By Benjamin Picton, Senior Macro Strategist at Rabobank

Bumps and Potholes

UK Q1 GDP surprised to the upside at the end of last week to print at +0.6%, rather than the more modest 0.4% that market economists had been expecting. That means that Britain is officially out of recession. Perhaps even more importantly for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, GDP per capita grew for the first time in two years and the Governor of the Bank of England has been talking about rate cuts. The FT reports that corporate takeover activity for UK companies has hit the highest level since 2018 as international capital managers realise that UK stocks are comparatively cheap. Suddenly, everything is coming up Rishi, but that’s unlikely to save him from an electoral drubbing later in the year.

Of course, faster economic growth can in some ways be a double-edged sword. If the economy is turning over more quickly, it raises questions about inflationary pressures – which might delay those rate cuts that Governor Bailey was hinting at. In the case of the UK this might not be an issue because the stronger GDP result was driven by fixed capital formation – suggesting that businesses are investing to raise the speed limit of the economy – while households seem to have taken Huw Pill’s advice to accept that they are poorer and kept a lid on their own spending.

Over in Canada it might be a different story. Labour market figures for April showed employment growth of 90,000 in the month. That’s a mighty bounce back from the loss of 2,200 jobs in March, and well above the consensus estimate of +20,000 jobs. The unemployment rate duly fell (despite a 1-tick climb in the participation rate) to a still high 6.1%, and hourly wages growth also came in firmer than expected at 4.8% y-o-y (albeit down on March’s 5% figure).

Consequently, the 65% probability of a June rate cut that the OIS futures were suggesting last Thursday has suddenly fallen to a 45% probability. The market is still fully-priced for a cut by July, but only just.

There were further bumps in the road for the global crusade against inflation last Friday when the latest iteration of the University of Michigan consumer sentiment report was released. Consumer confidence dropped like a rock, all the way from 77.2 in April to 67.4 in May. Both ‘current conditions’ and ‘future expectations’ looked grim, which perhaps suggests a “plague on both your houses” attitude to the two leading contenders for the Presidency. Crucially, 1-year inflation expectations leapt from 3.2% to 3.5%, and 5-10 year expectations (generally a low volatility number) edged higher from 3% to 3.1%. Even if Jerome Powell “can’t see the stag and can’t see the flation”, it appears that consumers can.

Powell is scheduled to speak tomorrow, but the timing presents a few potential landmines for the Fed Chief. Powell’s remarks will come after the release of April PPI figures, but ahead of the CPI report. CPI is likely to be the key point of interest for financial markets this week, but there’s also the not-insignificant issue of big new tariffs on Chinese EVs (amongst other things) expected to be announced tomorrow. The CPI numbers are expected to print at +0.4% m-o-m, as they did in March. Unfortunately, 0.4% m-o-m is incompatible with 2% annual inflation, so Powell might still be a little cagey on there whereabouts of the stag and the ‘flation.

Japan, China and Australia have lately thrown up some potholes in the road back to at-target inflation. Japanese March labour cash earning figures reported last week showed year-on-year growth of less than half the expected number. China PPI slipped further into deflation at -2.5% in April (although CPI nudged up slightly to 0.3%) and aggregate financing actually fell for the first time since 2005.

China’s housing woes are clearly ongoing, and it appears that this has started to worry Xi Jinping, who is reportedly looking at ways to protect state-owned developers that may also help to staunch the balance sheet recession being experienced by Chinese households. The long-awaited stimulus bazooka might be on the way (of sorts), but almost certainly not for private sector developers who might be too close to decadent Western-style capitalists for Xi’s liking.

The fortunes of Chinese real estate developers are of particular interest to Australia, since bulk commodities used in the production of steel and concrete (iron ore, coking coal) sit atop the list of Australia’s major exports.

