As the 2024 U.S. election cycle kicks into gear, Citigroup ponders the potential fiscal implications under different election outcomes.

Perhaps most interesting is their prediction of a high likelihood of Republicans gaining control of the Senate, although falling short of a 60-vote filibuster-proof majority​​. This, however, does not guarantee smooth sailing for the GOP. With the Democrats' current grip on the Senate (51-49), Republicans would need to not only retain competitive seats but also snatch at least one from key states like Florida or Texas​​.

Hunter Biden will be slapped with contempt of congress if he skips out on his Dec. 13 closed-door deposition, according to a Wednesday letter from House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan to Hunter's defense attorney, Abbe D. Lowell.

"Contrary to the assertions in your letter, there is no ‘choice’ for Mr. Biden to make; the subpoenas compel him to appear for a deposition on December 13. If Mr. Biden does not appear for his deposition on December 13, 2023, the Committees will initiate contempt of Congress proceedings," reads the letter, issued a week after Lowell suggested that Hunter should instead be allowed to testify publicly.

What a year.

It feels as if government Grinches and corporate Scrooges have been working overtime to drain every last drop of joy, kindness and liberty from the world.

After endless months of being mired in political gloom and doom, we could all use a little Christmas cheer right now.

Unfortunately, Christmas has become embattled in recent years, co-opted by rampant commercialism, straight-jacketed by political correctness, and denuded of so much of its loveliness, holiness and mystery.

Indeed, the season for giving has turned into the season for getting…and for getting offended.

To a nation of snowflakes, Christmas has become yet another trigger word.

The issue to carry on providing military and financial support to Ukraine remains one of the hot topics on Capitol Hill. And if the aspirations of the Democrats to give the American taxpayers' money to Zelensky remain stable (more than 75%), the voices inside the Republican Party about the need to finally end it are increasingly heard.

Regular postponements of the voting dates in the U.S. Congress on the allocation of billions of dollars for the provision of "emergency assistance" to Ukraine reflect serious inter-party contradictions on this matter. Thankfully, the Democrats have not been able to gain any advantages to date.

We’ve managed to find out some details of the secret talks between CIA Director William Burns and Zelensky, where Mr. Burns personally warned the Ukrainian president about the "upcoming financial difficulties" that Kyiv will face shortly.

Burns mentioned that the Democratic Party is going through a tough time, and Biden needs to focus on the presidential election now. In this regard, the CIA Director hinted to Zelensky that more funds allocated to Ukraine must be transferred back to the United States "to ensure democracy's triumph." He recalled that if Trump wins the presidency, the financial assistance may end by the beginning of 2025.

Money supply growth fell again in October, remaining deep in negative territory after turning negative in November 2022 for the first time in twenty-eight years. October's drop continues a steep downward trend from the unprecedented highs experienced during much of the past two years.

Since April 2021, money supply growth has slowed quickly, and since November, we've been seeing the money supply repeatedly contract year over year. The last time the year-over-year (YOY) change in the money supply slipped into negative territory was in November 1994. At that time, negative growth continued for fifteen months, finally turning positive again in January 1996. 

If the Democrats wanted to fund the Ukraine, they would just agree to border security.

They wouldn’t even actually have to enforce it (they haven’t so far).

The Senate’s top Democratic appropriator is warning that accepting Speaker Mike Johnson’s fallback idea for government funding would be “absolutely devastating” for federal agencies and families across the country if bipartisan spending negotiations falter.

The owner of a Flagstaff, Arizona, firing range and gun store says the city is violating his First Amendment rights by refusing to renew an advertising contract he’s had since 2019.

City officials did not respond to emails and telephone messages seeking comment for this story before press time.

During a recent city council meeting, a deputy city attorney said city leaders are reviewing advertising policies. He took issue with how the dispute was portrayed in news reports.

“The city is not abusing its power to advance an anti-gun agenda,” deputy city attorney Kevin Fincel told the council.

Rob Wilson owns Timberline Firearms and Training. He purchased ad time on the video monitors over the baggage carousels in the Flagstaff Pulliam Airport, along with other Flagstaff businesses, in 2019.

He decided to advertise in the airport while traveling for his other job as a consultant with the U.S. Navy when he saw how many tourists pass through the airport.

The US and Sweden have signed a Defense Cooperation Agreement (DCA) that will grant the US military access to bases across the Nordic country as Stockholm has abandoned its centuries-old policy of neutrality.

The Pentagon said the deal will allow “US forces to operate in Sweden, including the legal status of US military personnel, access to deployment areas (and) prepositioning of military materiel.”

Swedish Defense Minister Pal Jonson inked the pact with Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin on Tuesday and said it “will create better conditions for Sweden to be able to receive support from the United States in the event of a war or crisis.”

The deal comes as Sweden is still waiting for Turkey and Hungary to approve its NATO bid. The US State Department said the DCA with Sweden will “apply seamlessly before and after Sweden’s accession to the NATO Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA).”

The White House approved two arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the UAE totaling over $600 million. The sale to two of Washington’s closest Arab partners in the Middle East comes as America’s regional reputation is tanking over US support for Israel’s onslaught against the besieged Gaza Strip. 

On Monday, the State Department announced it had approved a $583 million sale of RE-3A Tactical Airborne Surveillance System Aircraft Modernisation and related equipment. The equipment will be used to modernize surveillance aircraft from the 1980s. 

