since
2000

* U.S. 3-month/10-year briefly inverts, last steeper on the
day


NEW YORK, Aug 2 (Reuters) - U.S. Treasury yields rose across the board on Tuesday in volatile trading, lifted by hawkish comments from Federal Reserve officials that suggested more rate hikes are coming in the near term, as inflation has yet to hit its peak.

Worries about global tension arising from U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan eased a bit, with the U.S. official landing safely in its capital Taipei, analysts said.

The front end and intermediate part of the curve increased sharply, from anywhere between 16 to 20 basis points.

U.S. two-year yields, which reflect rate expectations, rose to one-week highs and were last up 16.6 bps 3.0753%.

The U.S. benchmark 10-year yield rallied from a four-month low of 2.516% to last trade 13 bps higher at 2.7355%.

On Tuesday, two of the Fed's more "dovish" policymakers -- San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly and Chicago Fed President Charles Evans -- signaled they and their colleagues remain resolute and "completely united" on getting U.S. interest rates up to a level that will more significantly curb economic activity.

Cleveland Fed President Loretta Mester, a voting member of the Federal Open Market Committee this year, also joined the chorus of officials, who believe more needs to be done to curb inflation.

Their comments came after Fed Chair Jerome Powell suggested that the central bank could slow the pace of its rate increases in coming months if there is evidence that tighter monetary policy is taming the worst U.S. inflation in four decades.

"The bond market is reacting to comments by Fed officials that just directly address the initial market reaction to the rate decision last week."

"It seemed like some market participants viewed the decision as somewhat dovish," said Chip Hughey, managing director, fixed income, at Truist Advisory Services in Richmond, Virginia.

"We did not view it that way."

"The main change is the idea that the Fed would remove a level of transparency in its future policy news because data is evolving quickly."

"To telegraph policy far ahead of time is very difficult when each inflation reading carries so much importance," he added.

The focus on Pelosi's Taiwan trip, while important because of the geopolitical implications, eased a bit, as investors surmised that a diplomatic resolution will somehow be worked out.

Pelosi arrived in Taiwan late Tuesday on a trip she said demonstrates American solidarity with the Chinese-claimed self-ruled island, but China condemned this first such visit in 25 years as a threat to peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait.

"I think this will be a tail event that will happen, but will go away," said Jay Hatfield, chief investment officer at Infrastructure Capital Management in New York.

"There will probably be some diplomatic flurries that won't matter much to U.S. markets."

China has repeatedly warned against Pelosi going to Taiwan, while the United States said on Monday it would not be intimidated by Chinese "sabre rattling".

Longer-dated Treasuries were well-bid earlier in the session since weakening U.S. economic data has markets expecting a slowdown in both U.S. growth and the pace of rate hikes.

The U.S. 10-year yield's fall earlier briefly pushed the gap over three-month Treasury yields to -1.6 basis points.

That curve was last steeper on the day at 20.10 bps.

Another closely-watched part of the Treasury yield curve measuring the spread between yields on two- and 10-year notes deepened its inversion to -35.50 basis points earlier on Tuesday, the most inverted since 2000.

That gap was last at -33.9 bps.

An inversion of this yield curve typically foreshadows recession.

(Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss; Additional reporting by Dhara Ranasinghe in London and Tom Westbrook in Singapore; Editing by Christina Fincher and David Holmes)

https://www.reuters.com/article/usa-bon ... SL1N2ZE1KZ
thelivyjr
Site Admin
Posts: 73429
Joined: Thu Aug 30, 2018 1:40 p

Re: THE DAILY NEWS

Post by thelivyjr »

REUTERS

"Wall Street dips, dollar gains on economic, geopolitical concerns"


By Stephen Culp

August 2, 2022

Summary

* Flight to safety boosts dollar

* Crude up slightly ahead of OPEC+ meeting

* Pelosi Taiwan visit fuels geopolitical tensions

* Report hints at easing U.S. jobs market


NEW YORK, Aug 2 (Reuters) - U.S. stocks ended a choppy session lower on Tuesday, while the dollar rallied as risk appetite was dampened by economic uncertainties and escalating U.S.-China tensions.

All three major U.S. stock indexes closed red, with the blue-chip Dow faring worst.

Economically sensitive transports underperformed the broader market.

Meanwhile, the safe-haven greenback had a better day than most asset classes, jumping 0.8% against a basket of world currencies.

U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi's arrival in Taipei, despite warnings from Beijing, prompted Chinese war planes to buzz the Taiwan Strait in protest.

"There is the uncertainty surrounding Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan and there’s additional data, regarding economic softness," said Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist of CFRA Research in New York.

"Regarding recession, it’s not a question of 'if' but 'when and how deep.'"

