The Brandenburg Standard

Jeffrey Scott Shapiro in The Wall Street Journal

“The president didn’t mention violence on Wednesday, much less provoke or incite it. He said, ‘I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.’

“District law defines a riot as ‘a public disturbance . . . which by tumultuous and violent conduct or the threat thereof creates grave danger of damage or injury to property or persons.’ When Mr. Trump spoke, there was no “public disturbance,” only a rally. The ‘disturbance’ came later at the Capitol by a small minority who entered the perimeter and broke the law. They should be prosecuted.

“The president’s critics want him charged for inflaming the emotions of angry Americans. That alone does not satisfy the elements of any criminal offense, and therefore his speech is protected by the Constitution that members of Congress are sworn to support and defend.”

More than 50 years ago, the Supremes decided in Brandenburg v. Ohio:

Freedoms of speech and press do not permit a State to forbid advocacy of the use of force or of law violation except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action.

References:

https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/395/444/

https://www.wsj.com/articles/no-trump-isnt-guilty-of-incitement-11610303966?mod=opinion_lead_pos6

Inflation Ahead?

Per MorganStanley, five factors will drive inflation:

  • 1. First, private sector risk appetite has experienced limited scarring: As we have argued at length, the pandemic was an exogenous shock. Policy-makers were unfettered by moral hazard concerns and had little hesitation about underwriting household and corporate income losses to an unprecedented degree. In particular, while unemployment cost US households US$330 billion in wage income, they have already received US$1 trillion in aggregate in transfers, a figure that will rise as the second round of fiscal stimulus kicks in. The excess saving of about US$1.4 trillion will provide the fuel for pent-up demand to drive a sharp rebound in growth once economies fully reopen. We forecast GDP growth of 5.9%Y for the US in 2021, a full 2 percentage points above the consensus. With the Democrats taking control of the Senate, hopes of further fiscal stimulus have risen (we expect an additional US$1 trillion for COVID-19 aid in the near term and further healthcare/infrastructure spending initiatives later in 2021), along with prospects for an even stronger recovery.
  • 2. Second, the loss from unemployment overstates the economic loss: Like our growth expectations, our unemployment rate forecasts are more bullish than the consensus. As things stand, about 78% of US job losses have come in COVID-19- sensitive sectors, which will rebound rapidly once the economy fully reopens. Moreover, 68% of the job losses from February-April 2020 are in low-income segments, and one should not overstate the impact on aggregate growth, notwithstanding the need for additional policy support targeting low-income households.
  • 3. Third, policy-makers are attempting to run the economy red-hot, with the aim of returning the economy to its pre-COVID-19 unemployment rate. However, accelerated restructuring in the economy will mean that displaced workers will need time for retraining. As this process unfolds, the labor market may tighten even earlier than the headline unemployment rate implies. While this dynamic was also at play following the 2008 recession, the recovery was more gradual, which crucially gave businesses and the labor market ample time to adjust.
  • 4. Fourth, policy-makers are pushing for further transfers to low-income segments, and they are likely to continue reining in the trio of tech, trade and titans in an effort to mitigate the impacts of a lower wage share and higher income inequality. The recession’s disproportionate impact on lower-income households has exacerbated the pre-existing issue of inequality, increasing the impetus for policy-makers to act. Further transfers, especially given how they are now in excess of lost income, will impart an inflationary impulse. Disrupting the trio of tech, trade and titans, which have played an important disinflationary role for the past 30 years, will dampen their disinflationary impulse.
  • 5. Finally, the Fed is committed to its 2%Y average inflation goal: The consensus believes that it is one thing to target a 2%Y average inflation goal and another to actually get it. But in previous cycles, the Fed had tightened monetary policy well before inflation moved above 2%Y sustainably. This is unlikely to be the case this time, hence any initial rises in inflation will have more time to take hold.

The Blood of Patriots

Published in The Burning Platform by ZMan:

Yeterday, Ashli Babbitt was shot in the neck and died while protesting inside the Capitol with other protestors. A group of angry Trump supporters had got into the building and were making a racket. This is not an unusual occurrence. During the Kavanaugh hearings, Democrats organized mobs of screeching women to harass Republicans in the halls of the Capitol. Party media was there to celebrate it as the purest expression of democracy. It was power to the people time.

That was not the case yesterday, according to the media. Instead, it was a direct threat to “our” democracy. This is a bit ironic in that the protests are over the obvious corruption in the election system. The direct threat to democracy is the people demanding their elections be fair and honest. That’s why Ashli Babbitt was inside the Capitol making a racket. Her whole life she had been told this was how citizens angry at their government demand redress when the system fails.

That is how popular government is supposed to work. The people expect their government to be responsive to the will of the people. When they don’t like that they see, they vote for different people to hold office. If those politicians ignore the people, then the people go bang on their door and demand redress of their grievances. The politicians then come out and address their issues. That’s not it works now. Instead, they open fire on the people like they did yesterday.

