Feb 26

Today’s News 26th February 2017

  • Hillary Clinton Calls For 'Resistance': "We Need To Stay Engaged… I'll Be With You Every Step Of The Way"

    Submitted by Mac Slavo via SHTFPlan.com,

    Last month we noted that Hillary Clinton is looking to start her own “fabulous” TV show in an effort to remain relevant following a disastrous Presidential election loss in 2016. The show, according to an insider, would be “completely controlled” and will likely focus on undermining the efforts of President Donald Trump, while whipping her supporters into a frenzy.

    Now, in a three minute video address to fellow Democrats, the former Secretary of State says she is going to keep the fight going with the help of former President Barrack Obama and his wife Michelle, who incidentally, recently started their own organization aimed at marginalizing the new Trump administration.

    The challenges we face as a party and a country are real. So, now more than ever, we need to stay engaged in the field and online, reaching out to new voters, young people and everyone who wants a better, stronger and fairer America.

     

    We as Democrats must move forward with courage, confidence and activism, and stay focused on the elections we must win this year and next.

     

    Let resistance plus persistence equal progress for our party and our country.

     

    …Keep fighting and keep the faith… and I’ll be right there with you every step of the way.

    As we reported earlier this week, tens of millions of dollars are actively being funneled into so called non-profit organizations who are involved in a variety of activities that include direct attacks on the alternative media which tanked Hillary’s Presidential run, infiltration of the Trump White House, and instigation of purported “grass roots” movements through the use of paid agitators like the anonymous provocateurs we recently saw at protests in Berkeley, California.

    Make no mistake, Hillary Clinton is running for President in 2020 and the video you just watched is the opening salvo in a conflict that is designed to divide and conquer the American people.

  • America's Fentanyl Crisis "Is Surging, With No End In Sight"

    Having surpassed gun homicides for the first time in 2015, the epidemic of heroin and opioid related deaths in the US continues to grow. Amid the dismal failure of the 'war on drugs', it seems US lawmakers are finally waking up to reality, and are pressing the nation’s drug czar for more data on the dangerous synthetic opioid fentanyl, including how it is trafficked and how many people it has killed, in the latest effort to thwart a spiraling drug crisis.

    A recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report shows that nearly 5,000 more people died from opioids in 2015 than in 2014. Both heroin and opioid use have exploded in the US, after decades of doctors over-prescribing painkillers in the 1990s and 2000s. A report from the CDC released Thursday found that the drug problem has become so deadly that heroin deaths outnumbered gun fatalities last year for the first time in US history. Until 2007, gun deaths outnumbered heroin deaths five to one, according to the Washington Post. But 2015 saw 12,989 people die from heroin and 12,979 die from gun homicides.

    And now, as The Wall Street Journal reports, America's politicians are finally spotting a problem with this trend. Last week, a bipartisan group of U.S. senators filed a measure, the Synthetics Trafficking and Overdose Prevention Act, that seeks to curb shipments of synthetic drugs such as fentanyl by tightening U.S. postal system requirements for packages coming from other countries.

    “The national opioid crisis is being compounded by the re-emergence of illicit fentanyl and its analogues, which are synthetic opioids far more potent than morphine or heroin,” said Mario Moreno Zepeda, a spokesman for the Office of National Drug Control Policy. “Given the urgency of the opioid overdose epidemic, we will reply to the Committee’s inquiries promptly.”

     

    The four-page letter from the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee, signed by bipartisan committee leaders and reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, calls the fentanyl crisis a top oversight priority. Addressed to Kemp Chester, acting director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy and sent Thursday, the letter includes 15 questions such as how much fentanyl comes into the U.S. through the mail and how many counterfeit fentanyl pills authorities have seized.

     

    “On top of opioid overprescribing and heroin overdoses, we believe the United States is now facing another deadly wave: fentanyl,” said Tim Murphy, (R, Penn.) and Diana DeGette (D., Colo), chairman and ranking member of the subcommittee on oversight and investigations, in a statement. “We are urgently seeking answers to determine whether the federal government recognizes the unique threat of fentanyl.”