The Australian Government will deliver a budget tomorrow night - Treasurer Jim Chalmers’ third, and likely his second successive surplus. The now traditional pre-budget leaks to the media suggest a more growth-oriented fiscal impulse which would ordinarily be a concern for the RBA - who inexplicably maintained their neutral outlook on interest rates last week, despite big upward revisions in their inflation forecasts and downward revisions to unemployment forecasts.

One suspects that the RBA dead-batted the strong Q1 inflation print of a week earlier with the benefit of advance warning from Treasury that budget initiatives would substantially reduce measured CPI. Treasury is reportedly expecting CPI to be back below 3% by the end of the year as new subsidies for electricity bills, rent assistance and childcare shift the burden of payment from households to government. Those increased subsidies will mechanically reduce measured CPI, but they won’t reduce underlying cost pressures, which will instead be paid through the tax system. Happily, the budget will also include income tax cuts.

So, there have been a few bumps to inflation here, and a few unanticipated drops there. Ultimately the US CPI report will be the main game of the week as markets look for continued signs of an upward trend in price pressures.

Well if Fed Chair Powell couldn't see the 'flation' before, perhaps he can now...

After flatlining around 3.,0% for the last four months the median one-year-ahead inflation expectations increased to 3.3%, according to The New York Fed's April Survey of Consumer Expectations.

They also increased to 2.8 percent from 2.6 percent at the five-year-ahead horizon, while decreasing to 2.8 percent from 2.9 percent at the three-year horizon.

Home price expectations ticked up to 3.3 percent after seven consecutive months at 3.0 percent, reaching their highest level since July 2022.

Consumers also anticipated faster price growth for gasoline, food, medical care, a college education and rents, according to the New York Fed survey.

The data follow a string of reports that have indicated sticky inflation and a relentless run-up in home prices.

Data out this week is projected to show US consumer prices still rose at stubborn pace last month, and shelter has been consistently responsible for boosting measures of inflation.

All of which is hammering household budgets as the share of consumers that expect they’ll miss a minimum debt payment over the next three months is at the highest since the onset of the pandemic.

Finally, views of the labor market worsened, with earnings growth expectations decreasing and the probability of higher unemployment rising.

Respondents were also less confident in their ability to find a new job if they lost their current one, falling to the lowest reading in three years.

So - all things considered - not the shiny basket of awesomeness that 'Bidenomics' keeps being promoted as eh?

You know it's bad when Axios is calling out Jen Psaki for lying about President Biden checking his watch during a ceremony for soldiers killed during the botched 2021 Afghanistan withdrawal.

In her new book, "Say More," the former White House press secretary claims that Biden looked at his watch only after the ceremony had ended, contradicting fact-checks (even Snopes) and on-the-record statements from Gold Star families who were there.

Psaki says Biden critics were engaged in "misinformation" and used the image to make "him appear insensitive, concerned only about how much time had passed."

The Associated Press photographer on the tarmac snapped two photos of Biden looking at his watch twice and 10 minutes apart, as fact-checkers at USA Today and Snopes noted soon afterward. -Axios

Psaki also 'mistakenly cited' a passage from the Washington Post to reinforce her lie - when what she quoted was actually from USA Today's fact check article, not the post. The fact check noted that Biden looked at his watch at the end of the ceremony, but also concluded that "photos and video show [Biden] also checked his watch during the ceremony."

More via Axios:

Many family members of the 13 soldiers killed during the explosion at the Abbey Gate base in Kabul have consistently said in interviews and appearances before Congress that Biden checked his watch as the caskets went by.

• Mark Schmitz, the father of Marine Lance Cpl. Jared Schmitz, told Congress in August of 2023 that "while I stood there on the tarmac watching you check your watch over and over again, all I wanted to do was shout out, 'It's two f***ing thirty, asshole.' "
• The day after the ceremony on Aug. 29, 2021, Shana Chappell, the mother of Marine Lance Cpl. Kareem Nikoui, wrote on Facebook: "I watched you disrespect us all 5 different times by checking your watch!!! What the f*** was so important that you had to keep looking at your watch????"

.@jrpsaki I’ve spoke to these parents.

