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• Sam Bankman-Fried was arrested in the Bahamas on Monday. The US SEC has charged him with fraud.
• Bankman-Fried’s law-professor parents were spotted at their son’s hearing in the Bahamas on Tuesday.
• As his troubles unraveled, his high-profile family has come under the spotlight.

Sam Bankman-Fried was raised in an academic family based in Silicon Valley. He grew up playing games like chess and bridge.Sam Bankman-Fried cofounded FTX in 2019 and is its CEO.

FTX

FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried was arrested in the Bahamas on Monday, in a spectacular fall from grace after his crypto exchange collapsed last month.

Bankman-Fried — whose wealth peaked at $26 billion in March — has been charged with fraud by the US Securities and Exchange Commission. A judge in the Bahamas denied his bail on Tuesday.

As his troubles unravel, Bankman-Fried’s high-profile family has come under the spotlight. His parents were spotted at their son’s hearing in the Bahamas on Tuesday, and have been living with him on the island nation for over a month.

In November, Reuters reported that a $16.4 million house in the Bahamas listed Bankman-Fried’s parents, Joseph Bankman and Barbara Fried, as signatories. The house was in a gated community with beach access and was described in property records as a vacation home.

Last month, Bankman-Fried told Andrew Ross Sorkin at the New York Times DealBook Summit that he called his parents when FTX was collapsing. He also said his parents “bore no responsibility” for FTX’s downfall.

“Anyone close to me, including my parents and employees and co-workers who fought with the company to push forward, they were hurt by this,” Bankman-Fried said. “They bore no responsibility for that. I feel really bad about that. I feel really grateful for the support my parents are still giving me throughout all of this.”

Here are some of the prominent members of Bankman-Fried’s family. Bankman and Fried did not did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment, sent to a spokesperson outside regular business hours. His brother, Gabriel Bankman-Fried, and aunt, Linda Fried, also did not immediately respond to Insider’s requests for comment sent outside regular business hours.

His father, Joseph Bankman, is a Stanford law professor who is also a clinical psychologist.Joseph Bankman has postponed his class that was slated to start in January amid FTX’s fallout.

Stanford University

Joseph Bankman, a law professor at Stanford University, is Bankman-Fried’s father.

Described in his official biography as a “leading scholar in the field of tax law,” Bankman teaches mental health law and is a scholar who writes about law and psychology.

Bankman was also a paid FTX employee for nearly a year before the exchange collapsed, a spokesperson for Bankman and Fried told the Wall Street Journal on Monday. He was mostly working on charity projects at FTX, the spokesperson told the media outlet.

Bankman had a law class that was scheduled to start in January, but that has been pushed back until the spring as he remains in the Bahamas with his son, according to the Journal.

Bankman obtained a Juris Doctor degree from Yale Law School in 1980, per his biography on the Stanford site.

His mother, Barbara Fried, is a professor emerita of law at Stanford.Barbara Fried co-founded Mind the Gap, a super PAC political action committee.

Stanford University

Bankman-Fried’s mother, Barbara Fried, is also a law professor at Stanford University.

Her scholarly interests are “at the intersection of law, economics, and philosophy,” according to her official biography posted on the university’s website. 

Fried cofounded Mind the Gap, a super political action committee, or PAC, that uses statistical analysis to determine the dollar-value impact of donations on Democrats running for the House of Representatives. She resigned from Mind the Gap in November, per The New York Times. The Times did not specify why she resigned.

Fried retired from teaching in September and didn’t have plans to teach this year, a spokesperson told the Journal.

She graduated from Harvard with a Juris Doctor degree in 1983, per her biography on the Stanford site.

His younger brother, Gabriel Bankman-Fried, founded and ran a nonprofit called Guarding Against Pandemics — which was in part funded by SBF.Gabe Bankman-Fried stepped down as director of Guarding Against Pandemics in mid-November.

FP Global Health Forum

Gabe Bankman-Fried is Sam Bankman-Fried’s younger brother.

In 2020, he founded and ran the nonprofit, Guarding Against Pandemics, which aims to prevent another pandemic. The nonprofit was partly funded by Sam Bankman-Fried, according to Puck.

The two brothers have spent at least $70 million since October 2021 on research projects, campaign donations, and initiatives that aim to boost biosecurity and pandemic prevention, according to the Washington Post.