On the economic front, a report from the Labor Department showed job openings in the United States dropped by 5.4% in June, a sign that the labor market is easing amid softening demand.

That softening demand for workers could translate to cooling wage inflation, and analysts expect Friday's employment report to show hourly earnings growth cooled 0.2 percentage point last month to 4.9%.

Still, comments by Fed officials suggested more interest rate hikes are in the offing.

"What’s happening in the markets is a push-and-pull about where we are economically," said Paul Nolte, portfolio manager at Kingsview Asset Management in Chicago.

"It’s a matter of whether the Fed continue to raise rates to fight inflation or pivot and stop raising rates as the economy weakens."

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 402.23 points, or 1.23%, to 32,396.17, the S&P 500 lost 27.44 points, or 0.67%, to 4,091.19 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 20.22 points, or 0.16%, to 12,348.76.

Weak economic data and rising Sino-U.S. tensions also pulled European stocks to a lower close.

The pan-European STOXX 600 index lost 0.32% and MSCI's gauge of stocks across the globe shed 0.93%.

Emerging market stocks lost 1.25%.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan closed 1.26% lower, while Japan's Nikkei lost 1.42%.

U.S. Treasury yields edged higher amid volatile trading, hawkish comments from the Fed helped investors look past the brewing geopolitical turmoil over Pelosi's Taiwan visit.

Benchmark 10-year notes last fell 43/32 in price to yield 2.761%, from 2.605% late on Monday.

The 30-year bond last fell about 3/4 in price to yield 3.0268%, from 2.925% late on Monday.

Crude prices advanced ahead of the OPEC+ meeting of oil producers expected this week, who could opt against increasing global crude supply amid signs of waning demand.

U.S. crude rose 0.56% to settle at $94.42 per barrel, while Brent settled at $100.54 per barrel, up 0.51% on the day.

The dollar reversed recent losses against a basket of world currencies.

The dollar index rose 0.79%, with the euro down 0.93% to $1.0166.

The Japanese yen weakened 1.12% versus the greenback at 133.13 per dollar, while sterling was last trading at $1.2166, down 0.67% on the day.

Gold reversed earlier gains to snap its four-day winning streak.

Spot gold dropped 0.6% to $1,761.29 an ounce.

Reporting by Stephen Culp in New York; Additional reporting by Tom Wilson; Editing by Nick Zieminski and Matthew Lewis

https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/ ... 022-08-02/
thelivyjr
Site Admin
Posts: 73429
Joined: Thu Aug 30, 2018 1:40 p

Re: THE DAILY NEWS

Post by thelivyjr »

CNBC

"Fed’s Daly says ‘our work is far from done’ on inflation; Evans sees ‘reasonable’ chance for smaller hike"


Jeff Cox @JEFF.COX.7528 @JEFFCOXCNBCCOM

PUBLISHED TUE, AUG 2 2022

KEY POINTS

* The Federal Reserve still has a lot of work to do before it gets inflation under control, San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly said.

* Daly said no one should read recent big rate increases as an indication that the central bank is winding down its rate hikes.

* Chicago Fed President Charles Evans said raising another half point in September is “reasonable” but another three-quarter point hike “could also be OK.”


The Federal Reserve still has a lot of work to do before it gets inflation under control, and that means higher interest rates, San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly said Tuesday.

“People are still struggling with the higher prices they’re paying and the rising prices,” Daly said during a live LinkedIn interview with CNBC’s Jon Fortt.

“The number of people who can’t afford this week what they paid for with ease six months ago just means our work is far from done.”


Separately, Chicago Fed President Charles Evans opened up the possibility of another large rate hike ahead, but said he hopes that can be avoided, with the Fed being able to bring down inflation without having to use harsh policy tightening.

So far this year, the central bank has raised its benchmark interest rate four times, totaling 2.25 percentage points.

That has come in response to inflation running at a 9.1% annual rate, the highest level since November 1981.

The Fed in July raised its funds rate 0.75 percentage point, the same as it hiked in June.

Those were the largest back-to-back increases since the central bank started using the funds rate as its chief monetary policy tool in the early 1990s.

But Daly cautioned that no one should take those big moves as an indication that the Fed is winding down its rate hikes.

“Nowhere near almost done,” she said in assessing the progress.

“We have made a good start and I feel really pleased with where we’ve gotten to at this point.”

Futures pricing indicates the markets see the Fed raising rates by 0.5 percentage point in September and another half percentage point through the end of the year, taking the funds rate to a range of 3.25%-3.5%, according to CME Group data.

That scenario holds that the economy would slow due to the policy tightening, and the Fed would start cutting rates by next summer.

But Daly pushed back on that notion.

“That’s a puzzle to me,” she said.