Calling Gold Star families liars - even when there’s photographic proof - is a pathetic partisan attempt to defend your boss and a bad look. https://t.co/XoZi6VTETX

— Rep. Mike Waltz (@michaelgwaltz) May 13, 2024

Psaki Responds

While initially declining to comment, Psaki told Axios that the "detail in a few lines of the book about the exact number of times he looked at his watch will be removed in future reprints and the ebook," adding "The story on Afghanistan is really about the importance of delivering feedback even when it is difficult told through my own experience of telling President Biden that his own story of loss was not well received by the families who were grieving their sons and daughters."

https://t.co/dr3KFWKTQO pic.twitter.com/7y9URnyPXU

— Peter J. Hasson (@peterjhasson) May 13, 2024

Democrats consistently rewrite history.

This is a particularly despicable instance of this.

What do the Dems running for Congress in #WI03 have to say about this disgrace?

Nothing.

They will not even bother to protect Americans on social media, what do you think they would… https://t.co/DCKiDSdvU8

— Derrick Van Orden (@derrickvanorden) May 13, 2024

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

Warmonger in chief Lindsey Graham suggested Sunday that Israel, with the help of the US, should use nuclear weapons on Iran and Hamas fighters in Palestinian territories.

Appearing on NBC News’ “Meet the Press,” the Republican Senator asked “Why did we drop two bombs, nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki?”

“To end a war that we couldn’t afford to lose,” Graham continued, adding “You don’t understand, apparently, what Israel is facing. They’re facing three groups: Iran, who has received $80 billion in aid… They’re taking that money to kill all the Jews.”

Graham claimed that Israel is facing a significant threat to its existence, and therefore should do whatever it takes, just as the US did in World War Two.

Lindsey Graham suggests dropping big fat NUKES on Iran and Hamas. Doesn't explain how that would work, just says 'it was ok when we did it to Japan'. Full report here: https://t.co/I5kmBiK9OQ pic.twitter.com/LdHXnNVTYd

— m o d e r n i t y (@ModernityNews) May 13, 2024

“Why is it okay for America to drop two nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end their existential threat war?”

Graham continued, adding “Why was it okay for us to do that? I thought it was okay. To Israel, do whatever you have to do to survive as a Jewish state.”

“Give Israel the bombs they need to end the war they can’t afford to lose and work with them to minimise casualties,” Graham urged.

Host Kristen Welker provided some pushback, noting that there are now more advanced weapons that could be deployed, rather than just dropping a big fat nuke, and that there might be an alternative to all out war.

But Graham wasn’t having it, stating “When you’re telling the world you’re going to restrict weapons delivery to the Jewish state who is fighting a three-front war for their survival, it emboldens Iran, it emboldens Hamas.”

It’s hardly surprising coming from Graham, who has been calling for wiping Iran off the face of the Earth for years now. But how exactly is Israel going to nuke Hamas without causing more untold carnage to millions of innocent people, including those in its own country?

*  *  *

Your support is crucial in helping us defeat mass censorship. Please consider donating via Locals or check out our unique merch. Follow us on X @ModernityNews.

The trial over Bill Hwang's Archegos Capital Management begins this week.

The charges in Hwang's trial come from the 2021 collapse of the $36 billion dollar Archegos and Reuters has said that testimony could last up to 8 weeks. Prosecutors have said that Archegos' collapse led to $100 billion in shareholder losses at companies he held.

The trial is set to shed a light on how major Wall Street players accommodated, and potentially turned a blind eye, to risky tactics from a wealthy client. Hwang is being accused of using total return swaps to take massive positions in companies without holding their underlying stock. 

As Reuters notes, the company faced crippling margin calls in March 2021 due to falling stock prices. This, in turn, led to significant losses for Archegos and its lenders, including Credit Suisse and Nomura Holdings.

Archegos founder Bill Hwang and CFO Patrick Halligan, charged with racketeering conspiracy and multiple counts of fraud and market manipulation, have pleaded not guilty.