Gabe Bankman-Fried stepped down as the director of the nonprofit in mid-November, per The Post.

His aunt, Linda Fried, is the dean of the public health school at Columbia University.Linda Fried is a public health expert.

Columbia University

Linda Fried, the dean of Columbia University’s public health school, is Bankman-Fried’s aunt, per the Washington Post.

Described on the school’s website as a “leader in the fields of epidemiology and geriatric medicine,” Fried was trained in cardiovascular and chronic disease, epidemiology, and geriatrics.

Fried graduated from Rush Medical College in 1979 with a doctor of medicine and got a master’s in public health from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in 1984, per her biography on the Columbia website.

Brittany Chang/Insider

• Royal Caribbean International invited me to spend two nights in a balcony stateroom on the Wonder of the Seas.
• The stateroom aboard the world’s largest cruise ship will start at $1,400 per person in 2023.
• Take a tour of spacious my hotel room at sea complete with views of the ocean and two beds.

In early December, Royal Caribbean International invited me to spend two nights in a balcony stateroom on the cruise line’s newest mega ship, the Wonder of the Seas.

Brittany Chang/Insider

Let’s take a look around my room complete with views of the ocean, two beds, and plenty of storage.

Brittany Chang/Insider

My balcony stateroom was located on deck eight, the same deck as the ship’s Central Park neighborhood …

Brittany Chang/Insider

… an open-air walkway filled with plants, specialty restaurants, and shopping.

Brittany Chang/Insider

My stateroom was in a uniquely prime location. But inside, it had all the expected amenities available on any typical cruise ship.

Brittany Chang/Insider

When I tapped my room key card and opened the door, I was immediately greeted by the bathroom to my left, a full-length mirror to my right …

Brittany Chang/Insider

… and the bed, couch, desk, and balcony in front of me.

Brittany Chang/Insider

Let’s start in the bathroom.

Brittany Chang/Insider

Like any stateroom, the bathroom had a shower with a built-in clothesline, a series of shelves to hold toiletries …

Brittany Chang/Insider

… a long yet narrow countertop that ended at the small sink, and a toilet.

Brittany Chang/Insider

The shower notably had a two-in-one body wash and shampoo but no separate conditioner, which had to be purchased at the ship’s essentials store.

Brittany Chang/Insider

And besides the small backsplash under the mirror and above the counter, the bathroom was minimally decorated.

Brittany Chang/Insider

Back outside, the bed was positioned in front of the bathroom door.

Brittany Chang/Insider

It faced a row of storage hooks and a wall-mounted television, perfect for pre-bedtime TV shows.

Brittany Chang/Insider

And the two bedside lamps conveniently had built-in outlets.

Brittany Chang/Insider

The plush queen bed was then surrounded by a wood structure with two large closets on either side of the bed.

Brittany Chang/Insider

This bulky tan structure served two purposes: It provided ample storage space and helped separate the bed from the living room and bathroom.

Brittany Chang/Insider

Cruise ship staterooms are notorious for small storage spaces.

Brittany Chang/Insider

But the closets in my stateroom were large and lined with hangers, shelves, drawers, and a safe.

Brittany Chang/Insider

If that’s not enough storage for the ship’s week-long itineraries, the living room also had a separate dresser.

Brittany Chang/Insider

This dresser then extended into a lower desk facing the brightly lit vanity.

Brittany Chang/Insider

The pillow-lined couch — which could pull out into a separate bed — ran parallel to this desk and storage combination.

Brittany Chang/Insider

My stateroom finally ended with the balcony located just past the living room.

Brittany Chang/Insider

Some of the ship’s staterooms faced Central Park.

Brittany Chang/Insider

Instead, my furnished balcony had views of the ocean. No complaints here.

Brittany Chang/Insider

Overall, my Wonder of the Seas’ stateroom had all the classic furnishings that make it a good option for families looking to spend a bit more money on a balcony.

Brittany Chang/Insider

But if you prefer fully decorated staterooms, you may be disappointed.

Brittany Chang/Insider

Unlike Norwegian Cruise Line’s newest Prima ship (shown below) or the Margaritaville at Sea Paradise …

Brittany Chang/Insider

… this stateroom was surprisingly devoid of decor with the exception of some pillows, ombre curtains, and a small cluster of wall art.

