Blind justice? More like blind pursuit of Trump

 “This trial will not yield to the election cycle.” Those words of U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan last year made clear that she will not consider that Donald Trump will likely be the 2024 Republican presidential nominee in setting the schedule for his federal trial in Washington, D.C.

Most recently, in the federal prosecution in Florida, Special Counsel Jack Smith declared that he will not consider himself bound by the Justice Department’s longstanding policy of not bringing charges or holding trials of candidates close to an election.

With the Supreme Court reviewing the immunity question (and a decision not expected until June), a nightmare scenario is unfolding in which Trump could be tried not just before the general election, but actually through November’s election.

Chutkan has insisted that her refusal to consider Trump’s candidacy is simply denying special treatment to the former president. But there is nothing typical about how she and others have handled the case. The fact that Chutkan was pushing for a March trial date shows just how extraordinary her handling has been.

In the D.C. courts, with thousands of stacked up cases, that would be a rocket docket for a complex case of this kind. There are roughly 770,000 pending cases in roughly 100 district courts around the country. The backlog of pending criminal cases in the federal court system increased by more than a quarter in the last five years. Even when defendants plead guilty, criminal cases average 10 months. If a trial is needed, it runs on average to two years, absent serious complications over classified or privileged material. Smith indicted Trump less than a year ago.  

At every juncture, Smith has tried to expedite and spur the case along. This has included an attempt to cut off standard appellate options for Trump. It seems as if the entire point is to try Trump before the election.

Smith has offered no reason, other than that he wants voters to consider the outcome of the trial. It is a rare acknowledgement of a desire for a trial to become a factor in an election.

Chutkan has shown the same determination. The judge was criticized for comments she made before any charges were brought that strongly suggested she thought Trump should be criminally charged. Chutkan told one defendant that he showed “blind loyalty to one person who, by the way, remains free to this day.” In another case, Chutkan told the defendant that it was unfair that he might go to prison but “the architects of that horrific event will likely never be charged.”

When asked to recuse herself, Chutkan denied the clear implication of her own words. She stated that she has not expressly stated that “’President Trump should be prosecuted’ and imprisoned… And the defense does not cite any instance of the court ever uttering those words or anything similar.”

Of course, neither the court nor the prosecutors seem willing to apply a similarly deferential view of the meaning of Trump’s words within the context of the case. There, the implications are sufficient for that “one person” described earlier by the court.

Chutkan is now reportedly telling parties in other cases that she will be out of the country in August, and that defendants will have to delay any proceedings in light of her plans…unless she can try Trump. She told lawyers that she will stick with her schedule unless “I’m in trial in another matter that has not yet returned to my calendar.”

Given the apparent motivation of the trial court to try Trump before the election, the only other source of restraint would be the Justice Department itself. Smith, however, has insisted that he will show no such restraint, even if he tries Trump through the election.

In his filings in Florida, Smith insisted that the oft-cited Justice Department policy to avoid such proceedings within 60 days of an election would not be applied in Trump’s case. He insisted that, since everyone knows about the allegations, there would be no harm or foul in holding him for trial for the weeks before the election as his opponent, President Biden, is free to traverse the country campaigning.

Smith’s position was applauded by commentators who had previously invoked the rule to oppose charges that might have helped Trump before prior elections. Take Andrew Weissmann, who served as the controversial top aide to Special Counsel Robert Mueller. Now an MSNBC legal analyst, Weissmann assured viewers that there was no problem trying Trump just before the election because this is just “an internal rule. It is not a law.”

He then added “Second, the rule does not apply! For anyone who has been at the Justice Department, this is such a red herring.” He insisted this is only meant to avoid some “covert cases” being tried “because you don’t want to influence the election when that person — the candidate — doesn’t have an opportunity to get to trial.”

However, when the issue was the possibility of Special Counsel John Durham charging figures in the Russia investigation before the 2020 election, Weissmann and Professor Ryan Goodman wrote a column not only invoking the rule but encouraging prosecutors to refuse to assist Durham. 

