Goldman Sachs Prepares Biggest Layoffs Since 2008 Financial Crisis

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Goldman Sachs Group will start cutting thousands of jobs across the firm from Wednesday, two sources familiar with the move said, as it prepares for a tough economic environment.

Just over 3,000 employees will be let go, one of the sources said, but the final number is yet to be determined. That scale of layoffs would be the largest since the 2008 financial crisis, one of the sources said.

The layoffs are likely to affect most of the bank’s major divisions, but should centre on Goldman Sachs’ investment banking arm, one of the sources said. Wall Street banks have suffered a major slowdown in corporate dealmaking activity as a result of volatile global financial markets.

Hundreds of jobs are also likely to be reduced from Goldman Sachs’ consumer business, Marcus, after it scaled back plans for the loss-making unit, the sources said.

The bank’s chief executive David Solomon sent a year-end voice memo to staff warning of a headcount reduction in the first half of January, two separate sources said. Goldman Sachs declined comment on the memo. (Read more from “Goldman Sachs Prepares Biggest Layoffs Since 2008 Financial Crisis” HERE)

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Backtracking: WaPo Admits Russian Trolls ‘Had Little Influence’ After Years Hyping Role in Trump’s Win

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The Washington Post acknowledged that Russia’s meddling in the 2016 presidential election regarding its social media footprint was not as significant in putting Donald Trump in the White House as the paper previously hyped.

In a report from the paper’s “The Cybersecurity 202” newsletter headlined “Russian trolls on Twitter had little influence on 2016 voters,” the Post cited a new study from the New York University Center for Social Media and Politics that analyzed what sort of impact disinformation and misinformation had on one social media platform, in this case Twitter.

Josh Tucker, one of the study’s authors, told the Post, “My personal sense coming out of this is that this got way overhyped.”

“Now we’re looking back at data and we can see how concentrated this was in one small portion of the population, and how the fact that people who were being exposed to these were really, really likely to vote for Trump,” Tucker said to the Post. “And then we have this data to show we can’t find any relationship between being exposed to these tweets and people’s change in attitudes.” (Read more from “Backtracking: WaPo Admits Russian Trolls ‘Had Little Influence’ After Years Hyping Role in Trump’s Win” HERE)

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Donalds Reveals What He Got in Exchange for Backing McCarthy for Speaker

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Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., revealed on Sunday that he is being placed on the House Republican Steering Committee in exchange for supporting Kevin McCarthy for House Speaker.

Donalds revealed the new appointment during a Sunday appearance on Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo.

His appearance followed an epic 15-ballot election for McCarthy to become House speaker. To become speaker, McCarthy had to make concessions to a small group of hardliners who refused to support him until he yielded to their demands.

“I’m frankly just happy that it’s all over with, and that we got something transformational and sound for the American people,” Donalds said.

The committee’s purpose is to assign fellow Republicans to other House committees. Donalds noted that his appointment to the Steering Committee was an important step to having “more [Republican] voices on more committees.” (Read more from “Donalds Reveals What He Got in Exchange for Backing McCarthy for Speaker” HERE)

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When Leaders Won’t Crack Down on Crime, Citizens Like the Texas Taco Guy Will

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For years now, cities have failed to combat rising violent crime. Citizens are fed up and, as a result, are taking action. Such was the case in Houston this weekend when a customer at a taqueria shot and killed an armed robber.

Video footage of the late-night stick-up shows an armed man, clothed in a black ski mask, demanding wallets from diners. As the robber makes his rounds, a male customer in one of the booths can be seen reaching for his concealed handgun before firing nine times into the criminal’s back. Once he ensured the robber was disarmed of what was later reported to be an airsoft gun, the customer returned the other patrons’ stolen goods.

The mysterious vigilante disappeared from the taco shop before law enforcement could question him.

Texas law allows for the use of deadly force against a person committing or trying to commit robbery, aggravated robbery, and attempted murder, among other things. Whether the unnamed customer will be charged with a crime for stopping one, however — something Twitter users hotly debated over the weekend — remains to be seen.