They contest the prosecutors' claims of market manipulation, which some legal experts view as a challenging case for the government. The trial is expected to feature testimony from Archegos’s guilty-pleading head trader and Chief Risk Officer, alongside potential appearances from bank executives.

Hwang was arrested in April 2022 and charged with racketeering conspiracy, securities fraud and wire fraud in connection with a scheme to manipulate the share prices of public companies in order to boost profits. He was then released on $100 million bail. At the time, he told authorities that he had "lost his passport" and so his wife surrendered hers instead. As we noted, he also lived just minutes from Teterboro airport in New Jersey. 

Chief Financial Officer Patrick Halligan, also pleaded not guilty and was freed on $1 million bail and had his travel limited.

According to the 40-page indictment, Hwang engaged in a "fraudulent scheme" that included "interlocking deceptive acts and misconduct, through false and misleading statements to security-based swap ("SBS") counterparties and prime brokers and manipulative trading designed to artificially move the market, which, in tandem, increased Archegos’s assets under management from around $4 billion to over $36 billion in just under six months."

In order to overcome this issue, Archegos "chose not to rely on ordinary market forces," and instead "engaged in a brazen scheme to manipulate the market for the securities of the issuers that represented Archegos’s top 10 holdings" by purchasing both securities and SBSs related to those issuers.

Archegos, through Hwang and Tomita, effected this scheme by dominating the market for its Top 10 Holdings, as well as by “setting the tone” (i.e., engaging in large pre-market trading), bidding up prices by entering incrementally higher limit orders throughout the trading day, and “marking the close” (i.e., engaging in large trading in the last 30 minutes of the trading day) and by other non-economic trading, all with the goal of artificially inflating the share prices of its Top 10 Holdings.

To fuel the alleged manipulation, Archegos used margin extended by counterparties - which Hwang and crew 'deliberately misled', because had they answered truthfully after they began asking questions, it "would have led Archegos to exhaust the finite trading resource that its Counterparties provided."

As a reminder, Archegos amassed a concentrated portfolio of stocks well in excess of $100 billion by using borrowed money in the form of TRS, which kept the exposure on the books of the various prime brokers working with Archegos, thus allowing Hwang to hide his full exposure.

Hwang is a former protégé of hedge-fund titan Julian Robertson, who founded Tiger Management in 1980, which as the Wall Street Journal reports, turned $8.8 million into nearly $22 billion. Several investors trained by Robertson became known as the "Tiger cubs."

Authored by Rebekah Barnett via 'Dystopian Down Under' blog,

Can Australia’s eSafety Commissioner block content globally on demand? Not today, ruled the Australian Federal Court, in a win for Elon Musk’s social media platform X.

US billionaire Elon Musk (left), Australian eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant (right)

In a decision this morning, Justice Geoffrey Kennett refused to extend a temporary injunction obtained by eSafety last month, which forced X to remove footage of the Wakeley church stabbing, an alleged religiously motivated terror attack.

Under the Online Safety Act (2021), the eSafety Commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, has the authority to order removal of such ‘class 1 material’ within Australia under threat of hefty fines.

eSafety argued that X had not gone far enough to block the content from Australians, as a geo-block can be circumvented by a VPN. X argued that eSafety was effectively seeking a global ban on content, straying outside of the Australian online harm regulator’s jurisdiction.

eSafety applied to the Federal Court to extend its temporary injunction against X, with a hearing taking place on Friday 10 May. The temporary injunction was due to expire at 5pm on Friday, but was extended to 5pm today, presumably to allow time for Justice Kennett to deliver a decision on the matter.

This morning, Justice Kennett determined that, “The orders of the court will be that the application to extend … is refused,” meaning that at the time of publishing, the injunction is no longer effective. A written decision with the Judge’s reasoning is yet to be published.

In a statement on the Federal Court decision, eSafety said that the matter will return to Court for a case management hearing on Wednesday, 15 May.