I have previously written about the ambiguity of this rule and the selectivity of its applications. However, Weissmann and Goodman were adamant that such prosecutions would be dangerous. Even though no actual election candidate would have been charged, they invoked this Justice Department “norm” and declared, “The Justice Department should not take action that could distort an election and influence the electorate. If someone is charged immediately before an election, for instance, that person has no time to offer a defense to counter the charges. The closer the election, the greater the risk that the department is impermissibly acting based on political considerations, which is always prohibited.”

It is certainly true that these charges have been known for a while, but Trump may not have an ability to present a complete defense before the election. It is also clear that he will have to choose between campaigning for office and defending his liberty. 

Moreover, this is the leading candidate for the presidency, and the opponent to the current incumbent. A 2023 poll found that a 47 percent plurality of Americans already believe the charges are politically motivated. That appearance will only worsen as the election approaches, a recognition that should force a modicum of restraint upon both the court and the prosecution. Finally, Smith is referencing the election as the reason to expedite the trial precisely because it may have an influence on voters.

The Trump trials are troubling precisely because they are being handled differently because of who the defendant is. No one can seriously suggest that Judge Chutkan would be moving other cases or canceling trips in order to shoehorn them into the calendar this year, if it were not for the election and the name of the defendant. Such cases are, after all, notorious for taking years to work out complicated pre-trial matters.

Most citizens already see that reality. State prosecutors in New York and Georgia waited for years to charge Trump, then pushed for expedited schedules in order to try him before the election. 

That brings us back to Judge Chutkan’s pledge to “not yield to the election cycle.” Yet the expedited effort of the court seems clearly motivated by the election cycle. She and Smith are depending on the election cycle as they struggle to pull Trump into court at the height of a presidential campaign.

It is a schedule conceived for the “one person” described by Chutkan in the earlier cases. As the calendar continues to shrink, claims of blind justice increasingly look like the blind pursuit of a specific person.

Jonathan Turley is the J.B. & Maurice C. Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at the George Washington University Law School.

https://thehill.com/opinion/criminal-justice/4520212-a-trump-criminal-trial-could-run-right-up-to-and-through-the-2024-election/

House Republicans Hold The Power To Stop Biden’s Federal Election Rigging

 President Biden’s use of taxpayer dollars to rig the 2024 election in Democrats’ favor is a whole new level of sinister — and only House Republicans possess the power to stop him.

Two months after taking office, Biden took the unprecedented step of ordering hundreds of federal agencies to interfere in state and local election administration. Under Executive Order 14019, all departments were required to use U.S. taxpayer money to boost voter registration and get-out-the-vote activities. The head of each department was directed to draft “a strategic plan” explaining how his or her agency intended to fulfill Biden’s edict.

Federal departments were also told to collaborate with so-called “nonpartisan third-party organizations” that have been “approved” by the administration to supply “voter registration services on agency premises.” Many of these groups are extremely left-wing, such as Demos and the ACLU.

The secrecy surrounding these “Bidenbucks” in the years since its enactment prompted House Republicans to seek further information about the directive and its implementation by federal agencies.

On March 29, 2022, for example, several GOP committee chairs sent a letter to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and Domestic Policy Council requesting a list of third-party organizations the administration is partnering with to register new voters, as well as the criteria for selecting such groups. They also demanded these entities provide copies of any “strategic plans” submitted by federal agencies to the White House, the statutory authority under which departments are authorized to conduct such activities, and cost estimates for carrying them out.

The OMB’s Shalanda Young responded to the requests later that year, claiming in a July 15 letter that Biden’s order fulfills the National Voter Registration Act. Young did not, however, address House Republicans’ other requests or provide copies of agencies’ “strategic plans.” The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and National Labor Relations Board also provided scant details about their compliance with Biden’s order in respective letters responding to a separate inquiry from House Republicans.

A spokeswoman for the House Committee on Administration told The Federalist that no federal agency has provided the committee with copies of the “strategic plans” required under Biden’s order.

Efforts by Senate Republicans to obtain information regarding Executive Order 14019 have also been met with silence. The administration has also routinely stonewalled attempts by good government groups to acquire these “strategic plans” by slow-walking its response to federal court orders and heavily redacting any related documents it released.

Biden and his handlers aren’t going to forfeit any documents or information disclosing the unprecedented use of taxpayer funds to rig the 2024 election for Democrats willingly. That means it’s up to House Republicans to do something.