Brittany Chang/Insider

Source: Insider, Insider 

The neutral tan, blue, and white color palette was a contrast to the rest of the ship …

Brittany Chang/Insider

… which was filled with vibrant spaces like colorful water slides and a bright boardwalk. Definitely far from being plainly decorated.

Brittany Chang/Insider

But to some travelers, the unembellished staterooms could make the hotel rooms at sea feel like a tranquil escape from the bustle of the ship.

Brittany Chang/Insider

The cruise line covered my two-night non-revenue sailing held for travel agents and media.

Brittany Chang/Insider

The stateroom starts at $1,400 for the Wonder of the Seas’ 2023 itineraries, a spokesperson told Insider in an email.

Brittany Chang/Insider

Source: Insider 

This price then skyrockets to a little over $1,840 per person — with the same discount — for an eight-night sailing in late December from Florida to three Caribbean islands and Perfect Day at Cococay.

Brittany Chang/Insider

Source: Royal Caribbean International

Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Mario Duncanson / AFP

• FTX’s new CEO has accused the collapsed crypto exchange of “old school” embezzlement.
• In congressional testimony Tuesday, John Ray said the alleged fraud at FTX was “not sophisticated.”
• Ray also said he wouldn’t trust any of FTX’s records.

FTX’s new CEO has accused the crypto exchange of “old school” embezzlement in scathing congressional testimony.

In his four hours before the House Financial Services Committee on Tuesday, John Ray ripped into FTX’s business and bookkeeping practices.

“This is really just old-fashioned embezzlement,” Ray said. “This is just taking money from customers and using it for your own purpose. Not sophisticated at all.

“Sophisticated, perhaps, in the way they were able to hide it from people, frankly, right in front of their eyes. This is just plain old embezzlement. Old school, old school.”

Ray said FTX had “no record-keeping whatsoever,” building on his prior criticism of the crypto exchange for failing to maintain proper logs of internal decisions. He also told lawmakers on Tuesday that FTX would use QuickBooks to track its billions of dollars of assets.

Ray took aim at FTX executives in his opening statement, saying the exchange collapsed in the hands of a “very small group of grossly inexperienced and unsophisticated individuals who failed to implement virtually any of the systems or controls necessary for a company that is entrusted with other people’s money or assets.”

Ray said he didn’t trust the records that FTX had managed to maintain. “We’ve lost eight billion dollars of customer money. So by definition, I don’t trust a single piece of paper in this organization,” he said.

He added: “I’ve just never seen anything like it in all 40 years of doing restructuring work and corporate legal work.”

Ray, who’s helped oversee insolvencies at several large companies — including the disgraced energy giant Enron — was appointed to lead FTX’s restructuring after the exchange filed for bankruptcy on November 11.

Sam Bankman-Fried, FTX’s cofounder and former CEO, was charged by the Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday with defrauding investors. The SEC accused Bankman-Fried of diverting “billions of dollars” of customers’ money into his crypto hedge fund, Alameda Research, for his personal benefit.

Bankman-Fried was arrested in the Bahamas on Monday at the request of the US government and was denied bail.

Rep. Ann Wagner asked Ray at Tuesday’s hearing if FTX’s funds could have been transferred to Alameda by mistake, given how Bankman-Fried said he “made a lot of mistakes” as CEO.

“I don’t find any such statements to be credible,” Ray responded.

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The post Russian forces killed one civilian, injured three more in Ukraine on Dec 13 appeared first on Ukraine Intelligence.

Russia said on Wednesday it had not received any proposals about a “Christmas ceasefire” in Ukraine, as fighting looks set to drag on through the winter.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy called on Russia this week to start withdrawing its troops by Christmas as the first step towards a peace deal after nearly 10 months of war.

Asked on Wednesday whether Moscow had seen proposals for a “Christmas ceasefire,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters: “No, no such offers have been received from anybody. This topic is not on the agenda.”

After a series of lightning Ukrainian counteroffensives which has seen Kyiv regain control over around half of the territory Moscow captured in the first weeks of the war, neither side has made significant territorial gains in the past month.

Military analysts say a winter deadlock could set in, even as fierce fighting continues especially in the eastern Ukrainian region of Donetsk, where Russian forces are pushing to capture the town of Bakhmut.