“I don’t know where they find that in the data."


"To me, that would not be my modal outlook.”

Evans, her Fed colleague, also spoke Tuesday morning, saying the central bank is likely to keep its foot on the brake until it sees inflation coming down.

He expects policymakers to raise rates by half a percentage point at their next meeting in September, but left the door open to a bigger move.

“Fifty [basis points] is a reasonable assessment, but 75 could also be OK,” he told reporters.

“I doubt that more would be called for.”

A basis point is 0.01 percentage point.

“We wanted to get to neutral expeditiously."

"We want to get a little restrictive expeditiously,” Evans added.

“We want to see if the real side effects are going to start coming back in line ... or if we have a lot more ahead of us.”

However, he also said he’s hopeful that policymakers could soon pause the rate hikes as inflation comes down.

Neither Evans nor Daly are voting members this year on the rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee, though they do participate in policy sessions.

The FOMC does not meet in August, when it will hold its annual symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

Its next two-day meeting is next month, Sept. 20-21.

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/02/feds-da ... ation.html
thelivyjr
Site Admin
Posts: 73429
Joined: Thu Aug 30, 2018 1:40 p

Re: THE DAILY NEWS

Post by thelivyjr »

REUTERS

"U.S. job openings fall to nine-month low; labor market holds tight"


By Lucia Mutikani

August 2, 2022

Summary

* Job openings drop 605,000 to 10.7 million in June

* Retail, wholesale trade account for decline in vacancies

* Quits little changed at 4.2 million; layoffs decrease


WASHINGTON, Aug 2 (Reuters) - U.S. job openings fell by the most in just over two years in June as demand for workers eased in the retail and wholesale trade industries, but overall the labor market remains tight, allowing the Federal Reserve to continue raising interest rates.

Despite the larger-than-expected decrease in vacancies reported by the Labor Department in its Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, or JOLTS report, on Tuesday, the jobs market still favors workers.

At least 4.2 million workers voluntarily quit their jobs in June and layoffs declined.

Job openings are among several metrics being closely watched by Fed officials.

The U.S. central bank has been delivering hefty interest rate hikes in its war against inflation, pushing the economy to the brink of a recession.

"The labor market may be cooling off, but the temperature decline is far from a plunge," said Nick Bunker, director of economic research at Indeed Hiring Lab in Washington.

"The outlook for economic growth may not be as rosy as it was a few months ago, but there's no sign of imminent danger in the labor market."

Job openings, a measure of labor demand, were down 605,000 to 10.7 million on the last day of June, the fewest since September 2021, the JOLTS report showed.

June's decline was the largest since April 2020, when the economy was reeling from the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Job openings have been declining since scaling a record high of 11.9 million in March.

Still, job openings are nowhere near the low levels seen during the Great Recession 13 years ago.

Economists polled by Reuters had forecast 11.0 million vacancies.

The Fed is trying to dampen demand for labor and the overall economy to bring inflation down to its 2% target.

The central bank last week raised its policy rate by another three-quarters of a percentage point.

It has now hiked that rate by 225 basis points since March.

The economy contracted 1.3% in the first half of the year.

Wild swings in inventories and the trade deficit tied to snarled global supply chains have been largely to blame, though overall economic momentum has cooled.

Stocks on Wall Street were mixed.

The dollar rose against a basket of currencies.

U.S. Treasury prices fell.

NOT RECESSIONARY

Job openings decreased by 343,000 in the retail trade sector.

The wholesale trade industry had 82,000 fewer vacancies, while state and local government education reported a reduction of 62,000 in openings.

Construction, which is highly sensitive to interest rates, saw job openings decrease by 71,000.

There were modest declines in manufacturing and leisure and hospitality.

Job openings were little changed in professional and business services, and edged up in financial activities.

While vacancies fell in all four regions, the decrease was more pronounced in the technology-heavy West, where companies have been laying off workers and rescinding job offers.

Hiring slipped to 6.4 million from 6.5 million in May.

In June, there were 1.8 jobs for every unemployed person.

The jobs-workers gap fell to 2.9% of the labor force from 3.3% in May.

It is down from its peak of 3.6% of the labor force in March, an improvement economists at Goldman Sachs said suggested wage growth should slow in the second half of the year.

Annual wage growth in the second quarter was the fastest since 2001.

In June, about 4.2 million people quit their jobs, down from 4.3 million in May.

The quits rate, viewed by policymakers and economists as a measure of job market confidence, was unchanged at 2.8%.

There was a modest rise in resignations in manufacturing, retail and wholesale trade industries.

But fewer workers quit in financial activities, professional services as well as leisure and hospitality.

More people resigned in the South, while fewer did so in the Northeast, Midwest and West.