Ongoing negotiations over government funding provide the perfect opportunity to halt Biden’s federal electioneering scheme once and for all. Wisconsin GOP Rep. Bryan Steil’s ACE Act — which is awaiting action from the full House — already contains provisions that would gut Executive Order 14019; prohibit federal agencies from engaging in voter registration and mobilization activities; and force these agencies to turn over their “strategic plans” to Congress.

If Speaker Mike Johnson and House Republicans have any interest in stopping Biden’s weaponization of the federal government to boost Democrats’ get-out-the-vote machine, they must be willing to halt all federal funding until the aforementioned provisions are included in any spending bill that comes across their desks. Otherwise, Biden’s secret election-rigging scheme will derail the GOP’s electoral prospects for years to come.

https://thefederalist.com/2024/03/08/house-republicans-hold-the-power-to-stop-bidens-federal-election-rigging/

Fed’s 2% inflation target is a source of growing liberal discontent

 The Federal Reserve’s goal is to get the inflation rate at least near 2% before it begins cutting interest rates.

That's a formal target backed by written policy, but it's also the source of growing liberal discontent serving as another form of political pressure on Fed Chair Jerome Powell as he tries to navigate a white-hot election year.

Some on the left want that number to be higher. Some would prefer the Fed add a second target focused on the labor market. And several Democrats used public hearings this past week with Powell to question the target's origins and why it has so much importance inside the central bank.

"It seems to come from Auckland and from the 1980s" a somewhat disbelieving Rep. Brad Sherman said Wednesday when it was his turn to question Powell.

The liberal stalwart from California was right. The path to 2% began with an off-the-cuff comment in New Zealand in 1988.

The Fed publicly adopted the standard 24 years later, in 2012, in a process that was met with discomfort from the left side of the political spectrum largely because of the lack of a parallel labor market target.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell arrives to testify during a Senate Banking Committee hearing on March 7. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images) (Tom Williams via Getty Images)

Senator Sherrod Brown, chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, underlined this dynamic Thursday when he suggested Powell move quickly to cut rates "to prevent workers from losing their jobs" and added that "this town too often seems to forget that maximum employment is part of the Fed's dual mandate."

The Fed doesn’t have a numeric labor target even though its dual mandate requires it to aim for both stable prices and maximum employment.

Its inflation target is key because of how rate cuts are decided. Powell and other Fed officials have made it clear they won’t start lowering the benchmark rate from its 22-year high until they are confident inflation is moving down "sustainably" to 2%.

And Powell strongly signaled this week that the 2% inflation target isn't going anywhere. He mentioned it seven different times within the span of his five-minute-long opening remarks before lawmakers on both Wednesday and Thursday.

He also acknowledged its Kiwi origins in response to Sherman's questioning but added that "2% has become the global standard, it's a pretty durable standard." He reinforced his belief that it wouldn't be a problem for the US to achieve the 2% level in the months ahead.

"People are always talking about this," said Preston Mui, who is with a labor market-focused group called Employ America. Changing the target by moving it even higher to 3% "is probably not something that's politically in the cards for the Fed at all right now."

But talking about the number has nonetheless "caused a lot of headaches for Powell over the last two to three years," Mui added.

How the Fed got here

The path to the Fed's 2% inflation target was a winding one that began with an interview that is now infamous in central banking circles.

Don Brash, who was governor of New Zealand’s Reserve Bank, offered an off-the-cuff comment in 1988 that he wanted an inflation rate between 0 and 1%. That set off a policy-making process and led his nation to adopt a formal 2% target soon thereafter.

Other central banks followed and the moves were criticized from some quarters as being too inflation-focused.

Perhaps the most colorful takedown came from Mervyn King, a British economist who served as governor of the Bank of England. He said in 1997 that he worried a hyper-focus on price targets would lead to central bankers becoming "inflation nutters."

Don Brash, then the governor of the Reserve Bank Of New Zealand, during a press conference. (Robert Patterson/Getty Images) (Robert Patterson via Getty Images)

The Federal Reserve, under Alan Greenspan at the time, was resistant to a public embrace of the idea but debated it throughout the 1990s and early 2000s.

"If you read FOMC transcripts around inflation targeting it's a concern," said Federal Reserve historian Sarah Binder of political considerations in a recent interview.