This shooting, regardless of legality, is what happens when cities don’t crack down on crime. (Read more from “When Leaders Won’t Crack Down on Crime, Citizens Like the Texas Taco Guy Will” HERE)

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Big Tech Platforms Remove Content Supporting Pro-Bolsonaro Rioters Who Stormed Brazilian Federal Buildings

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Social media platforms revealed on Monday that they would remove content supporting riots in Brazil that saw demonstrators storm multiple federal buildings.

Thousands of supporters who backed former President Jair Bolsonaro in recent elections entered facilities hosting the South American nation’s legislative and executive branches. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who assumed office last week, has vowed to punish individuals who destroyed federal property. Technology companies are now taking down material that supports the riots, according to a report from Reuters.

“In advance of the election, we designated Brazil as a temporary high-risk location and have been removing content calling for people to take up arms or forcibly invade Congress, the Presidential palace and other federal buildings,” a spokesman for Meta, which runs Facebook, told the outlet. “We are also designating this as a violating event, which means we will remove content that supports or praises these actions. We are actively following the situation and will continue removing content that violates our policies.”

YouTube, a subsidiary of Google, likewise told the outlet that the company is “closely tracking” the unrest and “removing content” that violates community guidelines. “Our systems are prominently surfacing authoritative content on our homepage, at the top of search results, and in recommendations,” a spokesperson said. “We will remain vigilant as the situation continues to unfold.” (Read more from “Big Tech Platforms Remove Content Supporting Pro-Bolsonaro Rioters Who Stormed Brazilian Federal Buildings” HERE)

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Agency to Consider Ban of Gas Stoves Over Health Hazards

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A federal agency will weigh plans to regulate and even ban natural gas stoves in the U.S., a top official said, over research showing a link between harmful air pollutants and the popular household appliances.

U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commissioner Richard Trumka Jr. said in an interview published Monday his agency plans to take action to address the pollutants, which have been linked to asthma and other respiratory issues.

“Any option is on the table,” he told Bloomberg, describing the pollutants as a “hidden hazard.”

“Products that can’t be made safe can be banned,” he said.

The agency has already issued a request for information seeking public data on hazards associated with the natural gas stoves and input for proposed solutions, a spokesperson for the agency told the Washington Examiner. (Read more from “Agency to Consider Ban of Gas Stoves Over Health Hazards” HERE)

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Poor People Five Times More Likely Than Average Earner to Be Audited by Biden IRS

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Poor people faced a significantly higher chance in 2022 of being audited by President Joe Biden’s IRS than both rich and middle-class earners, according to a Syracuse University study.

In fact, no group faced as much scrutiny from the IRS as those who made below $25,000, the university’s data-gathering center found. Among families that benefited from the earned income tax credit, a rebate on income and payroll taxes made available to the nation’s poorest families, 1.27 percent were audited. The IRS in 2022 audited just 0.19 percent of the vast majority of taxpayers, meaning the poorest families were at least 550 percent more likely to have the IRS knock on their door than the average filer.

These families were also more likely to receive a regular audit by the IRS than families that reported over $1 million in income, of which just over 1 percent faced regular audits. In total, the IRS audited a total 626,204 taxpayers out of more than 164 million in the 2022 fiscal year. The bulk of those audits were of filers in the lowest income group.

The new data raise questions about the IRS’s auditing strategy as it stands to benefit from $80 billion in new funding that the Biden administration plans to use for new hires. Republicans have alleged that despite White House promises to the contrary, middle-class and poor Americans will face more audits due to the 87,000 new IRS employees the agency plans to hire. (Read more from “Poor People Five Times More Likely Than Average Earner to Be Audited by Biden IRS” HERE)

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Sources Say Biden’s Border Visit Orchestrated to Avoid Chaotic Reality; Joe Biden Travels to U.S.-Mexico Border for First Time

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By Fox News. President Biden got a watered-down version of the border crisis in El Paso, Texas on Sunday, as the number of illegal immigrants coming across the U.S.-Mexico line appears to have plummeted since December, according to reports.