Layoffs slipped to 1.3 million from 1.4 million in May.

The layoffs rate was unchanged at 0.9%.

Layoffs rose in construction, but dropped in wholesale and retail trade as well as financial services.

"The JOLTS report on the whole is one of many labor market indicators that don't look 'recessionary' despite more downbeat signals coming out of some other economic indicators," said Daniel Silver, an economist at JPMorgan in New York.

Reporting by Lucia Mutikani; Editing by Paul Simao and Chizu Nomiyama

https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/us-j ... 022-08-02/
thelivyjr
Site Admin
Posts: 73429
Joined: Thu Aug 30, 2018 1:40 p

Re: THE DAILY NEWS

Post by thelivyjr »

BUSINESS INSIDER

"EXCLUSIVE: Cassidy Hutchinson kept working for Donald Trump for nine weeks after he left the White House, government records show"


dlevinthal@insider.com (Dave Levinthal,C. Ryan Barber)

1 AUGUST 2022

* Insider sued the Biden administration for records identifying Trump's post-presidency staff members.

* Cassidy Hutchinson kept working for Trump after he left the White House, newly released documents indicate.

* Hutchinson provided dramatic anti-Trump testimony before the House’s January 6 select committee.


Cassidy Hutchinson, the former Trump White House aide who emerged as a star witness for the US House committee investigating the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, continued working on the former president's behalf for nine weeks after he left office, according to government records exclusively obtained by Insider.

Hutchinson served as a "coordinator" for Trump's official, taxpayer-funded post-presidential office from about January 20, 2021, to April 1, 2021, earning an annualized salary of $90,000, the General Services Administration documents state.


The documents establish that Hutchinson continued to earn a government paycheck for work in support of Trump for weeks after she witnessed his actions — and lack of action — on January 6, 2021, even as other colleagues soon thereafter resigned.

Hutchinson's whereabouts immediately after January 6 have been the subject of considerable scrutiny and uncertainty.

Bloomberg reported days after the attack that Hutchinson might join Trump in Florida, but Trump has stated he hardly knew her and turned her down.

The Washington Post in June reported that Hutchinson did not have a full-time job after her White House tenure ended.

"Why did she want to go with us if she felt we were so terrible?" Trump wrote on Truth Social after Hutchinson's testimony last month.

"I understand that she was very upset and angry that I didn't want her to go, or be a member of the team."

"She is bad news!"

Trump, who refused to concede he lost the 2020 presidential election to now-President Joe Biden, asked thousands of his supporters gathered that day for a rally in Washington, DC, to march on the US Capitol to protest Congress' certification of states' electoral votes.

The mob then attacked the Capitol in Trump's name — with deadly results.

"As an American, I was disgusted."

"It was unpatriotic."

"It was un-American," Hutchinson, who served as a trusted aide to White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, testified before the January 6 committee on June 28.

"We were watching the Capitol building get defaced over a lie."

"And it was something that was really hard in that moment to digest knowing what I'd been hearing down the hall in the conversations that were happening."

Hutchinson's testimony included vivid descriptions of Trump's efforts on January 6 to rally protestors — including those he knew were armed — and efforts to personally join the mob that attacked the Capitol.

Trump argued with Secret Service agents who refused to drive him there from the Ellipse near the National Mall, and then, enraged, threw his lunch at a White House wall upon returning to the presidential residence, Hutchinson testified.

Hutchinson is now cooperating with the parallel investigation by the Justice Department, which contacted her following her June appearance before the House January 6 committee.

Hutchinson and her lawyers did not respond to Insider's requests for comment.

FOIA lawsuit seeks Trump records

Insider obtained the documents disclosing Hutchinson's identity as part of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed against the US General Services Administration in October 2021.

The news organization, which initially filed its FOIA requests in early 2021, said the Biden administration-led GSA was in violation of federal law by failing to publicly release a full accounting of staff members for the post-presidency offices of both Trump and former Vice President Mike Pence.

While the GSA has since released some staffers' names, it continues to withhold others.

Until now, Hutchinson's identity was among those withheld.

Releasing the withheld names risked "exposing the staffers to unwanted intrusions and potential harassment," according to a July 29 statement filed in US District Court for the District of Columbia on the GSA's behalf by Department of Justice attorneys.

The signatories included US Attorney Matthew Graves, who Biden nominated.

GSA Associate General Counsel Daniel F. Hall likewise wrote that, "on balance, each staffer's privacy interest in non-disclosure outweighed the public's interest in disclosure."

But "in light of media coverage" involving Hutchinson, "voluntary release of [her] name is appropriate at this particular time," Hall wrote in a letter to Insider.

The letter, included in the Biden administration's July 29 court filing, identified Hutchinson as a one-time Trump post-presidential transition team staff member.

