Monitoring Biden and other Contemporary Events

In a response to a fan who asked if Dance Powder was based on the same concept of using jets to get rid of rainclouds so people in England can play tennis matches at Wimbledon, Oda revealed his basis for Dance Powder. The model for Dance Powder is the real life compound, silver iodide, a substance that, when burned, will send up smoke that increases the size of clouds.

SPIEGEL: Mr Furman, supply shortages in China and Russia's invasion of Ukraine are fuelling inflation worldwide. You say that inflation in Europe has another source: the USA. What makes you think that?

Furman: The biggest sources of inflation in Europe are primarily energy prices. And these are clearly a consequence of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. But there has also been a sharp rise in prices of manufactured goods, which started much earlier. Goods are tradable around the world. The United States has dramatically increased its spending on goods. And that has put pressure on prices around the world.

SPIEGEL: You mean the US is exporting inflation because it is demanding more goods that Europeans would otherwise also buy?

Furman: The US responded to the corona pandemic with a five trillion dollar stimulus package. This sum is equivalent to five per cent of the world's economic output. That is really a lot of money. As a result, the demand for durable goods in America has risen sharply. For exercise equipment, for example, or garden furniture, spending is about 30 per cent higher than pre-pandemic levels. It is similar for video games, musical instruments or telephones. At the same time, we do not see a comparable increase in demand in the euro area.

SPIEGEL: In Europe, too, there is talk of catch-up consumption after the pandemic.

Furman: It's interesting how many people attribute the increase in demand to the pandemic. Europe had stricter lockdowns than the United States. But you don't see a comparable phenomenon there as in the US. US citizens, on the other hand, got cheques from the government when the pandemic was already in retreat. It was not Covid that triggered the increase in demand, but above all these payments. The money will run out eventually, of course. The Americans will not continue to have expenses of this magnitude. On the other hand, I am always surprised, because so far, month after month, spending remains higher than I would have expected.

SPIEGEL: Can you estimate the share of this effect on inflation in Europe?

Furman: I don't have an estimate. The economist Gautti Eggertsson of Brown University concludes that quite a lot of the inflation observed worldwide is due to the United States. Normally, when you see a rise in goods prices, you see a parallel rise in wages. In Europe, this effect is still very weak. So Europe is missing a number of the signs of domestically generated, demand-driven inflation.

SPIEGEL: Both economic areas, the US and the EU, are moving towards a possible recession right now. Where is the situation more difficult?

Furman: In Europe. Inflation hurts much more there because wage growth has been weaker. White-collar workers are more affected there than in the US. In North America, oil and natural gas prices have also risen less. In the long run, however, inflation is likely to be a more persistent problem in the US, precisely because it is domestically generated here - unlike in the EU.

SPIEGEL: Many observers accuse the European Central Bank of being far too hesitant in raising interest rates. Should the ECB follow the example of the US Fed?

Furman: I think both central banks are moving in roughly the right range. In the US, inflation is driven to a greater extent by demand, which justifies a more aggressive monetary policy response, higher interest rates. And the Fed, by the way, is still reacting as if we were dealing with three or four percent inflation and not eight percent. In Europe, the greater part of inflation is imported, which requires a different approach.

SPIEGEL: Which crisis is more unpredictable, the one in the EU triggered by Russia or the one looming in the US?

Furman: America's greatest risks are internal dynamics. Europe's biggest risk factors, on the other hand, are external and beyond the control of European decision-makers.

The payments for the first checks were $1,200 per person, or $2,400 for those filing jointly, plus $500 per qualifying child.

The payments for the second checks were $600 per person, or $1,200 for married individuals, plus $600 for each qualifying child.

The payments for the third checks was $1,400 per person, or $2,800 for married couples, plus an additional $1,400 per eligible child.

The Christian bible is just as much a "living document" as the Constitution.

And it looks very much like Murdoch is shifting his allegiances. For all the wrong reasons, of course, but that's helpful.

Murdoch's smart enough to see a damaged Trump as a liability which could threaten the conservative cause. So, looking ahead, he wants to encourage younger, brighter Neanderthals in the Republican Party. His goal is to strengthen the right by easing Trump out of the picture. I'm somewhat surprised that the party hasn't done this itself although recently there have been a few signs of growing irritation with the clown.

This morning, Jon Swaine and Dalton Bennett of the Washington Post reported that on October 11, 2019, at Trump’s National Doral golf resort in South Florida, Danish filmmakers caught an unguarded conversation between Trump allies talking about their legal exposure because of their work for the president.