Not only that, but the Central Processing Center, which was previously overwhelmed with immigrants, is no longer at its capacity of about 1,000 migrants, and the camps of migrants have suddenly vanished, at least according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection sources.

Leading up to Biden’s visit, the Border Patrol union slammed the president because of reports that state and local authorities were ramping up detentions and cleaning up the migrant encampments ahead of the commander in chief’s arrival.

“El Paso is being cleared up as if nothing unusual ever happened there,” the National Border Patrol Council tweeted on Friday. “Just in time for Biden’s ‘visit to the border.’”

The tweet was posted after a report by El Paso Matters that said “large crowds” of migrants had been detained in El Paso by Border Patrol agents overnight on Wednesday. (Read more from “Sources Say Biden’s Border Visit Orchestrated to Avoid Chaotic Reality” HERE)

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Biden Travels to U.S.-Mexico Border for First Time

By Daily Caller. President Joe Biden travelled to the U.S. southern border for the first time on Sunday, landing in El Paso, Texas, amid the record-breaking number of illegal immigrants crossing during his presidency.

El Paso was in chaos hours before Biden’s arrival, with hundreds of illegal immigrants sleeping on the streets, and some illegally charging residents for free parking spots and stealing cell phones, the Daily Caller News Foundation reported. The number of illegal immigrants coming to the city has dropped “since the peak in December” when it was “2,000 a day,” to a current number of 700 a day, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said on the flight over.

Fiscal year 2022 recorded 2.3 million Customs and Border Protection (CBP) encounters with illegal immigrants, the most in recorded U.S. history.

Biden spoke with Republican Texas Gov. Gregg Abbott after he stepped off Air Force One, and made his way to a vehicle that drove him to the Bridge of the Americas Port of Entry for a tour with CBP agents. The agents showed the president how they find illegal objects, like people and drugs, in vehicles crossing the border.

He then walked by the border wall that separates El Paso from Juarez, Mexico, with Border Patrol agents. (Read more from “Biden Travels to U.S.-Mexico Border for First Time” HERE)

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Biden Prepares 2024 Re-Election Launch: Report

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President Joe Biden is reportedly gearing up to declare a 2024 re-election bid after months of speculation about whether the 80-year-old Democrat had another campaign in him.

The Hill cited multiple sources reporting Saturday that Biden’s intentions could be made public sometime in the next several weeks, and a formal announcement could follow in April. Some insiders emphasized February as a month to watch, around the time of the State of the Union, though the report stressed that the timing depends on an invite from the speaker of the House to address Congress.

“I think it’s all about timing at this point,” one Biden ally told the news outlet. “It seems like he’s all in. It’s not really ‘if’ he runs anymore.”

If Biden does run again, he might find himself in a general election rematch against former President Donald Trump, who announced another bid for the White House in November. (Read more from “Biden Prepares 2024 Re-Election Launch: Report” HERE)

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Court Overturns a Trump-Era Bump Stock Ban

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A Trump-era ban on bump stocks, a firearm accessory that enables a semi-automatic gun to shoot at an increased rate of fire, was struck down by a federal appeals court.

In a 13 to 3 decision, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans ruled that bump stocks are not covered under the same machine gun laws.

The court concluded that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), rushed the legislative process by approving a rule to define bump stocks as “machineguns,” in which the court ruled that the group did not have the authority from Congress to do so.

“A plain reading of the statutory language, paired with close consideration of the mechanics of a semi-automatic firearm, reveals that a bump stock is excluded from the technical definition of ‘machinegun’ outlined in the Gun Control Act and National Firearms Act,” a statement from the court read. (Read more from “Court Overturns a Trump-Era Bump Stock Ban” HERE)

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