"Cassidy Hutchinson's name was released because of media coverage following her testimony before Congress — not because of her role ("coordinator") on the transition," Graves and two colleagues separately wrote to the court.

The government documents do not specify what kind of work Hutchinson performed while serving as a member of Trump's post-presidency office, formally known as the "Presidential Transition Support Team, 2021 Outgoing Transition."

The documents do indicate that Hutchinson did her work from Arlington, Virginia, across the Potomac River from Washington, DC, and not Palm Beach, Florida.

A handful of other post-presidency staffers worked from Florida while Trump resided at his Mar-a-Lago resort after leaving the White House.

During this period between January 20, 2021, and April 1, 2021, Trump's post-presidency period had already hit extreme turbulence.

The US House impeached him for a second time in two years, with the Senate voting to acquit him — and quashing Democrats' hope of denying him the right to ever again run for federal office.

But Democrats, and a few Republicans, too, had already initiated efforts at the local, state, and federal levels to investigate Trump's role in the January 6 attacks specifically, and attempts to undermine the 2020 presidential election, broadly.

Inside Trump's post-presidency office

In all, Trump's post-presidency office featured 17 staff members who earned publicly funded salaries, including two of Trump's top White House aides: Stephen Miller and Dan Scavino.

But as recently as early June, the Biden administration argued in federal court that there was "no discernible public interest" in disclosing the identities of three of these staffers — including the one now known to be Hutchinson — who earned taxpayer-funded paychecks working for Trump after he left office.

The government has similarly blocked Insider's efforts to learn the identities of three staffers who separately worked for former Vice President Mike Pence's post-presidential office.

Department of Justice lawyers in June justified withholding the staffers' identities by arguing the individuals' work for Trump or Pence "appears to be low-level."

They further asserted that "the individuals at issue are not public figures" and "their identities are not well-known to the public."

The identities of five other Trump or Pence post-presidency office staffers remain unknown.

Insider continues to pursue their names in court.

"Insider will press forward with our lawsuit until the public knows the names of every person who earned public money working for Donald Trump in the weeks and months after he left Washington, DC," said Darren Samuelsohn, Insider's Washington Bureau chief.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics ... 2345c39519
thelivyjr
Site Admin
Posts: 73429
Joined: Thu Aug 30, 2018 1:40 p

Re: THE DAILY NEWS

Post by thelivyjr »

POLITICO

"Judge rejects terrorism sentencing penalty in Jan. 6 case"


By Josh Gerstein

1 AUGUST 2022

Federal prosecutors' first request to draw tougher punishment for a Jan. 6 defendant by classifying his actions as domestic terrorism fell short Monday as a federal judge declined to apply the more severe sentencing guidelines permitted under federal law in such cases.

U.S. District Court Judge Dabney Friedrich said applying the sentencing enhancement to Guy Reffitt, 49, would create an "unwarranted sentencing disparity" with other cases involving similar threats or conduct related to the Capitol riot.

"There are a lot of cases where defendants possessed weapons or committed very violent assaults," Friedrich noted, highlighting that the most severe sentences handed down in Jan. 6 cases thus far were a little more than five years while prosecutors asked for a 15-year sentence against Reffitt.

"The government is asking for a sentence that is three times as long as any other defendant and the defendant did not assault an officer."


Reffitt, a member of the Texas Three Percenters militia, became the first Jan. 6 defendant to go before a jury and was convicted on all five felony charges he faced.

Evidence and testimony at the trial showed he drove to Washington with an acquaintance the day before the riot, bringing two AR-15 rifles and a pistol along with him.

The jury found that he had the pistol on his hip as he engaged in a tense standoff with police at the West Front of the Capitol.

Reffitt was pelted with less-lethal weapons and tear gas as he tried to advance up the steps, waving the crowd forward, but he never entered the building himself.

As the sentencing hearing stretched into its fourth hour Monday, Friedrich had yet to announce a sentence in the case.

In theory, Reffitt could receive up to 60 years, but defendants are typically sentenced under federal guidelines to terms well below the maximum.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Nestler said Reffitt's discussions before and after Jan. 6 make clear that he was intent on carrying out his repeated threats to drag Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell from the Capitol building by force.

In discussions caught on video, Reffitt was recorded referring to his desire to listen to the lawmaker's heads bouncing down the Capitol steps.

"He was planning to overtake our government."

"He wasn’t just trying to stop the certification," Nestler said.

"He wasn’t done."

"Jan. 6 was just a preface."

"... Mr Reffitt is in a class all by himself."

However, Friedrich said prosecutors had urged much shorter sentences in cases involving people who were directly involved in actual violence against police.

"You’re making recommendations that are way different than you’re making in this case — way different," said the judge, an appointee of President Donald Trump.