    Fentanyl has emerged as the chief drug threat in many parts of the country. Authorities believe it is pouring into the U.S. from China, sometimes with a stop in Mexico. The drug appeals to traffickers because it is made only with chemicals, and not the poppy plants needed for heroin, making it cheap and easy to produce.

     

    The synthetic narcotic is also extremely potent, potentially 50 times the strength of heroin, ratcheting up the risks for users. Some take it unexpectedly because dealers may mix it into the heroin supply, or press it into fake versions of prescription pain pills that are supposed to contain a much less powerful narcotic.

     

    Fentanyl played a major role in driving opioid deaths in the U.S. up nearly 16% to 33,091 in 2015, according to the most recent federal data, and hard-hit states have reported even more grim statistics for 2016.

    An Energy and Commerce aide said the fentanyl crisis “is surging, with no end in sight,” and that it is more than a footnote to the nation’s heroin problem.

  • Vehicle Plows Into New Orleans Mardi Gras Parade, Injuring 28; Driver In Custody

    At least 28 people were injured on Saturday evening after a pickup plowed into a crowd during a Mardi Gras parade in New Orleans, police said according to WDSU.  New Orleans Police Department spokeswoman Ambria Washington said that “initial reports show so far that about a dozen people are in critical condition.” She added that the number could increase as the investigation continues.

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    New Orleans police said the crash happened around 7 p.m. at Orleans and Carrollton avenues, where the Krewe of Endymion parade rolled through. According to CNN the driver is in police custody.

    Police Chief Michael Harrison said it appeared the suspect, who was driving a pickup truck that hit two cars before running into the crowd, was likely highly intoxicated. None of the injuries was life-threatening and there were no known fatalities, a source with direct knowledge of the incident told CNN.

    The CNN source said, “It appears to be a drunk driver,” and added there were no preliminary indications that it was a terrorism-related incident.

    One woman at the scene told The New Orleans Advocate that a silver truck whisked by her just feet away as she was walking through the intersection. Carrie Kinsella said, “I felt a rush it was so fast.”

    Twenty-year-old Kourtney McKinnis told the Advocate that the driver of the truck seemed almost unaware of what he had just done. “He was just kind of out of it,” she said.

    The incident occurred near the intersection of Orleans and Carrollton Avenues where the Krewe of Endymion parade was underway.

    Video from CNN affiliate WDSU showed a gray pickup truck that had run into a dump truck near the intersection.

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    Witnesses told the station that the pickup came down one of the streets and struck several cars before hitting people in the crowd watching the parade.

    “I saw the gray truck flying down Carrollton Avenue,” a female witness told WDSU. “He sped up and he lost control and you could see was getting ready to turn and I knew he was going to run into all those people.”

  • What First Amendment? Arizona Wants Power To Seize The Assets Of Protesters

    Submitted by James Holbrooks via TheAntiMedia.org,

    If Republicans in Arizona’s senate have their way, police in that state could soon have the power to seize assets and property from protesters, the Arizona Capitol Times reports.

    From a February 22 article:

    “Claiming people are being paid to riot, Republican state senators voted Wednesday to give police new power to arrest anyone who is involved in a peaceful demonstration that may turn bad — even before anything actually happened.

     

    “SB1142 expands the state’s racketeering laws, now aimed at organized crime, to also include rioting. And it redefines what constitutes rioting to include actions that result in damage to the property of others.

     

    “But the real heart of the legislation is what Democrats say is the guilt by association — and giving the government the right to criminally prosecute and seize the assets of everyone who planned a protest and everyone who participated.”

    Essentially, under this bill cops could arrest anyone at a demonstration that suddenly turns violent, however peaceful it might’ve started. They would even be able to target people who had nothing to do the property damage.

    Stephen Lemons, writing for the Phoenix New Times, covered a hearing on S.B. 1142 by Arizona’s Senate Judiciary Committee last week.

    Highlighting that certain senate Democrats “noted the obvious: that public protests often involve different groups with varying tactics,” he pointed out that, hypothetically, peaceful protesters could be held responsible “for the violent actions of a different faction or of individuals who act out while others remain calm.”