Recording a documentary about Trump’s friend and operative, Roger Stone, the filmmakers caught Stone and Representative Matt Gaetz (R-FL) on Stone’s lapel microphone talking about Stone’s upcoming trial for lying to Congress and witness tampering during the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Federal prosecutors said that before the 2016 election, Stone repeatedly reached out to WikiLeaks “to obtain information…that would help the Trump campaign and harm the campaign of Trump’s opponent, Hillary Clinton.” Campaign officials “believed that Stone was providing them with nonpublic information about WikiLeaks’ plans. Indeed, [Trump advisor and campaign chief executive Steve] Bannon viewed Stone as the Trump campaign’s access point to WikiLeaks.” Stone lied to Congress five times, interfering with their Russia investigation, and threatened another witness to try to keep him from exposing Stone’s lies.

At the time the new tape was recorded, Stone was complaining that prosecutors were pressuring him to turn on Trump, and on the tape, said he might “have to appeal to the big man.” Gaetz can be heard agreeing that Stone was “f*ck*d,” but Gaetz didn’t think he would “do a day” in prison. Claiming he had heard it directly from Trump, Gaetz said: “The boss still has a very favorable view of you,” and continued, “I don’t think the big guy can let you go down for this.” “I don’t think you’re going to go down at all at the end of the day,” Gaetz told Stone.

Gaetz sits on the House Judiciary Committee and thus had seen portions of the redacted sections of Special Counsel Muller’s report on Russian interference in the 2016 election. Although the committee members were prohibited from talking about it except among themselves, Gaetz talked with Stone about it, telling him that he was “not going to have a defense.”

Stone told Gaetz he had seen the entire report himself thanks to a ruling from Judge Amy Berman Jackson, although when he had asked for such access, she had given him access only to some of it, so it is unclear what he meant. He, too, was not supposed to discuss that material.

The two men briefly discussed a photograph of the two of them with Seminole County tax collector Joel Greenberg that Stone said had “come back to bite us in the a**”; months later Greenberg was arrested and pleaded guilty to six charges including sex trafficking a minor. Greenberg is cooperating with authorities. Stone and Gaetz also discussed the outcry over the FBI raid of Stone’s house: media were at the raid, and Stone accused the FBI of tipping them off. Gaetz guessed the tip came from Stone himself. “Innocent until proven guilty,” Stone replied.

As the two men expected, on November 15 a jury found Stone guilty of seven counts of lying to Congress and witness tampering.

And then, when it came time for his sentencing, events played out as Gaetz suggested they would.

On February 10, prosecutors wrote to Judge Jackson to recommend jail time of 7 to 9 years for Stone, noting that his crime was about the integrity of our government. “Investigations into election interference concern our national security, the integrity of our democratic processes, and the enforcement of our nation's criminal laws,” they wrote. “These are issues of paramount concern to every citizen of the United States. Obstructing such critical investigations thus strikes at the very heart of our American democracy.” Their recommendation fell within standard department guidelines.

Immediately after the sentencing recommendation, though, Trump tweeted that it was “horrible and unfair” and a “miscarriage of justice.” The Justice Department, operating under Attorney General William Barr, then reversed itself, saying its own prosecutors had failed to be “reasonable.”

In response, all four of the federal prosecutors responsible for Roger Stone’s case withdrew. The administration also abruptly pulled the nomination of the former U.S. attorney who oversaw the Stone prosecution for a top position in the Treasury Department.

It appeared that the prosecutors were right and the case was actually about the integrity of our democratic processes. It also appeared that Barr had hamstrung the Department of Justice to make sure that no one could touch the president.

Trump tweeted: “Congratulations to Attorney General Bill Barr for taking charge of a case that was totally out of control and perhaps should not have even been brought. Evidence now clearly shows that the Mueller Scam was improperly brought & tainted.”

Days before Stone was due to report to prison in July to serve 40 months, Trump commuted his sentence, thus removing his jail time, supervised release, and a $20,000 fine. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) called Trump’s move “an act of staggering corruption,” and Representative Adam Schiff (D-CA) called it “a real body blow to the rule of law in this country.”

Then, on December 23, 2020, Trump pardoned Stone, as Gaetz had predicted, rewarding his personal loyalty.

Two weeks later, on January 6, 2021, Stone was back in Washington, D.C.

Once again, the Danish film crew was filming and, after the events of that day, recorded Stone asking again for a presidential pardon. This time, Gaetz apparently wanted one, too.

When White House counsel Pat Cipollone prevented Trump from issuing those pardons, Stone told a friend that Trump was “a disgrace…. He betrayed everybody.”