Friedrich also said she worried that Reffitt not be unduly punished for deciding to go to trial, rather than enter into a plea bargain with prosecutors.


"His decision to exercise his constitutional right to go to trial should not result in a dramatically different sentence," she said.

Nestler also noted that Reffitt was convicted of having a handgun on his hip while on the Capitol grounds, which Friedrich conceded that was an important distinction from the other cases to reach sentencing thus far.

"Huge, huge … and does the firearm deserve three times the sentence if it was not brandished or used in any way?" the judge asked.

Another unusual aspect of Reffitt's case is that he was convicted of threatening to injure his two children if they discussed his actions on Jan. 6 with authorities.

One of those children, Peyton Reffitt, spoke briefly during Monday's hearing to urge leniency for her father.

She suggested that Trump was more responsible for the events that day than her father was.

"My father's name was not on all the flags that were there that day that everyone was carrying that day," Peyton said.

"He was not the leader."

Several times during Monday's hearing, Friedrich suggested she thought Reffitt suffered from delusions of grandeur and that his decision to go to trial earlier this year was part of his effort to posture as a leader of those fighting the certification of the election.

"He wants to be the big guy — the first to try to storm the Capitol, the first to go trial," the judge said.

"Clearly, that’s what he wants."

Reffitt's lawyer Clinton Broden acknowledged that, at times, his client was at the forefront of the crowd on the West Front of the Capitol.

However, the defense attorney argued that the angry crowd was determined to surge towards the building whether Reffitt waved them on or not.

"Those people would have come up the stairs regardless of Mr. Reffitt and I think we all know that," Broden said.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/ju ... 2345c39519
thelivyjr
Site Admin
Posts: 73429
Joined: Thu Aug 30, 2018 1:40 p

Re: THE DAILY NEWS

Post by thelivyjr »

THE DAILY CALLER

"‘Major Problems Down The Road’: Biden Drains Petroleum Reserves Of Crucial Type Of Crude"


Jack McEvoy

2 AUGUST 2022

President Joe Biden’s Department of Energy (DOE) is emptying the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) of a crucial kind of oil that domestic refiners can easily process, which could cause oil prices to skyrocket, experts told the DCNF.

American refiners prefer medium-sour crude as they can easily process it into gasoline and other fuel products, according to Bloomberg.

The DOE released 4.6 million barrels of medium-sour crude oil from the SPR in late July, meaning that the reserve now has more light-sweet crude than sour — 235 million barrels to 234.9 million — which could raise fuel costs, experts say.


“It is going to cause major problems down the road,” Tracy Shuchart, a partner at Intelligence Quarterly, told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Domestic refiners lack the ability to refine light-sweet crude, a different type of oil that has a much lower density and sulfur content, so sweet crude has to be refined overseas, according to Marketplace.

“As they deplete our stores, refineries will have to become dependent on those sources or make costly changes to their operations,” Institute for Energy Research Senior Vice President Dan Kish told the DCNF.

“Those changes also take a long time, idling U.S. capacity when they’re already running all-out,” he said.

Russia, the Middle East and Venezuela produce most of the world’s supply of medium-sour crude, according to the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies.

Russian sour crude exports into the U.S. are currently sparse due to sanctions following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, exacerbating the ongoing energy crisis as other suppliers of sour crude have been unable to make up for the loss of Russian supplies.


Biden in March stated that he would release 1 million barrels per day over six months from the SPR to combat high gas prices caused by “Putin’s price hike.”

The Biden administration touted its releases of oil Monday, claiming that the releases brought gas prices down by up to 40 cents per gallon.

“The Biden Administration continues to ‘salt the earth’ to kill off any future for conventional energy, even as prices have skyrocketed,” Kish said.

The White House and DOE did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets ... 503df027b5
thelivyjr
Site Admin
Posts: 73429
Joined: Thu Aug 30, 2018 1:40 p

Re: THE DAILY NEWS

Post by thelivyjr »

THE GUARDIAN

"Zawahiri’s killing was a Biden play for popularity – but it may have unexpected consequences"


Hameed Hakimi

2 AUGUST 2022

A decade after US Navy Seals killed Osama bin Laden in a special operation in Pakistan, Ayman al-Zawahiri was killed in a US drone strike in Kabul.

Both men were synonymous with the image of al-Qaida.

But more than anything, the killing of Zawahiri is a symbolic success for Joe Biden, whose approval rating has been dismally low recently.


Even before the ill-fated military withdrawal from Afghanistan that led to the Taliban seizing power, the US president had been vigorously trying to avoid discussing the country in his media engagements.

Unsurprisingly, he is now trying to capitalise on the drone strike that killed Zawahiri to seek redemption in Afghanistan.