Source: X

"The application for this injunction should have never been brought," said Dr Reuben Kirkham, Co-Director of the Free Speech Union of Australia (FSU) in a statement today, questioning the validity of the Commissioner’s bid to enact a global content ban on X.

“The eSafety Commissioner is overreaching and behaving more like an activist than a responsible public servant.”

Dr Kirkham, who was present for the hearing on Friday, told Dystopian Down Under that he counted 12 lawyers present (seven for X, five for eSafety), which, if eSafety is ordered to pay costs, will lump tax payers with “a considerable amount of unnecessary legal costs.”

Digital civil liberties nonprofit the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) echoes FSU Australia’s position, stating that, “no single country should be able to restrict speech across the entire internet,” and likening the Commissioner’s actions to “[using] a sledgehammer to crack a nut.”

An affidavit submitted by the EFF to the eSafety vs. X proceedings last week called for the Court to consider the international impact that a ruling in eSafety’s favour would have in setting a precedent for allowing one country to enforce content bans on citizens of other countries.

“If one court can impose speech-restrictive rules on the entire Internet—despite direct conflicts with laws [in] a foreign jurisdiction as well as international human rights principles—the norms of expectations of all internet users are at risk,” stated the EFF in an article summarising the affidavit.

X’s Global Government Affairs posted about the hearing, stating, “We’re glad X is fighting back, and we hope the judge will recognize the eSafety regulator’s demand for what it is—a big step toward unchecked global censorship—and refuse to let Australia set another dangerous precedent." At the time of publishing, no updated statement on the Judge’s decision had been issued.

Source: X

Dr Kirkham calls the Commissioner’s application to extend her injunction against X “part of a pattern where the eSafety Commissioner’s office seemingly engages in gamesmanship rather than respecting the rule of law or acting as a model litigant.”

Indeed, today’s ruling in X’s favour comes amidst mounting controversy over the eSafety Commissioner’s ongoing stoush with X, which appears to be driven partly by Julie Inman Grant’s global censorship ambitions, and partly by personal feelings.

Inman Grant, who formerly directed Twitter’s Public Policy (Australia and Southeast Asia), has repeatedly criticised Elon Musk since his purchase of the Twitter platform in 2022.

Moreover, Musks’s advocacy for a broad interpretation of free speech on the internet conflicts with Inman Grant’s professed view of free speech as a right that needs to be “recalibrated” for online spaces.

For its part, X has failed to comply with routine reporting to the eSafety Commissioner’s satisfaction, leading eSafety to initiate civil penalty proceedings against X in December last year. If found non-compliant, X could be fined up to AUD $780,000 per day, backdated to March 2023, when the determination of non-compliance was made.

Perhaps the biggest controversy between X and eSafety centres on the highly charged and subective issue of gender ideology.

Inman Grant has enforced removal of a string of posts on X questioning gender ideology, including one suggesting that men can’t breastfeed, and another about a trans-identified male who allegedly injured female players during a women's football game in NSW.

In an internationally high-profile case, the Commissioner recently issued a removal notice over an acerbic gender-critical post by Canadian activist Billboard Chris, raising questions over whether the Government should be able to police opinions and censor statements of biological fact on the internet.

FSU Australia is currently involved in Administrative Appeal Tribunal proceedings on behalf of Billboard Chris (real name Chris Elston) against the eSafety Commissioner. Additionally, X has threatened to sue eSafety over the matter.

Source: X

Returning to the issue of the Wakeley stabbing footage, Inman Grant’s attempt to globally ban the content has been supported by the Australian Government, which leveraged the incident to call for more censorship, including the reintroduction of an unpopular misinformation bill.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has also responded to calls to address violence against women by proposing to further expand eSafety’s budget and remit, which could see deep fake pornography and “other misogynistic material” censored by the regulator.

No one will argue against explicit pornography being blocked from children’s view, but it is around the grey edges of definition creep on terms like ‘harm’, ‘adult cyber abuse’ and ‘misogynistic material’ where disagreements will undoubtedly kick-off.