    But it gets even worse than that, as the Arizona Capitol Times pointed out Wednesday: “By including rioting in racketeering laws, it actually permits police to arrest those who are planning events.”

    Planning events. Meaning cops will have the authority to investigate activists before the demonstrations even take place.

    This is what Republican state senator Sonny Borrelli, the author of S.B. 1142, called targeting “the money source” in his defense of the bill before the committee meeting last week.

    Citing the conservative notion that a legion of privately funded progressive protesters is clogging up governmental works all over the country, Borrelli said the law would go after those “paid to go out and create this damage.”

    And if it takes cops infiltrating political groups on the taxpayers’ dime — on the razor-thin pretext of maybe preventing a potentially violent demonstration down the road — so be it, at least according to Republican attitudes in Arizona.

    “I should certainly hope that our law enforcement people have some undercover people there,” state senator John Kavanagh said, referring to police authority under S.B. 1142 to investigate political demonstrations while in the planning stages.

     

    “Wouldn’t you rather stop a riot before it starts?” he also said.

    Again, potential riot.

    The bigger issue at play, as noted by the Arizona Capitol Times, is the chilling effect such legislation would have on free speech. After all, if a person could get arrested for simply participating in a political demonstration — regardless of their own peaceful motives and actions — that person might decline to get involved.

    S.B. 1142 would actively enforce the notion of guilt by association. If would punish the innocent who are wishing only to exercise their right of free expression, all because of the actions of criminals.

    Such legislation would further complicate an environment of political unrest, made of both positive and negative forces, as State Senator Martin Quezada, Democrat out of Phoenix, highlighted Wednesday:

    “When people want to express themselves as a group during a time of turmoil, during a time of controversy, during a time of high emotions, that’s exactly when people gather as a community. Sometimes they yell, sometimes they scream, sometimes they go too far.”

  • Gold, 10-Year Bond, Dollar Into FOMC (Video)

    By EconMatters


    We discuss the Gold Market, the 10-Year Bond Market, and the US Dollar Index in this market video going into the FOMC Meeting in three weeks. Is March a Live FOMC Meeting?

    © EconMatters All Rights Reserved | Facebook | Twitter | YouTube | Email Digest | Kindle   

  • Trumpocalypse: Liberal Ivory Tower of Academia collapsing

    Universities in America have typically been dominated by a liberal
    bias.  Why is that?  Because, working for a University is sort of
    like working for the Government.  There is reason for the expression,
    those who can’t do – teach.  Grow a 2nd brain – understand why by reading THIS BOOK. 

    The mindset of employees at such insitutions is quite different
    than one might think.  We’re not going to name any names in this essay; this
    isn’t about a person or individual University.  It’s about the
    intellectual class, really the only public intellectual class in America with
    any respect; the Ivory Tower.  If you haven’t heard this expression
    before, it refers to the high brow raised lip attitude class of University
    Professors and their associates.  They have influence on every aspect of
    society.  They are like Adam Smith’s hidden hand – the subtle advisors who
    are secretly directing politics, big business, technology, and culture.
     Fortunately however, they don’t have any power, and don’t really control
    society, like the Illuminati do.  Their influence however should be noted;
    they’ve influenced Presidents of the United States, Bankers, the Media (most
    notably) and literally every aspect of human life in America.  I mean, who
    doesn’t trust and respect a University Professor?  They know what they’re
    doing – right?

    From Google:

    a state of privileged seclusion or separation from the facts and
    practicalities of the real world.

    “the ivory tower of academia”

    Now to be fair, not all University Professors are alike, we shant
    ‘profile’ them, as they profile individuals who have ideas they don’t like.
     There’s do-ers out there, especially around Silicon Valley where many
    have left their Ivory Tower positions to join startups or start them
    themselves.  But the Ivory Tower class remains; and it remained until the
    Trump victory in November – a major influence on society and hallmark of
    American culture.  But all that’s been shattered.  Their hidden
    influence on the media, should be noted by readers of Zero Hedge and other
    sites, people ‘in the know’.  Because they shape public opinion, possibly
    more than the CIA with all of it’s domestic mind-control operations.
     Venues like “NPR” and even “The Simpsons” are
    carefully crafted with leftist messages, agendas for open expansion of foreign
    affairs, expansion of government, anti-male value systems, and other
    ‘progressive’ ideas are implanted like seeds, waiting to grow like weeds when
    the next rain comes.  