The Biden administration also approved the $85 million sale of 18 AN/TPQ-50 radar systems to the United Arab Emirates. The radar system is designed to detect the direction of mortar fire, and SRC INC will be the primary contractor. 

The arms sales come as Washington is losing favor among the people in the Middle East over Israel’s brutal military operations in Gaza. A cable authored by an American diplomat in the Middle East warned last month that Israel’s destructive and deadly military campaign in Gaza “is losing us Arab publics for a generation.”

US National Security Council Spokesperson John Kirby on Wednesday said that Washington does not endorse a permanent ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza Strip, claiming that the Palestinian militants could regroup during a truce. 

“We do not support a ceasefire this time. And I think it's important that we talk a little bit about what we mean when we talk about a permanent ceasefire. That is a step that you take in, in advance of ending the conflict. Both sides lay down their arms, and it's a sign that we're going to get into some sort of negotiations to end the conflict,” Kirby told Rudaw’s Diyar Kurda during a press briefing.

He added that a permanent ceasefire would be in the interest of Hamas, allowing it to regroup and train for more attacks on Israel. 

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky and his team admit that their current negotiating position with Russia would be weak, but they are also dodging responsibility for leading the nation to this impasse, former opposition leader Viktor Medvedchuk has said.

Medvedchuk, who was forced by the Zelensky government into exile in Russia, was commenting on a recent interview by MP David Arakhamia, who led the Ukrainian delegation in peace talks with Russia in Istanbul last year. The lawmaker believes that Kiev cannot negotiate with Moscow today due to the “very bad position” it would have. He suggested that a proposal to hold talks should be voted on in a national referendum.

“The Zelensky team turned out to be not just bad negotiators, but criminal amateurs” incapable of governing a nation, Medvedchuk claimed.

Guyana’s president told The Associated Press on Wednesday that his country is taking every necessary step to protect itself from Venezuela, which has ordered its state-owned companies to explore and exploit oil and minerals in the vast Essequibo region, which Guyana considers its own.

When asked if he has requested military assistance, President Irfaan Ali said his government is reaching out to allies and regional partners, some of which Guyana has defense agreements with, to protect Essequibo. The region makes up two-thirds of the country.

“We take this threat very seriously, and we have initiated a number of precautionary measures to ensure the peace and stability of this region,” Ali said in the brief phone interview. He noted that Guyana’s Defense Force also is speaking with counterparts in other countries but did not say which ones.

 Six Nevada Republicans were indicted by a grand jury in the state on Wednesday for their alleged roles in an “alternate elector” scheme that declared that former President Donald Trump won the state in 2020.

On Tuesday, the House of Representatives passed a controversial bill equating anti-Zionism with antisemitism and effectively laying the groundwork for other laws to be crafted that could classify pro-Palestine protests and demonstrations as crimes. The bill’s passage stirred outrage among supporters of Palestine and free speech.

Another bill was introduced more quietly and immediately demonstrated the dangers of the first. Both bills bear close scrutiny. Taken together, they promise to make support for Palestinians under siege by Israel much more difficult.

Webmaster addition:

• The UN special rapporteur on the right to health says the “practice of medicine is under attack” in Gaza.
• The Palestine Red Crescent Society says its ambulance services in northern Gaza have come to a standstill.
• UN chief Guterres invokes seldom-used Article 99 to force the Security Council to address war in Gaza, warning of deepening “catastrophe”.
• At least 17,177 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since October 7. In Israel, the official death toll stands at about 1,150.

Iran has sent a capsule carrying animals into space as it boosts its Western-contested space programme in preparation for human missions.

State media on Wednesday released a clip of the launch of an Iranian-made rocket carrying the capsule, which they said was successfully sent 130km (80 miles) into orbit.

The Salman rocket carried an “all indigenous” capsule weighing 500kg (1,100 pounds), which is reportedly the heaviest biological capsule ever successfully carried in the history of the Iranian space programme.

Neither state media nor Telecommunications Minister Isa Zarepour, who confirmed the news, said what kind of animals were in the capsule.

A Nebraska labor leader running for the U.S. Senate as an independent could best the Republican incumbent, according to a recent poll of voters in the Cornhusker State.

Dan Osborn, a 48-year-old military veteran who helped lead the 2021 strikes against food giant Kellogg’s, launched a challenge against 72-year-old Nebraska Republican Sen. Deb Fischer in October. A poll conducted by Change Research, a liberal research firm, shows Osborn leading Fischer by a margin of 2 points. Nebraska has voted for a Republican president every year since 1964, and the survey, conducted in November, shows that respondents favor former President Donald Trump over President Joe Biden by a margin of 16.

The greatest thing is that McCarthy went down fighting against Russia.

That’s sort of why the story matters.

During the fourth Republican presidential primary debate on Wednesday, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, citing his time serving in the Middle East, referred to the clothing worn by Al Qaeda as “man dresses.”

DeSantis was answering a question at the debate, hosted by NewsNation, about his past remarks that he’d authorize shooting drug smugglers coming across the southern border. 

“When I was in Iraq, the Al Qaeda wasn’t wearing a uniform. You'd see anyone walking down the street, they all had man dresses on. You didn’t know if they had a bomb, an IED, attached or not," DeSantis said.

Webmaster addition: That was reckless of DeSantis. Polls are showing Muslims moving away from supporting Democrats because of Biden's handling of the Israel/Palestine war. Great time for a Republican candidate to insult them!

It’s almost like zionists are really losing badly, and this is why they are lashing out like divorced women.