In a move of ‘no confidence’ against eSafety, FSU Australia has launched a petition to abolish the office of the eSafety Commissioner altogether, arguing that a combination of parental controls and platform incentives will suffice in keeping children safe on the internet.

A more moderate approach may be to curtail eSafety’s remit to its original function of dealing with child abuse content (as in 2015), and revenge porn (as in 2017), before the regulator’s purview and powers were significantly expanded with the introduction of the Online Safety Act in 2021.

However, in the media and political conversation, there is little appetite for a moderate approach, as conveyed in a viral guest appearance by media personality Tracey Holmes on a recent episode of the ABC’s failing show Q+A.

Calling out the double standard in the censorship conversation, Holmes told the studio audience,

“I don’t agree with any kind of censorship in a general sense. I don’t think Elon Musk is contributing to any social cohesion split inside this country. I think our mainstream media is doing enough of that. I think our politicians do enough of that…

“Of course there are fault lines everywhere, but there’s only one way you can stop those fault lines from getting bigger, and that is to have the ability to have the town square to hear different points of view…

“And I think unfortunately we’ve been fed ‘this side or that side’ for so long, people are giving up on mainstream media, that’s why they’re tuning out. That’s why they’re going to YouTube… we have let them down.”

Hopefully, some higher-ups in the corporate media tuned to hear what Holmes had to say.

*  *  *

To support Rebekah's work, share, subscribe, and/or make a one-off contribution to DDU via my Kofi account. Thanks! Follow her on X

Two weeks ago, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was thoroughly savaged during a debate at Oxford University over the question of whether populism is a "threat to democracy." In case you missed it, read on as it's making the rounds. If you have 14 minutes to spare, jump right in:

Opening the case for the left was Rachel Haddad, Secretary of the Oxford Union. She argued that populist leaders like Donald Trump and Nigel Farage pose a threat to democracy, and are not a "new generation of geniuses" who can find simple solutions to longstanding, complex problems.

Pelosi closed the debate for the proposition, defining populism as an "ethno-nationalist populism, generated by an ethnic negativity to immigrants, people who are different from them and the rest" (so, 'they're racists!').

Speaking against the motion were Union committee members Sultan Kokhar (Chair of Consultative Committee) and Oscar Whittle (Director of Research), as well as former Mumford & Sons lead guitarist, Winston Marshall - now a podcaster for The Spectator - who got into an exchange with Pelosi during parts of his speech.

Marshall started out by saying:

"Words have a tendency to change meaning when I was a boy, "woman" meant "someone who didn't have a cock."

Populism has become a word used synonymously with "racists." We've heard "ethno-nationalist," with "bigot," with "hillbilly," "redneck," with "deplorables."

Elites use it to show their contempt for ordinary people."

He then noted that Barack Obama, while still president, tried to frame he and Bernie Sanders as actual populists vs. Donald Trump, who 'doesn't care about working people.'

But then, "If you watch Obama's speeches after that point, more and more recently, he uses the word "populist" interchangeably with "strong man," with "authoritarian." The word changes meaning, it becomes a negative, a pejorative, a slur."

"To me, populism is not a dirty word. Since the 2008 crash and specifically the trillion-dollar Wall Street bailout, we are in the populist age, and for good reason. The elites have failed," Marshall continued.

He then got into it with Pelosi after drawing a parallel between January 6th and June 2020, saying: "I'm sure Congresswoman Pelosi will agree that the entire month of June 2020, when the federal courthouse in Portland, Oregon was under siege, and under insurrection by radical progressives, those too were dark days for America."

To which Pelosi shot back, "You are not. There is no equivalence there," adding "It is not like what happened on January 6, which was an insurrection incited by the president of the United States."

Read on for Marshall's complete masterclass in populism (transcript courtesy of RealClear Politics).

My point, though is that all political movements are susceptible to violence, and indeed insurrection. And if we were arguing that fascism was a threat to democracy, I'd be on that side of the House.

Indeed, the current populist age is a movement against fascism. I've got quite a lot to get through.