There was resistance to implementing it during a 2008 downturn, with Ben Bernanke in charge. There was concern among Fed governors that "we've got to be worried about pushback from Democrats," Binder said.

But by 2012, with a recession in the rearview mirror and Bernanke in his second term as chair, the Fed pivoted and a 2% target was publicly adopted.

Bernanke argued in his memoir that a 2% target increases business and consumer confidence and therefore gives the bank more flexibility to address both sides of its dual mandate.

It's an argument that is still used today, with an explainer on the Fed's website saying the 2% target "is most consistent with the Federal Reserve's mandate for maximum employment and price stability."

But many on the left were never fully on board. Bernanke acknowledged in his memoir that a main liberal voice of that era — Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts — brought up the lack of parallel labor market target and "wasn't completely comfortable" with the policy even if he went along with it in the end.

It's a critique that has persisted for years.

"I think it should be higher than that," Rep. Maxine Waters said of the 2% target in an interview with Yahoo Finance's Jennifer Schonberger this week, saying an increase would help support working families.

Federal Reserve Bank Chairman Jerome Powell visits with House Financial Services Committee ranking member Rep. Maxine Waters following a hearing on Capitol Hill on March 6. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) (Chip Somodevilla via Getty Images)

Rakeen Mabud, the chief economist at the left-leaning group Groundwork Collaborative, put a finer point on it, saying the target "codifies the fact that inflation is just more important to the Fed than unemployment is."

The ongoing critique is further contextualized by a 2020 move at the Fed to adopt a flexible average inflation targeting framework. In effect, the change made 2% into a less rigid target by allowing the Fed to look at 2% as an average and allows inflation to run slightly hotter for stretches.

Republicans appear inclined to return to the harder pre-2020 target, with some quarters of the GOP eager to remove employment from the Fed's dual mandate entirely.

The policy will be under review, Powell said this week, beginning later this year and through the end of 2025.

Why it won't be so easy to change

The 2% target could grow as an issue in the months ahead, with many Democrats continuing to call for rate cuts even as forecasts have dropped throughout the early months of 2024. Some in the financial world are even predicting zero cuts all year.

"Interest rates are too damn high," Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts told Powell.

Another issue for the left is that simply adding a corollary target focused on the unemployment rate — which ticked up to 3.9% in the February jobs report — is not necessarily as easy as it might sound.

Mui, the senior economist at Employ America, said his group is focused on more nuanced measures like the prime age employment rate — the number of younger people working against their overall population — or wage growth or quit rates or overall labor force participation.

"I think if there was this rigid commitment to defining an unemployment target, there's actually a risk [in some scenarios] that it actually doesn't pay enough attention to that side of their mandate," he says.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/the-feds-2-inflation-target-is-a-source-of-growing-liberal-discontent-123104995.html

US FDA delays Lilly Alzheimer's drug decision, calls for advisory panel

 The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has delayed its decision on Eli Lilly's experimental treatment for early Alzheimer's disease and will hold a meeting of outside experts to discuss its safety and efficacy, the company said.

The FDA's decision came as a surprise to company officials and many Alzheimer's experts, who had expected a full approval for Lilly's drug donanemab this month based on clinical trial data last year that showed the treatment was safe and effective.

No date has been set for the advisory committee meeting, but it could be several months before it is held. Eli Lilly shares were down 3%, while shares of Biogen, which sells a rival drug, were up more than 2%.

This marks the second delay for the eagerly anticipated treatment by the FDA after it declined to grant accelerated approval for the medicine a year ago.

Drugs like donanemab, which slow disease progression in early-stage patients, represent a new era in the treatment of Alzheimer's, after three decades of failed attempts to fight the fatal disease that affects more than 6 million Americans, according to the Alzheimer's Association.

"This was definitely unexpected," Anne White, president of Lilly Neuroscience, said in an interview, adding that the news came very late in the review process and the company had been ready to launch the drug.

White said the FDA wants the expert panel to discuss some of the unique aspects of the clinical trial used in its request for a traditional FDA approval, including issues around efficacy and safety.

The FDA had conducted advisory committee meetings before approving Eisai and Biogen's Leqembi, which received standard authorization last year and works in a similar manner. The agency declined to comment on its decision.

