Early Headlines: Asia Stocks Up, Dollar Up, Oil Up, Gold Mixed, Yields Down, Trump And Dems Want Trial, SCOTUS Upsets Impeachment, Brexit Cliff, Musharraf Gets Death, China Corp. Subsidies, Plus More - 21 Articles, 5 Graphics

Early Bird Headlines 17 December 2019

Econintersect: Here are some of the headlines we found to help you start your day. For more headlines see our afternoon feature for GEI members, What We Read Today, published Monday, Wednesday and Friday, which has many more headlines and a number of article discussions to keep you abreast of what we have found interesting.

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Key Articles

Global

Mainland Chinese shares jump, leading major Asia markets (CNBC) Mainland Chinese shares led major Asia markets in making gains by the close on Tuesday, as sentiment continues to be buoyed by a recent phase one trade deal reached between Beijing and Washington. The U.S. dollar index was higher at 97.126 after touching lows below 97.0 yesterday. Oil prices gained in the afternoon of Asian trading hours, with international benchmark Brent crude futures up 0.11% at $65.41 per barrel. U.S. crude futures also edged up fractionally to $60.27 per barrel. Spot gold rose 0.02% to $1,475.85 per ounce. Prices gained 1.1% last week as the world’s two largest economies negotiated ahead of another potential round of tariffs. U.S. gold futures fell 0.07% to $1,480.5. U.S. treasuries gained in price (yields dropped).

U.S.

GOP Senators Seek Quick Acquittal for Trump. The President Wants More. (The Wall Street Journal) See also next article. President Trump wanted Ukraine to help legitimize his 2016 election, show that his predecessors abused political power and raise doubts about a rival in the 2020 election. Now, he wants Senate Republicans to do the same, according to people who have discussed plans with him.

On the verge this week of becoming just the third U.S. president to be impeached by the House, Mr. Trump doesn’t just want to be acquitted in the Senate trial that would follow, these people say. He hopes to be vindicated.

Republicans scoff at Chuck Schumer’s impeachment trial proposal (Politico) In a letter sent Sunday to McConnell, Schumer laid out a proposal under which the Senate would call several witnesses the White House has refused to make available in the House’s impeachment inquiry, including President Donald Trump’s acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney and former National Security Adviser John Bolton. Schumer also requested additional documents that the president has declined to provide. So the Democrats also want an expanded trial in the Senate, as does the president – see preceding article. Can they both have a good strategy? Not if the other side gets to pick their witnesses and exclude the other’s.
Supreme Court ruling pulls rug out from under article of impeachment (The Hill) The decision by the Supreme Court to review the lower court rulings involving congressional and prosecution subpoenas directed toward President Trump undercuts the second article of impeachment that passed the House Judiciary Committee along party lines last week.

That second article of impeachment charges President Trump with obstruction of Congress for refusing to comply with congressional subpoenas in the absence of a final court order. In so charging him, the House Judiciary Committee has arrogated to itself the power to decide the validity of its subpoenas, as well as the power to determine whether claims of executive privilege must be recognized, both powers that properly belong with the judicial branch of our government, not the legislative branch. The House of Representatives will do likewise, if it votes to approve the articles, as is expected to occur on Wednesday.

British Parliamentary Seat Count Since 1918 (Twitter) The Tory seat count is now at a level seen only a few times in the past 100 years. Labour has not had a lower seat count since the Great Depression (on the graphic it says 1935 but we read the graph as 1940 – they mean the election of 1935?). Graphic is from The Economist.

Ukraine

The Ukrainian Prosecutor Behind Trump’s Impeachment (The New Yorker) In the impeachment testimony, Yuriy Lutsenko’s name appears two hundred and thirty times, nearly twice as often as Trump’s. Lutsenko, sometimes referred to simply as “the corrupt prosecutor general” of Ukraine, has been portrayed, hardly without reason, as an unscrupulous politician prone to telling lies to further his personal ambitions. As those closely following the news have learned, Lutsenko (pictured below) fed information to Giuliani, which Giuliani, Trump, and their allies spun to smear the reputations of the Bidens and of Marie Yovanovitch, the former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, whom Trump fired in April. One of the House’s star witnesses told the author, of Lutsenko, “I don’t think we’d be here if not for him.”