Peskov said on Tuesday there would be no peace with Kyiv until Zelenskiy accepted the “realities” on the ground – namely, Russian control over four Ukrainian regions it annexed in September following “referendums” decried as coercive and illegal by Kyiv, the West and a majority of states at the United Nations.

First they came for Tom Yawkey and I said nothing.

Then they came for Christopher Columbus and I said nothing.

But then they came for Dapper O’Neil and – now you’re walking on the fightin’ side of me, hoss.

In case you missed it, an obscure former coat holder for a forgotten-but-not-gone former Boston city councilor named Charles “Don’t Call Me Chuck!” Yancey is demanding that the city pull the name of former City Councilor Albert Leo “Dapper” O’Neil from a hearing room at City Hall.

Another non-negotiable demand was that the name of another deceased city councilor, Jimmy Kelly, be removed from the Broadway Bridge.

No one paid much attention to the original news, but then the blow-in drifters at the failing Boston Globe decided to get in on the gag. The legacy hires from the protected classes ran an editorial blasting “Ole Dap,” as the license plate on his automobile read, just to the right of the bumper sticker that said:

“Liberals: An American Cancer.”

For 28 years, Dapper provided comic relief at Boston City Hall.

As Billy Bulger used to say, “Dapper O’Neil is a city councilor at large… in more ways than one.”

So the comrades at the dying broadsheet don’t much like Dapper O’Neil. They never did.

But remember, these are the same trust-funders who not so long ago named Monica Cannon Grant “Bostonian of the Year” – just before the feds charged the larger-than-large BLM grifter with mail fraud, wire fraud, etc. etc. In all, an 18-count indictment.

So yeah, the Globe really knows how to pick ‘em.

Just to select one line at random from the second paragraph of the Dapper indictment, I mean editorial:

“One council staffer filed a sexual harassment suit against him.”

Are the blow-in drifters in the employ of 73-year-old John Henry and his 44-year-old third trophy wife not aware that there is an empty mausoleum of a building in Boston known as the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the U.S. Senate?

Do they understand that that white elephant is a monument to a politician, a Democrat like Dapper, who in fact drowned one of his brother’s former staffers while driving drunk? Does it ever occur to the pablum-puking rump swabs that their longtime hero is the only politician with an actual confirmed kill in the War on Women?

That “institute,” which annually hemorrhages almost as much money as the Globe itself, is right down Morrissey Boulevard from where the Globe used to be printed when it was still (almost) a real newspaper.

Has the Globe ever suggested stripping Fat Boy’s name off that preposterous monument to Democrat drunkenness and depravity?

Then there’s the late Rep. Gerry Studds. Boy, did the Globe worship that fiend, even after (or perhaps especially because) he was censured on a 420-3 vote by his US House colleagues after he was found guilty of plying an underage male Congressional page with alcohol and then sodomized him.

Before he started grooming young boys at the Capitol, Studds was grooming them as a “master” at St. Paul’s School in New Hampshire. Do not doubt me – the school chronicled the Democrat statesman’s sordid list of perversions in a report that identified him as “Faculty 20.”

After that report, several of Studds’ victims sued “the haven for sexual predators,” as they called the elite prep school. I’d quote from the complaint about the unspeakable acts Studds performed upon them if I weren’t concerned about giving all the Beautiful People and assorted man-buns at the Globe a bad case of the vapors.

The point is, the feds named 842 square miles of the Gulf of Maine after this pederast – the Gerry E. Studds Stellwagen National Marine Sanctuary.

Has the Globe demanded that Studds’ name be removed from the Atlantic Ocean by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)?

Poor Dapper. He doesn’t have NAMBLA or BLM or some such group to run cover for him at City Hall the way some of these other reprobates do. There seems little pushback from the mau-mauing against the Dap.

Jimmy Kelly, on the other hand, still has a constituency of sorts in Southie, almost 16 years after his death.

But Dapper was from Roxbury. His base is long gone. Later he moved to Roslindale, Ward 18 – “God’s country,” as he called it.

Monica Cannon Grant, the Globe’s Bostonian of the Year, grew wealthy on her radical-chic flim-flams and white-guilt scams. As for Dapper – he never owned any property. He lived in a rented third-floor walk-up on Washington Street.

Likewise, he never opened a checking account. He was just following in the footsteps of his hero, James Michael Curley.