Given by infusion once a month, donanemab is designed to clear a toxic Alzheimer's-linked protein called beta amyloid from the brain.

The treatment slowed progression of memory and thinking problems by 22% to 29% overall in a large clinical trial, roughly comparable to the 27% slowing seen with Leqembi.

In patients with low-to-medium levels of a second Alzheimer's related protein called tau, the drug slowed disease progression by 35.1% compared with placebo.

Brain swelling, a known side effect of this type of drug, occurred in 24% of the donanemab treatment group, while brain bleeding occurred in 31% of the donanemab group and about 14% of the placebo group.

In the trial, participants could stop treatment as soon as brain imaging showed that the drug had cleared the amyloid.

Lilly's White said that design, as well as the use of tau to group patients and assess the drug's benefit, were likely to be discussed at the advisory meeting.

'EXTRA CAUTION'

Experts said the drug's association with brain swelling and bleeding could be at issue. Three people on the treatment in the company's trial died.

Dr. Erik Musiek, a Washington University neurologist at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis, had expected the drug to be approved this month. He pointed to donanemab's higher rates of serious side effects compared with Leqembi as one possible reason's for the FDA's "extra caution."

Allowing patients to stop treatment once the drug has done its job of removing amyloid could also be a factor, but Musiek sees that as an advantage over Leqembi, which is given twice a month indefinitely.

Dr. Mary Sano, director of the Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center at Mount Sinai in New York, suggested that the FDA may be struggling with how to manage patients who stop the treatment and later need to restart it, which could expose them to additional side effects.

"These are not drugs without adverse events. They're not drugs that are inexpensive, and they're time-consuming for the patient. You really want to make sure that they're value-added," she said.

Leqembi costs $26,500 per year for an average patient.

Indianapolis-based Lilly said there was no change to its 2024 financial forecast.

Analysts on average expect donanemab sales of $189.6 million in 2024, rising to $837 million next year, according to LSEG data. In February, Lilly forecast 2024 revenue of $40.4 billion to $41.6 billion, driven largely by its weight-loss and diabetes drugs.

BMO Capital Markets analyst Evan Seigerman said he believes Lilly's drug will ultimately prevail. "The data is good. It's relatively safe and checks all the boxes."

https://www.yahoo.com/news/us-fda-delays-lilly-alzheimers-114648535.html

West Is Conducting 'All-Out Militarization' To Defeat Russia, Serbian President Warns

 Last week we detailed that during Ukrainian President Zelensky's visit to Albania where he appealed for more weapons from Balkan countries, he pushed the idea that all Western-friendly Balkan states should have a pathway to the EU and NATO. And at the same time French President Emmanuel Macron has been busy floating the possibility of Western troops deploying to Ukraine.

Albania is of course a chief regional rival to Moscow's close ally and friend Serbia. Jahja Muhasilovic, a political analyst on the Balkans, had commented of Zelensky's rare Balkan trip that "Albania is known to be one of the staunchest supporters of limiting Russia’s influence here in the region."

"In a way, Zelensky’s visit in Albania is having that geopolitical connotation. He is probably counting on the Western Balkan countries not to help them militarily because they are limited, but through their lobbying part that they can play in continuing the armament of the Ukrainian troops," he explained.

In fresh comments this weekend, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic has weighed in and responded to ongoing calls from Western officials to urgently send more weapons to Kiev. Vucic has accused the West of pursuing a policy of "total militarization" toward defeating Russian, which puts the region and the world on the brink of disaster and stumbling to WW3.

Russian & Serbian Presidents at a meeting in 2019, via AP.

"What is happening now is madness," he was cited in regional media as saying. "They all thought that Putin would be easily defeated. Now they see that this is not so."

"The current trend is toward total militarization and a five-fold build-up in all respects," the Serbian president said further during a visit to the Belgrade Military Technical Institute.

Vucic has also warned against European countries sending their troops to Ukraine to confront Russian forces, saying this would immediately and unpredictably escalate the war.

According to Politico on Friday, France is behind a new push for a serious 'option' of Western boots on the ground in Ukraine:

France is building an alliance of countries open to potentially sending Western troops to Ukraine — and in the process deepening its clash with a more cautious Berlin.