    Here’s one example, how Academia helped the Media with their war
    against Trump.  Have you been hearing recently “Studies show
    that..” .. “Obamacare is more popular after the election“
     or some such nonsense.  Who are they polling?  They claim their
    polls aren’t biased, they are scientific.  But these are the polls and methods that had
    Trump losing by a landslide!

    What does this all mean?  We’re experiencing a
    major paradigm shift    , (this is an Ivory Tower word, from Thomas Kuhn’s “The
    Structure of Scientific Revolutions – a must read for investors).

    As a bright example take
    a look at what Brian Nosek is doing     to crack the glass bubble surrounding the Ivory Tower:

    Sometimes it seems surprising that science functions at all. In
    2005, medical science was shaken by a paper with the provocative title “    Why most published research findings are false.” Written by John Ioannidis, a professor of medicine at Stanford
    University, it didn’t actually show that any particular result was wrong.
    Instead, it showed that the     statistics of reported positive
    findings was not consistent with how often one should expect to find them.     As Ioannidis concluded more recently, “many published research findings are false or exaggerated, and an
    estimated 85 percent of research resources are wasted.”      It’s likely that
    some researchers are consciously cherry-picking data to get their work
    published. And some of the problems surely lie with journal publication
    policies. But the problems of false findings often begin with researchers
    unwittingly fooling themselves: they fall prey to cognitive biases, common
    modes of thinking that lure us toward wrong but convenient or attractive
    conclusions. “Seeing the reproducibility rates in psychology and other
    empirical science, we can safely say that something is not working out the way
    it should,” says Susann Fiedler, a behavioral economist at the Max Planck
    Institute for Research on Collective Goods in Bonn, Germany. “Cognitive biases
    might be one reason for that.”      Psychologist
    Brian Nosek of the University of Virginia says that the most common and
    problematic bias in science is “motivated reasoning”: We interpret observations
    to fit a particular idea. Psychologists have shown that “most of our reasoning
    is in fact rationalization,” he says. In other words, we have already made the
    decision about what to do or to think, and our “explanation” of our reasoning
    is really a justification for doing what we wanted to do—or to believe—anyway.
    Science is of course meant to be more objective and skeptical than everyday
    thought—but how much is it, really?      I
    was aware of biases in humans at large, but when I first “learned” that they
    also apply to scientists, I was somewhat amazed, even though it is so obvious.      Whereas the falsification model of the
    scientific method championed by philosopher Karl Popper posits that the
    scientist looks for ways to test and falsify her theories—to ask “How am I
    wrong?”—Nosek says that scientists usually ask instead “How am I right?” (or
    equally, to ask “How are you wrong?”). When facts come up that suggest we
    might, in fact, not be right after all, we are inclined to dismiss them as
    irrelevant, if not indeed mistaken. The now infamous “cold fusion” episode in
    the late 1980s, instigated by the electrochemists Martin Fleischmann and
    Stanley Pons, was full of such ad hoc brush-offs. For example, when it was
    pointed out to Fleischmann and Pons that their energy spectrum of the gamma
    rays from their claimed fusion reaction had its spike at the wrong energy, they
    simply moved it, muttering something ambiguous about calibration.