Populism as you know, is the politics of the ordinary people against an elite, populism is not a threat to democracy. Populism is democracy, and why else have universal suffrage, if not to keep elites in check?

Ladies and gentlemen, given the success of Trump, and more recently, Javier Milei taking a chainsaw to the state behemoth of Argentina's bureaucratic monster, you'd be mistaken for thinking this was a right-wing populist age, but that would be ignoring Occupy Wall Street. That would be ignoring Jeremy Corbyn's "for the many, not the few," that would be ignoring Bernie against the billionaires, RFK Jr. against Big Pharma, and more recently, George Galloway against his better judgment. Now all of them, including Galloway, recognize genuine concerns of ordinary people being otherwise ignored by the establishment.

I'm actually rather surprised that our esteemed opposition, Congressman Pelosi, is on that side of the motion. I thought the left was supposed to be anti-elite. I thought the left was supposed to be anti-establishment today, particularly in America, the globalist left have become the establishment. I suppose for Miss Pelosi to have taken this side of the motion, she'd be arguing herself out of a job.

But it's here in Britain, where right and left populists united for the supreme act of democracy, Brexit. Polls have showed the number one reason people voted for Brexit was sovereignty, for more democracy.

What was the response of the Brussels elite? They did everything in their power to undermine the Democratic will of the British people and the Westminster elite were just as disgraceful. As we've heard, David Cameron called the voters "fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists." The liberal Democrats did everything they could to overturn a democratic vote. Keir Starmer campaigned for a second referendum. Elites would have had us voting and voting and voting until we voted their way. Indeed, that's what happened in Ireland and in Denmark.

Let's look at some of the other populist movements. The Hong Konger populist revolt is literally called the Pro-Democracy Movement. In the Farmer revolts from the Netherlands to Germany, France, Greece, to Sri Lanka, farmers are taking their tractors to the road to protest ESG policy that's floated down to us from those all-knowing, infallible elites of Davos. The trucker movement in Canada became anti-elitist when petty tyrant Prime Minister Justin Trudeau froze their bank accounts, not the behavior of a democratic head of state. The Gilets Jaunes France, ULEZ in London, working people protesting policy that hurt them. And how are they treated? They're called conspiracy theorists. They're called far-right, by the mayor as well.

Ladies and gentlemen, populism is the voice of the voiceless. The real threat to democracy is from the elites. Now don't get me wrong, we need elites. If President Biden has shown us anything, we need someone to run the countries. When the president has severe dementia, it is not just America that crumbles, the whole world burns.

But let's examine the elites. European corporations spend over €1 billion a year lobbying Brussels, U.S. corporations spend over $2 billion a year lobbying in DC, and two-thirds of Congress receive funding from pharmaceutical companies. Pfizer alone spent $11 million in 2021. They made over $10 billion in profit. No wonder then that 66% of Americans think the is rigged against them for the rich and the powerful.

And by the way, we used to have a word for when big business and big government were in cahoots. And I think any students here of early 20th-century Italian history will know what I'm talking about.

What about Big Tech? Throughout the pandemic, Biden's team, the FBI, and the Department of Homeland Security colluded with Big Tech in censoring dissenting voices. Not kooky conspiracy theorists, people like Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, the Stanford epidemiologist, people like Harvard scientist Martin Kulldorf, people spreading true information, not misinformation, true information at odds with the government narrative.

Need I remind you, democracy without free speech is not democracy.

This was a direct breach by the way of the First Amendment. Before COVID, Intelligence services colluded with Big Tech to have Trump suspended off Twitter. Yes, the same platform which hosted the Taliban and Ayatollah "Death To Israel" Khomeini. They thought the president crossed the line when he tweeted on Jan 6 quote, "Remain peaceful. No violence! Respect the law and our great men and women in blue." That's a quote.

You may be thinking now that Trump is a populist. You are right. He didn't accept the 2020 elections and he should have. So should Hillary in 2016. So should Brussels, and so should Westminster in 2016. And so too should Congresswoman Pelosi, instead of saying the 2016 election was quote, "hijacked."