I remember the night Dapper finally lost. It was 1999. He’d always relied on a big vote out of Wards 6 and 7, but that year Southie was trying to elect one of its own, Michael “Baby Flats” Flaherty, to the Council.

So the word went out – give “Baby Flats” the bullet, meaning, only use one of the four votes you had for at-large Council candidates. Dapper’s vote collapsed (it didn’t help that he was almost 80, and sick) and he lost his seat.

As the results came in, a few of us went to his office to break the news to him. There was Mayor Menino, and Jimmy Kelly and me. Dapper just sat in his chair, under the portrait of Curley. He said nothing, but the tears were rolling down his cheeks.

None of us knew what to say. There was nothing that could console him. The job was his whole life. His sister Gert was dead, his dog Roger was dead, he lived alone. He had no children.

Finally, City Council President Kelly said to him:

“Dapper, you didn’t do anything wrong. You didn’t change. The city changed.”

Jimmy was right. The city had changed, and boy has it changed even more since then. But one thing hasn’t changed – the bow-tied bum kissers at the Boston Globe.

They were wrong then, and they’re wrong now.

Dapper O’Neil’s run on the City Council ended in 1999, despite his tiresome efforts to keep his at-large post. (Herald file photo)

The James M. Kelly Bridge is also being targeted. (Stuart Cahill/Boston Herald)

What a happy coincidence for Democrats that, hours before the alleged crypto criminal Sam Bankman-Fried was due to testify before the House Financial Services Committee, he was arrested in the Bahamas. That meant that SBF, the second-biggest Democratic donor of the 2022 cycle—behind 92-year-old George Soros—was able to evade questioning from Republican House members.  

Bankman-Fried helped to bankroll President Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign and threw nearly $40 million behind Democratic candidates this year, and we have a feeling that questioning from Republican lawmakers would’ve been embarrassing for the Democratic Party. His testimony under oath would also have, presumably, been a boon for prosecutors who decided to arrest him on Monday instead. The timing is puzzling. 

SBF was indicted by the Southern District of New York, which in the past few decades has served as the training ground for prominent political activists, including James Comey and Preet Bharara, and which is notorious for maintaining close ties to Washington. It is not hard to imagine that some behind-the-scenes negotiating saved SBF, and the Democrats, from an embarrassing and potentially self-incriminating performance. SBF hasn’t shut his mouth since his company, FTX, went belly up, and putting him behind bars may have been the party’s only hope.

Whatever the case, the FTX scandal, which the SDNY described on Tuesday as “one of the biggest financial frauds ever,” should invite a much broader investigation. In a country with federal rules about what constitutes an onion ring, where have financial regulators been as more and more Americans were encouraged by a credulous press and their allies in the Democratic, tech, and Hollywood elite to put their savings into risky cryptocurrencies? We don’t recall warnings from federal officials, former prosecutors, or investment professionals indicating that crypto businesses—indeed, the entire industry itself—might be fraudulent.

Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Gary Gensler was busy rubbing elbows with SBF and negotiating a regulatory scheme whose blueprint originated at FTX headquarters, while most of the country’s major law firms, investing services, media companies, and politicians were on the crypto payroll.

For the unsuspecting Americans sold the pile of fairy dust known as cryptocurrency—or SRM, or FTT, or LOL—the machinations that allow Bankman-Fried’s political allies to evade accountability are a final insult. 

The post Handcuffed SBF Does a Final Favor for Democratic Allies appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

President Joe Biden’s Energy Department funneled millions of dollars to a green energy company in the months after the company partnered with a Chinese state-owned entity that it acknowledges could face business-crippling sanctions.

Carbon capture company LanzaTech, federal spending disclosures show, has received more than $10 million in grant payments from the Biden administration since April 2021, when the company announced a partnership with Sinopec Capital—the clean energy investment arm of the Sinopec Group, a Chinese state-owned oil conglomerate also known as the China Petrochemical Corporation—to “debut an international market of new energy and new materials.” LanzaTech has acknowledged in SEC disclosures that its association with Sinopec, which China has used to purchase oil from U.S.-sanctioned nations such as Russia and Iran, could jeopardize its bottom line. The company’s financial interactions with Sinopec and other Beijing-run entities, LanzaTech wrote in a November filing, could bring “complications” and “restrictions” should the United States or other nations implement “sanctions on certain Chinese individuals.” That filing also notes “that the Chinese government may intervene or influence our operations at any time” and that LanzaTech may be unable to “protect our interests” in Chinese joint ventures “by nominating a non-Chinese director to the board of directors of any such joint venture.” Sinopec Capital managing director Bo Ren, who worked for CITIC’s brokerage arm prior to joining Sinopec and who graduated from a Chinese university that sits on a U.S. trade blacklist for stealing American trade secrets, is a LanzaTech board member.