    The implications for politics and the broader economy are huge.
     Studies, focus groups, corporate funded research retreats, are one of the
    Establishment’s, and the Ivory Tower’s biggest tools.  The election was a
    crack in the dam – it’s a proof that you can’t manipulate public opinion to fit
    your own.  But it’s far from the only crack, just the most obvious one.  What’s
    happening is a major system-wide Ivory Tower Psychosis, the most basic form of
    mental illness – but it’s happening at a class level, as a group.
     Emotionally injured leftists are fleeing to Canada, or promoting
    secession for California (which is really a good idea by itself, who needs a
    Federal government).  Reality is crashing down on them, as it doesn’t fit
    with ‘their reality’ – but ‘their reality’ was artificially created for
    decades, depending on how you calculate.. For decades, Establishment leaders like
    George Bush created their own reality with their power, and even called it the “Reality Based Community” that is, people who live in
    the bubble of the Ivory Tower:

    The aide said that guys like me were “in what we call the
    reality-based community,” which he defined as people who “believe
    that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.”
    … “That’s not the way the world really works anymore,” he
    continued. “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own
    reality. And while you’re studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we’ll
    act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s
    how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors…and you, all of you, will be
    left to just study what we do.”

    It’s like the Media’s recent admission that it’s the media’s job
    to control what people think.      Well, not exactly.

    The Ivory Tower Bubble has popped; and we’re seeing the casualties
    on a daily basis.  It’s certainly not the last establishment-class that
    we’re going to see crack from the pressure of reality.

    To
    learn how the Elite manipulate the news which in turn manipulates markets,
    checkout Splitting Pennies – Understanding Forex for only $6.11 on Amazon, also
    now available on your iPhone via Smashwords.

     

    Zero Hedge readers get 35% off Fortress Capital Trading Academy type
    coupon code spring17 when checking out, at www.fctradingacademy.com learn how
    the ‘real’ world works.

  • Most Illegal Immigrants Live In America's Metropolitan Areas

    Having exposed $27 Billion reasons why a number of America's city officials are up in arms over President Trump's sanctuary city defunding decision, we thought it worth investigating just where the most illegal (or undocumented or unauthorized – pick your politically correct term) immigrants reside in America.

    Across America, there are over 300 governmental jurisdictions claiming "sanctuary status." Of those governments, there are 106 cities, while the rest are states, counties or other units of government.

    The new U.S. administration wants to overhaul America’s migration system, cracking down on undocumented migrants. As Statista's Dyfed Loeche reports, in total there are an estimated 11.1 million unauthorized migrants in the U.S. of which some 6.75 million took refuge in the big metropolitan areas, according to data collected by the Pew Research Center. Some of these metro areas have so-called sanctuary cities at their center.

    Infographic: Most Migrants Live in Americas Metropolitan Areas | Statista

    You will find more statistics at Statista

    Under Trump’s order, mayors defending their sanctuary city status are essentially imposing a defiance tax on local residents. On average, this tax amounts to $500 per man, woman and child. Major cities like Washington, D.C., New York and Chicago have the most to lose, and nearly $27 billion is at stake across the country.

    The threat of losing nearly $27 billion in federal funding seems to be having an effect on some cities. In fact, Miami already reversed their sanctuary city policy.

  • Oscars Preview

    While uncertainty reigns over how many black or female actors will win tomorrow; there is one thing guaranteed – some self-righteous political preaching…

     

    Source: MichaelPRamirez.com

  • A Two-State Solution… For The West?

    Submitted by Erico Matias Tavares via Sinclair & Co.,

    There's a cold war raging.

    No, not the one between the US and Russia. That’s old news.

    We're talking about the NEW cold war: the one for the soul of the West.

    On one corner we have the globalists, basically political and financial elites who after the disasters of World War II decided that eliminating borders was the way to ensure a peaceful future. Increasingly diverse (multicultural) societies would now be governed by supranational institutions, the only way to confront problems that are global in nature: environmentalism, terrorism, epidemics, consumerism and so forth. And much of this has become mainstream, with the powerful backing of the liberal media, the entertainment industry, much of academia and influential think tanks.

    While people from all political persuasions support this ideology, it appears to be more closely associated with the political left, sometimes from the hard left even, as shown by the picture above taken in a very progressive US neighborhood.

    On the other corner we have the nationalists (also known as patriots, populists, and deplorables). They took a good look at the downsides of that brave new (open) world and said to heck with its ongoing destruction of national identities, borders, traditional cultures and religion, and constant foreign military interventions especially when they are incapable of protecting their own borders from mass immigration.