While Zawahiri was involved in the planning of the 9/11 attacks, his more recent significance is more questionable.

Al-Qaida may be one of the most notorious global jihadist groups since the collapse of the Soviet Union, but it has been competing in a crowded space of violent extremists including Islamic State – and its affiliates – in the Middle East, Asia and beyond.

The death of Zawahiri will not transform the nature of any threat facing the US and Europe from Afghanistan under the Taliban.

But it underlines how imperative it is to ensure Afghanistan does not become so unstable and forgotten that it provides a ground for the incubation of terrorism and violent jihadists.

Groups such as al-Qaida, Islamic State and previously the Taliban are experts in replacing leaders in quick succession without interrupting operations.

Crucially, Zawahiri’s killing unleashes several unknown consequences and political and security implications for different sides of the conflict in and around Afghanistan.


For months there have been unconfirmed reports of drones flying over the skies of Kabul.

The Taliban have been presenting their regime as the first in decades to have total control over the Afghan territory.

The US drone strike killing Zawahiri in Kabul’s Shirpur district – where some of the most ostentatious mansions were built by former US-backed warlords – defeats the Taliban’s claims of having full territorial control.

The US-Taliban agreement signed in Doha in February 2020 states that the Taliban “will not allow any of its members, other individuals or groups, including al-Qaida, to use the soil of Afghanistan to threaten the security of the United States and its allies”.

Acknowledging Zawahiri’s presence in Kabul will set the Taliban against the US, but admitting a lack of intelligence will lead to accepting defeat in establishing control.

As the Taliban are largely a loose union of different factions who were strongly united as an insurgency prior to August 2021, it is plausible that one or more factions among them were hosting and protecting Zawahiri.

His death will put significant pressure on these internal fissures, especially if the US continues drone strikes in Afghanistan.

Because Afghanistan is landlocked, the over-the-horizon operations by US drones would have needed permission from one of the neighbouring states to enter the Afghan airspace.

Iran, central Asian countries and China – which shares a mountainous border with Afghanistan – would not cooperate with the US on this.

Pakistan, therefore, would be the logical option.

If this US strike was carried out in cooperation with Pakistan, there are several major regional implications.


Pakistan has strong relations with China, including the multibillion-dollar infrastructural project, the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).

For nearly 20 years, Pakistan provided the Taliban sanctuary as the group waged a bloody insurgency against US, Nato and Afghan security forces that also killed tens of thousands of Afghan civilians.

The former Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan celebrated the Taliban’s return to power in August 2021, and blamed the US for a heedless “war on terror”.

But Khan was unseated in a no-confidence vote in April.

Pakistani-American cooperation on counter-terrorism operations in Afghanistan would underline a significant thawing of relations.

It may impact Islamabad’s efforts to build further relations with China and Russia.

However, Pakistan has been facing immense financial difficulties, with rising inflation and plummeting value of the local currency.

Islamabad has been desperately trying to gain support from Washington, including by involving its army chief to secure a multibillion-dollar loan package from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

By cooperating on counter-terrorism with the US, Pakistan would naturally expect American support beyond military cooperation including securing financial packages.

It is too early to predict precise outcomes in Afghanistan and the region from this incident.

But the US seems to have signalled that it is able to dominate the sky over the country, and that it is willing to act.

By demonstrating that they can attack with such precision, the CIA and other US entities will force other jihadist groups underground.

Taliban factions who do not enjoy the full patronage of the Pakistani security establishment will also be worried about renewed US-Pakistan cooperation on drone strikes inside Afghanistan.

It remains to be seen if the threat of US drone strikes will be used as leverage to influence Taliban behaviour.

Military might did not defeat the Taliban insurgency, but the Taliban did not win militarily either.

Ultimately, for all the talk of ending America’s “forever war” in Afghanistan, the Biden administration must acknowledge that 20 years of American involvement in Afghanistan has fundamentally transformed the nature of the country and its region.

The US and the west must focus on longterm engagement with Afghanistan if the aim is to prevent the incubation of terrorist groups and global jihadists.

Hameed Hakimi is an associate fellow at Chatham House in London and a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council in Washington DC

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/za ... 1d39b9a7ce
thelivyjr
Site Admin
Posts: 73429
Joined: Thu Aug 30, 2018 1:40 p

Re: THE DAILY NEWS

Post by thelivyjr »

ASSOCIATED PRESS

"UN nuclear chief: Ukraine nuclear plant is `out of control'"


By EDITH M. LEDERER, Associated Press

3 AUGUST 2022

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The U.N. nuclear chief warned that Europe’s largest nuclear power plant in Ukraine “is completely out of control” and issued an urgent plea to Russia and Ukraine to quickly allow experts to visit the sprawling complex to stabilize the situation and avoid a nuclear accident.