French Foreign Minister Stéphane Séjourné was in Lithuania on Friday, where he met his Baltic and Ukrainian counterparts to buttress the idea that foreign troops could end up helping Ukraine in areas like demining.

"It is not for Russia to tell us how we should help Ukraine in the coming months or years," Séjourné said at a meeting chaired by Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis and attended by his Ukrainian counterpart, Dmytro Kuleba. "It is not for Russia to organize how we deploy our actions, or to set red lines. So we decide it among us."

Coming off Macron first raising the issue at an international security conference last month in Paris, French FM Séjourné said further, "Ukraine did not ask us to send troops. Ukraine is asking us to send ammunition at the moment." But then he emphasized, "We do not exclude anything for the coming months."

It is these kinds of ultra-provocative statements which Serbia's Vucic is precisely calling "madness" which sets the stage for nuclear-armed confrontation between Russia and NATO. The trend also seems to be that the more clearly Ukraine forces are losing, the more unhinged and bellicose some Western officials become.

All of this comes as Ukraine is in retreat, following Russia's capture of the eastern city of Avdiivka last month. Several other smaller towns and cities have also fallen, with Ukraine's front lines in disarray. This has resulted in what might be called empty threats being issued from the West, as it sits helplessly while watching Russian forces advance.

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/madness-west-conducting-all-out-militarization-defeat-russia-serbian-president-warns

US, UK, French military shoot down Houthi drones after attack on bulk carrier, destroyers

 U.S., French and British forces downed dozens of drones in the Red Sea area overnight and on Saturday after Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthis targeted bulk carrier Propel Fortune and U.S. destroyers in the region, the U.S. military said in a statement.

The Houthis have been attacking ships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden since November in what they say is a campaign of solidarity with Palestinians during Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza.

The group's military spokesman Yahya Sarea said in a televised speech on Saturday they had targeted the cargo vessel and "a number of U.S. war destroyers at the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden with 37 drones".

U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) said the U.S. military and coalition forces had downed at least 28 uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs) over the Red Sea in the early hours of Saturday.

"No U.S. or Coalition Navy vessels were damaged in the attack and there were also no reports by commercial ships of damage," CENTCOM said in a statement.

Earlier on Saturday, CENTCOM said the military was responding to a large-scale attack on ships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden between 4 a.m. and 6:30 a.m. (0100-0330 GMT).

The UAVs were intended to present "an imminent threat to merchant vessels, U.S. Navy, and coalition ships in the region", it said in a post on social media platform X.

A French warship and fighter jets also shot down four combat drones that were advancing towards naval vessels belonging to the European Aspides mission in the region, a French army statement said.

"This defensive action directly contributed to the protection of the cargo ship True Confidence, under the Barbados flag, which was struck on March 6 and is being towed, as well as other commercial vessels transiting in the area," it said.

France has a warship in the area as well as warplanes at its bases in Djibouti and the United Arab Emirates.

DRONE ATTACK

Britain's Ministry of Defence said its warship HMS Richmond had joined international allies in repelling a Houthi drone attack overnight, saying no injuries or damage were sustained.

"Last night, HMS Richmond used its Sea Ceptor missiles to shoot down two attack drones - successfully repelling yet another illegal attack by the Iranian-backed Houthis," defence minister Grant Shapps said on X.

"The UK and our allies will continue to take the action necessary to save lives and protect freedom of navigation."

On Wednesday three seafarers were killed in a missile strike by the Houthis on the Greek-operated True Confidence, the first civilian casualties since the group started its attacks on the key shipping route.

The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) also confirmed there had been an attempted attack on the Singapore-flagged Propel Fortune.

It said the shipping company reported two explosions in close vicinity of the bulk carrier, but all crew on board were safe and the vessel was proceeding to its next port of call.

"Based on sources, Propel Fortune was likely targeted due to outdated U.S. ownership data," UKMTO said in a statement.

Sarea said the Houthis would continue their attacks "until the aggression stops and the siege on the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip is lifted".

https://www.yahoo.com/news/yemens-houthis-targeted-bulk-carrier-084509106.html

Are Voters Recoiling Against Disorder?

 by Michael Barone via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The headlines coming out of the Super Tuesday primaries have got it right. Barring cataclysmic changes, Donald Trump and Joe Biden will be the Republican and Democratic nominees for president in 2024.