    There is no question that 2016 was a pivotal year in this struggle, which is now playing out in the open.

    First the British voted to pull out of the European Union, against all odds. Then the Americans elected a brash Republican outsider for President, also against ‎all odds.

    After ceding cultural and political terrain for decades, the nationalists seem to be making a comeback. And now the cracks within Western countries are visible for anyone to see.

    Take the United States, the leader of the Free World. Here is a recent survey of the approval ratings of that outsider, President Donald Trump:

    Source: The Washington Post, ZeroHedge

    Notice the huge disparity between Republicans and Democrats. It could not be any more striking than this – and just a few weeks after Trump’s inauguration.

    This reflects of what is going on across much of the US, down to family and friends. It is clearly not confined to just “millennial snowflakes”, although these tend to be the loudest. Try walking in that very progressive US neighborhood wearing a 'Make America Great Again' cap and see how that cold war can turn ‎hot very quickly.

    The two sides no longer seem to agree on what a country is: if it should have borders, who has the rights and obligations in their societies and what it should stand for. Those are pretty basic – and fundamental – differences that look more and more irreconcilable by the day. Heck, there isn’t even an agreement on who is a woman and who is a man.

    So what can be done about this?

    Well, since everyone seems so keen in implementing a two-state ‎solution in the Israel-Palestine conflict, why not do the same across the West?

    With one key difference: these two “states” would remain formally linked through a very limited federal/national government. Mainland Chinese public officials even have a name for it: one country, two systems.

    If people in New York, Massachusetts, Illinois, Oregon and California want to become openly multicultural and consistently vote accordingly, why stop them? Let them welcome anybody they want and implement whatever education system, gender identifications and values they desire. Good for them. Provided of course that all this should be funded strictly by their own state and local taxes, which is only fair (no doubt very rich globalists like George Soros, Bill Gates and Richard Branson will gladly pitch in).

    On the other hand, if Texas and all others in flyover country believe they are entitled to bear arms, speak however they like in one language only, promote their values and culture and fully decide on who can live in their communities, what’s wrong with that? If you long to hear church bells on Sunday morning, sing the national anthem and use gender-segregated bathrooms you can always visit or move to those communities.

    Source: Prof. Mark Newman, Department of Physics and Center for the Study of Complex Systems, University of Michigan

    And that arrangement can be fined tuned further by going down to the county level, such that the views of local communities would be more accurately represented. In that case the map shown above provides an indication of how a two-state US could look like, with red being a proxy for the nationalist counties (i.e. majority Republican voters in the 2016 Presidential election).

    Similarly, the same concept could be implemented across the European Union. If Germans, Swedes, French and the Dutch want their countries or municipalities to go full multicultural, good for them. What they shouldn't do is impose their vision of the world through the supranational mechanisms of the European Union on the Poles, Hungarians, Finns and many others who do vigorously want to retain their culture and identities.

    And that’s what we have in every election cycle, with one party seeking to push its values onto the rest of society, which is increasingly divided and at odds with each other. So the pushback from either side is predictable. New “populist” movements across Europe already threaten the very existence of that federal government (except that in Europe’s case it is anything but limited), and they will not go away any time soon.

    This two-state system might be a seemingly fair way to achieve the best of both worlds, allowing both ideologies to coexist within a common governmental framework. A large scale version of Belgium if you like. But the reality is not so simple (just look at Belgium!)

    First, Western nations for the most have accumulated debts at the supra-regional level so large that apportioning them ‎between the two “states” is likely to be extremely contentious. With their sustainability already dubious in many cases, and without even considering all the crushing healthcare and retirement contingent liabilities, any division would be really problematic. As such the federal/national government would likely continue to be much larger than what would be desirable to disentangle differing political views.

     

    Second, transitioning into a multicultural society can be very problematic, as evidenced by the debate on Sweden’s immigration policies that has now gone viral, at least until a consensual set of rules and behaviors can be forged. The inherent security risks could force some parts of the other “states” to curtail the free flow of people. This is already happening in many parts of Europe as a result of the recent refugee crisis.