Rafael Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said in an interview Tuesday with The Associated Press that the situation is getting more perilous every day at the Zaporizhzhia plant in the southeastern city of Enerhodar, which Russian troops seized in early March, soon after their Feb. 24. invasion of Ukraine.

“Every principle of nuclear safety has been violated” at the plant, he said.

“What is at stake is extremely serious and extremely grave and dangerous.”

Grossi cited many violations of the plant’s safety, adding that it is “in a place where active war is ongoing,” near Russian-controlled territory.

The physical integrity of the plant hasn’t been respected, he said, citing shelling at the beginning of the war when it was taken over and continuing information from Ukraine and Russia accusing each other of attacks at Zaporizhzhia.

There is “a paradoxical situation” in which the plant is controlled by Russia, but its Ukrainian staff continues to run its nuclear operations, leading to inevitable moments of friction and alleged violence, he said.

While the IAEA has some contacts with staff, they are “faulty” and “patchy,” he said.

Grossi said the supply chain of equipment and spare parts has been interrupted, “so we are not sure the plant is getting all it needs.”

The IAEA also needs to perform very important inspections to ensure that nuclear material is being safeguarded, “and there is a lot of nuclear material there to be inspected,” he said.

“When you put this together, you have a catalog of things that should never be happening in any nuclear facility,” Grossi said.

“And this is why I have been insisting from day one that we have to be able to go there to perform this safety and security evaluation, to do the repairs and to assist as we already did in Chernobyl.”

The Russian capture of Zaporizhzhia renewed fears that the largest of Ukraine’s 15 nuclear reactors could be damaged, setting off another emergency like the 1986 Chernobyl accident, the world’s worst nuclear disaster, which happened about 110 kilometers (65 miles) north of the capital Kyiv.

Russian forces occupied the heavily contaminated site soon after the invasion but handed control back to the Ukrainians at the end of March.

Grossi visited Chernobyl on April 27 and tweeted that the level of safety was “like a `red light’ blinking.”

But he said Tuesday that the IAEA set up “an assistance mission” at Chernobyl at that time “that has been very, very successful so far.”

The IAEA needs to go to Zaporizhzhia, as it did to Chernobyl, to ascertain the facts of what is actually happening there, to carry out repairs and inspections, and “to prevent a nuclear accident from happening,” Grossi said.

The IAEA chief said he and his team need protection to get to the plant and the urgent cooperation of Russia and Ukraine.

Each side wants this international mission to go from different sites, which is understandable in light of territorial integrity and political considerations, he said, but there’s something more urgent and that is getting the IAEA team to Zaporizhzhia.

“The IAEA, by its presence, will be a deterrent to any act of violence against this nuclear power plant,” Grossi said.

“So I’m pleading as an international civil servant, as the head of an international organization, I’m pleading to both sides to let this mission proceed.”

Grossi was in New York to deliver a keynote speech at Monday’s opening of the long-delayed high-level meeting to review the landmark 50-year-old Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty aimed at preventing the spread of nuclear weapons and eventually achieving a nuclear-free world.

In the interview, the IAEA chief also spoke about efforts to revive the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and major powers that the Trump administration abandoned in 2018 and the Biden administration has been working to renew.

Grossi said there is “an ongoing effort to try to go for yet another meeting or round to explore possibilities to come to an agreement.”

He said he heard the meeting “could be soon.”

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told the NPT review conference on Monday that Iran “has either been unwilling or unable” to accept a deal to return to the 2015 agreement aimed at reining in its nuclear program.

Grossi said “there are important differences among the negotiating parties” and important verification issues related to past activities that Iran needs to address.

“It’s not impossible, it’s complex,” he said.

If the nuclear agreement, known as the JCPOA, is not extended, he said some IAEA inspections will continue.

But the JCPOA provides for additional transparency and inspections “which I deem as extremely important, very necessary, because of the breadth and depth of the nuclear program in Iran,” he said.

Grossi stressed that cooperating with the IAEA, answering its questions, allowing its inspectors to go wherever they need to be, is essential for Iran to build trust and confidence.

“Promises and good words will not do,” he said.

On another issue, Grossi said last September's deal in which the United States and Britain will provide Australia with nuclear reactors to power its submarines requires an agreement with the IAEA to ensure that the amount of nuclear material in the vessel when it leaves port is there when it returns.

He said Australia hasn’t decided what type of vessel it will be getting, so while there have been preparatory talks, substantive talks can’t begin.

Because it’s a military vessel, Grossi said, “there are lots of confidential and protection of information measures that need to be embedded into any such agreement, so it’s very complex technologically."

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/un ... b7a3c980d8
Post Reply