Read the rest here: https://www.theburningplatform.com/2021/01/09/the-blood-of-patriots/#more-231569

The Reichstag Fire

An American Reichstag Fire. It's not as far-fetched as you might… | by Joel Looper | Arc Digital

On February 27, 1933, the German parliament (Reichstag) building burned down due to arson. The Nazi leadership and its German Nationalist coalition partners exploited the fire to persuade President Paul von Hindenburg that Communists were planning a violent uprising to derail Germany’s “national renewal.”

They claimed that emergency legislation was needed to prevent this.

Commonly known as the Reichstag Fire Decree, the resulting act “For the Protection of the People and State” abolished a number of constitutional protections and paved the way for Nazi dictatorship.

http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/reichstagfire.htm

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/the-reichstag-fire

What is truth?

Park Police walk back tear gas denial in aggressive Lafayette Park clearing

Jonathan Turley:

“However, it is simply not true that the Lafayette Park protests were peaceful as demonstrated by the high number of law enforcement injuries and extensive property damage. Even on the day of the clearing of the area, there was some violence. However, when the park was cleared, there was not the violence of the preceding days. That is why the level of force was excessive. The reports of a “peaceful” protest intentionally omits the violence leading up to the plan to expand the perimeter. The clearing of the park was not to address the immediate violence in the park. It was approved earlier to clear the park to protect the complex. Thus, there had been considerable violence and destruction but there was not such violence at the time of the clearing of the park. That is what happened in Lafayette Square.

“I fail to see why such facts cannot be recognized and still criticize actions in both operations. Indeed, you can make the valid point that the effort to stop a constitutional act in Congress is a far greater threat to our system. Yet, there is no need to revise the facts to make those points. Indeed, they are more compelling when presented in a frank and honest way. We cannot reach a consensus as a nation if we are demanding answers based on diametrically opposed facts. There is clarity — and a truth — to be found in these incidents but it will take people of good faith to reach achieve that vital goal.”

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (December 29, 1974): “In our country the lie has become not just a moral category but a pillar of the State.”

The Lafayette Park Protests And The Revision Of History

Parler Silenced by the Oligarchs

“Woe to that nation whose literature is disturbed by the intervention of power. Because that is not just a violation against ‘freedom of print’, it is the closing down of the heart of the nation, a slashing to pieces of its memory. The nation ceases to be mindful of itself, it is deprived of its spiritual unity, and despite a supposedly common language, compatriots suddenly cease to understand one another.”

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/amazon-employees-demand-company-drop-parler-aws-cloud-app-becomes-1-download

Spiking LNG Prices as Grand Solar Minimum Weather Patterns Appear

Asian LNG spot price jumps to highest on record amid winter supply crunch

This is the first winter since the onset of the Grand Solar Minimum. And the impacts are sharp and immediate.

LNG prices hit new records as temperature in Asia and Europe drop precipitousely amist tight supples.

The historic Arctic blast is set to continue across Asia, with Beijing recording -19.6C on Thursday morning–the city’s lowest temperature since 1966. Other Chinese cities are seeing new record lows.

The Beijing Meteorological Service expects to set a new all-time record low through the weekend while in Northeast China’s Jilin province saw a historic -32C (-25.6F) on Friday–all due to the frigid air descending anomalously-far south from Siberia.

Japan faces similar LNG demand and high prices due to the exceptional cold and decrease in LNG availability.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-01-08/asia-s-big-freeze-sends-lng-prices-into-the-stratosphere

Job Loss

A big surprise just how ugly the December print was, with the BLS reporting that a whopping 140K jobs were lost last month, the first monthly job loss since April’s record drop.

The -140K print was worse than all but three of 66 forecasts in the Bloomberg survey.

The unemployment rate was unchanged at 6.7 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. The decline in payroll employment reflects the recent increase in coronavirus (COVID-19) cases and efforts to contain the pandemic.

In December, job losses in leisure and hospitality and in private education were partially offset by gains in professional and business services, retail trade, and construction.

The labor force participation rate and the employment-population ratio were both unchanged over the month, at 61.5 percent and 57.4 percent, respectively. These measures are up from their recent April lows but are lower than in February by 1.8 percentage points and 3.7 percentage points, respectively.

Office Apocalypse

As reported in Bloomberg, new leases in the fourth quarter dropped 64% YoY to 4.6 million square feet.

Average asking rents for the highest-quality offices fell 8.6% to $90.42 a square foot, a decline that doesn’t capture concessions such as free months or tenant-improvement allowances.

And, as the graph above indicates, this may just be the beginning.

The escape from New York, that is.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-01-05/manhattan-office-vacancies-soar-to-a-record-with-leasing-frozen