Biden has placed green energy at the center of his administration’s priorities, with the Democrat working to invest billions of dollars in “America’s clean energy economy” to create “good-paying jobs” in the United States. However, China’s dominance of the clean energy supply chain challenges that priority. In addition to LanzaTech, Biden’s Energy Department has touted a $200 million grant to lithium battery company Microvast Holdings, which the department said would “supercharge the private sector to ensure our clean energy future is America-made.” Microvast operates primarily out of China and was recently added to a Securities and Exchange Commission watchlist of Chinese companies that have failed to comply with American auditing requirements, the Washington Free Beacon reported Tuesday.

LanzaTech’s partnership with Sinopec was not the first time the company aligned itself with a Beijing-run entity. In June 2018, LanzaTech entered into a joint venture with Chinese state-owned steel giant Shougang Group to build an ethanol plant in China’s Hubei province, one of the company’s three plants in the communist nation. LanzaTech has also raised millions from CITIC Capital, a subsidiary of China’s largest state-run conglomerate. Still, the company’s relationships with Beijing did not stop the Biden administration from sending LanzaTech millions of dollars for green energy projects such as “low-cost sustainable aviation fuel.”

For Arkansas Republican senator Tom Cotton, Biden’s support for companies such as LanzaTech shows that the Democrat’s “green energy agenda is stamped with the words ‘made in China.'”

“Instead of handing millions of taxpayer dollars to a Chinese-backed company, the president should be encouraging American energy production and American energy independence,” Cotton told the Free Beacon.

Neither the White House nor LanzaTech returned requests for comment. The Energy Department told the Free Beacon that it “makes financial assistance awards on a competitive basis and follows a rigorous merit review process using independent technical experts” and “requires that DOE-funded inventions be substantially manufactured in the United States.” The department did not return a follow-up request for comment on its payments to LanzaTech following the company’s Sinopec partnership.

LanzaTech has political connections to top Democrats. One of the company’s most influential financiers, billionaire venture capitalist Vinod Khosla, led then-presidential candidate Barack Obama’s India policy team in 2008 and went on to host a $32,400-a-head Democratic Party fundraiser at his California mansion, which Obama personally attended. Obama’s former deputy chief of staff and campaign manager Jim Messina, meanwhile, joined LanzaTech’s board in 2013. LanzaTech received tens of millions of dollars in Energy Department grants during Obama’s time as president, some of which carried over to the Trump administration, which awarded the company less than $3 million in new grants prior to its Sinopec deal. In September 2022 company CEO Jennifer Holmgren accepted a White House invite to brief Biden administration officials and members of Congress “on the progress LanzaTech has made in leveraging biotechnology and biomanufacturing for a safe, secure, and sustainable U.S. bioeconomy.”

Beyond LanzaTech, the Biden administration has already faced criticism for its dealings with Sinopec. Biden’s Energy Department in April announced the sale of nearly one million Strategic Petroleum Reserve barrels to the Chinese state-controlled gas giant’s trading arm, Unipec, a move the administration said would “support American consumers” and “combat Putin’s price hike.” But the sale—which helped drain the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to its lowest level in more than four decades—came as Unipec underwent an “unusual buying spree” aimed at boosting China’s own oil reserves. It also came as China used Sinopec and its state-run affiliates to strengthen the nation’s energy relationship with Russia and Iran. The sale prompted congressional Republicans to open a formal investigation into the Biden administration.

Biden is now facing similar probes over his green energy grants. Sen. John Barrasso (R., Wyo.), the ranking member on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, on Dec. 7 launched an inquiry into the administration’s Microvast grant. That grant “endangers our national security” and “undermine[s] the United States’ position in its race against China for technological supremacy,” Barrasso said in a letter to Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm. Former energy secretary Rick Perry also called for congressional investigations into Granholm for the grant, which he called “unacceptable.”