With Nikki Haley’s withdrawal, there will be no more significantly contested primaries or caucuses—the earliest both parties’ races have been over since something like the current primary-dominated system was put in place in 1972.

The primary results have spotlighted some of both nominees’ weaknesses.

Donald Trump lost high-income, high-educated constituencies, including the entire metro area—aka the Swamp. Many but by no means all Haley votes there were cast by Biden Democrats. Mr. Trump can’t afford to lose too many of the others in target states like Pennsylvania and Michigan.

Majorities and large minorities of voters in overwhelmingly Latino counties in Texas’s Rio Grande Valley and some in Houston voted against Joe Biden, and even more against Senate nominee Rep. Colin Allred (D-Texas).

Returns from Hispanic precincts in New Hampshire and Massachusetts show the same thing. Mr. Biden can’t afford to lose too many Latino votes in target states like Arizona and Georgia.

When Mr. Trump rode down that escalator in 2015, commentators assumed he’d repel Latinos. Instead, Latino voters nationally, and especially the closest eyewitnesses of Biden’s open-border policy, have been trending heavily Republican.

High-income liberal Democrats may sport lawn signs proclaiming, “In this house, we believe ... no human is illegal.” The logical consequence of that belief is an open border. But modest-income folks in border counties know that flows of illegal immigrants result in disorder, disease, and crime.

There is plenty of impatience with increased disorder in election returns below the presidential level. Consider Los Angeles County, America’s largest county, with nearly 10 million people, more people than 40 of the 50 states. It voted 71 percent for Mr. Biden in 2020.

Current returns show county District Attorney George Gascon winning only 21 percent of the vote in the nonpartisan primary. He’ll apparently face Republican Nathan Hochman, a critic of his liberal policies, in November.

Gascon, elected after the May 2020 death of counterfeit-passing suspect George Floyd in Minneapolis, is one of many county prosecutors supported by billionaire George Soros. His policies include not charging juveniles as adults, not seeking higher penalties for gang membership or use of firearms, and bringing fewer misdemeanor cases.

The predictable result has been increased car thefts, burglaries, and personal robberies. Some 120 assistant district attorneys have left the office, and there’s a backlog of 10,000 unprosecuted cases.

More than a dozen other Soros-backed and similarly liberal prosecutors have faced strong opposition or have left office.

St. Louis prosecutor Kim Gardner resigned last May amid lawsuits seeking her removal, Milwaukee’s John Chisholm retired in January, and Baltimore’s Marilyn Mosby was defeated in July 2022 and convicted of perjury in September 2023. Last November, Loudoun County, Virginia, voters (62 percent Biden) ousted liberal Buta Biberaj, who declined to prosecute a transgender student for assault, and in June 2022 voters in San Francisco (85 percent Biden) recalled famed radical Chesa Boudin.

Similarly, this Tuesday, voters in San Francisco passed ballot measures strengthening police powers and requiring treatment of drug-addicted welfare recipients.

In retrospect, it appears the Floyd video, appearing after three months of COVID-19 confinement, sparked a frenzied, even crazed reaction, especially among the highly educated and articulate. One fatal incident was seen as proof that America’s “systemic racism” was worse than ever and that police forces should be defunded and perhaps abolished.

2020 was “the year America went crazy,” I wrote in January 2021, a year in which police funding was actually cut by Democrats in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, and Denver. A year in which young New York Times (NYT) staffers claimed they were endangered by the publication of Sen. Tom Cotton’s (R-Ark.) opinion article advocating calling in military forces if necessary to stop rioting, as had been done in Detroit in 1967 and Los Angeles in 1992. A craven NYT publisher even fired the editorial page editor for running the article.

Evidence of visible and tangible discontent with increasing violence and its consequences—barren and locked shelves in Manhattan chain drugstores, skyrocketing carjackings in Washington, D.C.—is as unmistakable in polls and election results as it is in daily life in large metropolitan areas. Maybe 2024 will turn out to be the year even liberal America stopped acting crazy.

Chaos and disorder work against incumbents, as they did in 1968 when Democrats saw their party’s popular vote fall from 61 percent to 43 percent.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/are-voters-recoiling-against-disorder