PELOSI: That doesn't mean we don't accept the results, though!

WINSTON MARSHALL: What about the mainstream media? Let me read you some mainstream media headlines. The New Yorker the day before the 2016 election, "The Case Against Democracy." The Washington Post, the day after the election, "The Problem With Our Government Is Democracy." The LA Times, June 2017, "The British Election Is A Reminder Of The Perils Of Too Much Democracy." Vox, June 2017, "Two eminent political scientists say the problem with democracy is voters." New York Times, June 2017, "The Problem With Participatory Democracy Is The Participants."

Mainstream media elites are part of a class who don't just disdain populism, they disdain the people. If the Democrats had put half their energy into delivering for the people, Trump wouldn't even have a chance in 2024. He shouldn't, he shouldn't have a chance. You've had power for four years. From the fabricated Steele dossier, to trying to take him off the ballot in both Maine and Colorado, the Democrats are the anti-Democrat party. All we need now is the Republicans to come out as the pro-Monarchist party.

Ladies and gentlemen, populism is not a threat to democracy, but I'll tell you what is. It is elites ordering social media to censor political opponents. It's police shutting down dissenters, be it anti-monarchists in this country or gender-critical voices here, or last week in Brussels, the National Conservative Movement.

I'll tell you what is a threat to democracy. It's Brussels, DC, Westminster, the mainstream media, big tech, big Pharma, corporate collusion and the Davos cronies. The threat to democracy comes from those who write off ordinary people as "deplorable." The threat to democracy comes from those who smear working people as "racists." The threat to democracy comes from those who write off working people as "populists."

And I'll say one last thing. This populist age can be brought to an end at the snap of a finger. All that needs to be done is for elites to start listening to, respecting, and God forbid, working for ordinary people. Thank you.

And of course, being Oxford, the Union voted for 'populism bad' - with 177 members voting for the motion, and 68 voting against. 

But today, chemically tainted blood, placenta tissue, and human remains from more than 6 in 10 abortions are flushed into America’s waterways. That is why Students for Life of America has filed citizen petitions with the FDA to stop abortion pollution and led a coalition effort of more than 40 organizations to demand that the Environmental Protection Agency track the chemicals released by chemical abortion pills.

Donald Trump has said he will soon announce his position on chemical abortion pills. To address Democrats’ abuse of federal power, Trump should take these steps in a second term:

1. Make key appointments from the vice presidency to Health & Human Services, the FDA, and the Department of Justice to reverse and review the weaponization of policy.
2. Demand that the Environmental Protection Agency track the forever chemicals of chemical abortion that have been flushed into America’s waterways.
3. Require the FDA to do clean water and endangered species testing, which have been ignored every time the chemical abortion REMS have been changed.
4. Champion health and safety standards for in-person care to address known harms to women and add environmental protections, like common-sense red bag medical waste disposal requirements to prevent tainting waterways.
5. Instruct the Drug Administration Agency and the Federal Trade Commission to address the illegal, online abortion pill vendors operating in the U.S. in violation of state laws.
6. End the Justice Department’s attacks against states and pro-life individuals, prioritized in the Biden administration, including using pro-life laws on the books, such as the Comstock Act.
7. Cut taxpayer funding to schools distributing the deadly drugs as well as abortion vendors profiting from their reckless distribution.

Confronting perhaps the most politically protected business in America, shielded from prosecution, from scrutiny, environmental oversight, and legal compliance, will require a champion who cares more about women, girls, and the preborn than the expedited sale of a deadly two-drug cocktail. But the abuse of federal power to push abortion pills must come to an end.

LifeNews Note: Kristan Hawkins is president of Students for Life of America and Students for Life Action, with more than 1,400 groups on middle and high school, college and university, medical and law school campuses in all 50 states. Follow her @KristanHawkins or subscribe to her podcast, Explicitly Pro-Life.