The post Biden’s Energy Department Funnels Millions to Beijing-Backed Green Energy Company appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

President Joe Biden can barely recite the alphabet. His grasp of basic numbers isn’t much better. For instance, the commander in chief remains unable to accurately count all of his grandchildren. He is often confused by large numbers and doesn’t appear to know the difference between a million, a billion, and a trillion.

The president struggles with time as well. For example, he recently reminisced about how America “led the world beginning around 19-5 and 6 and 7 and 8.” He’s not entirely sure how many manufacturing jobs have been created on his watch. Somewhere between 628 and 38,000? He claims to have visited 54 states.

It would be unwise to let this 80-year-old geezer teach your children math. In fact, it’s probably best to never let Sleepy Joe anywhere near your kids unless you want him to stroke their face or smell their hair. He’s kind of a creep.

WATCH: Joe Biden Recites His ABCs

The post Free Beacon Presents: Joe Biden, Number Bungler appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

Global stocks eked out small gains on Wednesday and the dollar slipped after data showed U.S. consumer prices barely rose in November, stoking hopes that central banks will stop raising interest rates in early 2023.

The subdued price moves followed a rally in stocks and a sharp drop in the dollar on Tuesday after the data was released. Yet nervousness about policymakers’ next moves kept the mood in check ahead of a Federal Reserve meeting later on Wednesday and central bank decisions in Europe and Britain on Thursday.

The U.S. consumer price index (CPI) increased 0.1% last month, 0.2 percentage points slower than economists expected. In the 12 months through November, headline CPI climbed 7.1% – its slowest pace in about a year. Data on Wednesday showed British inflation also moderated more than anticipated in November.

The MSCI All World stock index (.MIWD00000PUS) edged 0.1% higher as Asian equities rose but European markets slipped. It jumped more than 1% the previous day.

In currency markets, the dollar fell again after tumbling against a range of major currencies on Tuesday. It was last down 0.25% against Japan’s yen to 135.21. The euro was up 0.21% against the greenback at $1.065.

The MSCI All World is on track for its strongest quarter since the end of 2020, in a sign of investors’ confidence that the pain from central bank rate hikes might soon be over.

Meanwhile, the dollar has dropped around 9% from a two-decade high in September. The dollar index was 0.22% lower at 103.84 after hitting a six-month low of 103.57 the previous day.

Yet investors had shrugged off Tuesday’s inflation data and were in a “wait and see mood” on Wednesday ahead of the Fed decision, said Susannah Streeter, senior markets analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown.

“There was that pop we saw in markets, but then there’s a realisation perhaps dawning that it’s not necessarily going to be an easy path ahead,” she said. “Given the vertiginous climb we’ve gone up, it means that actually it’s a long way down.”

European stocks opened lower, with the continent-wide Stoxx 600 (.STOXX) falling 0.5% after rising 1.3% in the previous session.

Futures for the U.S. S&P 500 stock index , meanwhile, were flat. That followed a 0.7% rise in the index (.SPX) on Tuesday.

In Asia, MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan (.MIAPJ0000PUS) rose 1.01% as easing Chinese COVID-19 curbs boosted sentiment.

The yield on benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasuries was down 2 basis points (bps) to 3.485%, after tumbling 11 bps on Tuesday. Yields move inversely to prices.

Futures pricing shows markets expect the Fed will slow the pace of hikes when it announces its decision at 1900 GMT, but still raise its Funds rate target range by 50 bps to between 4.25% and 4.5%.

Much of the focus then falls on the “dot plot” chart of committee members’ projections about future rate movements, and the tone chairman Jerome Powell strikes in his press conference.

“The market wants to know if the Fed will change their stance on the dot plot,” said Tareck Horchani, head of dealing, Prime Brokerage, at Maybank Securities in Singapore. The median projection in September was for a peak in the Fed funds rate of around 4.6% next year, but many analysts think the Fed could go higher.

Oil prices rallied more than 3% on Tuesday but were last trading roughly flat, with Brent futures at $80.52 a barrel and U.S. crude at $75.34 a barrel.

Bitcoin got a bounce on Tuesday despite the arrest of FTX exchange founder Sam Bankman-Fried, who was accused by U.S. prosecutors of fraud. It was last up 0.21% to $17,810.

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