     

    Third, Western alliances would likely have to be redrawn along this split in Western aspirations. Donald Trump has more in common with Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán than Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, who will likely never welcome him in his city despite the special relationship between his country and the US.

     

    Indeed, Trump proposes core nationalistic values not too dissimilar from his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin (a key reason why the globalist media and intelligence are so keen to demonstrate a formal connection between the two). On the other hand, German Chancellor Angela Merkel – a hardcore globalist – could not be farther apart from either one.

     

    Fourth, how can each “state” coordinate on international commercial policies with the other one, as many companies have extensive operations across the two? This cold war is now spreading to the corporate sector, with some employees feeling alienated and consumers on each side threatening boycotts and sanctions. It has come to that.

     

    And finally, a divided West is a weak West. China is not worried about any of these existential social issues. Neither is Russia, Turkey or Iran‎. There aren’t any mainstream cultural hesitations in any of these countries (although each has its own fairly large share of dissidents, with good reason). As such, this split is a sure way to accelerate the erosion of the West's standing in global affairs, although the current state of affairs is not exactly helpful in that regard either.

    Let's have no illusions: this is a deep division and it's unlikely that we will ever return to a level of unity and understanding in Western societies like we had in the recent past. We're at a major crossroads in History.

    Will we be able to live together even if our backs are turned against each other, or will one side try to impose its will on the other with backlashes turning more violent each time? This will not be solved with simple calls for unity since the two sides are so far apart at this point.

    More importantly, which “state” will YOU choose?

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Feb 25

Today’s News 25th February 2017

  • Retired Green Beret Warns "There Are Destabilizing Forces At Work Here"

    Submitted by Jeremiah Johnson (nom de plume of retired Green Beret of the United States Army Special Forces) via SHTFPlan.com,

    As of this writing a tremendous number of things are happening in North Korea and Russia.  Although these are not events that seem momentous, they are quite profound when taken into consideration with the grand scheme: the worldwide plot to form a state of global governance.  These behind-the-scenes maneuverings are not in the forefront of the news; however, they are having effects within the nations mentioned and influencing their current actions.

    Almost a month ago, it was reported that one of the foremost militia commanders in the separatist-controlled Donbass area of Eastern Ukraine was assassinated via car bomb.  Then almost immediately afterward, just a few weeks later, the Chief of Staff of the Ukrainian Army of the Kiev government mysteriously died on duty of a “heart condition” although he was in his early fifties.  These “tit for tat” actions stimulated a new wave of fighting in the Eastern Provinces.

    The truce between the separatists and Kiev government has been violated without ceasing, primarily by the Ukrainian military under the direction of the US-sponsored president of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko.  At this time, there is an uneasy “stalemate” between the U.S. and Russia in a proxy war between the U.S-backed Kiev government and the Eastern Ukrainian separatists supported by Russia.

    Next, we have North Korea, where Kim Jong Un is ramping up the bellicose rhetoric against the U.S.  Yes, we have heard it before, but this time it is a little different.  On Monday, 45-year-old Kim Jong Nam, the half-brother of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il was assassinated in Malaysia.  Here is an excerpt of a report on it:

    “North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un’s half-brother was assassinated Monday in Malaysia, South Korean news agency Yonhap reported early Tuesday, citing a government source.  Kim Jong Nam was attacked by two unidentified women who stabbed him with “poisoned needles” at a Malaysian airport before fleeing, according to cable TV broadcaster TV Chosun.”

     

    Fox News World, 2/14/17

    Sounds “cut and dry” but examine the simplicity of the method of assassination (overly simplistic), and it yet becomes more complicated, as reported in another article:

    “The two female and four male suspects in the killing of Kim Jong-nam are hired assassins who did not know each other before they were brought together for the murder plot, a Malaysian security source has told the Telegraph.  The six suspects, most of whom are thought to be sleeper agents, were all living in Kuala Lumpur and were recruited and briefed for the hit by a secret agent point man or woman, the source, who did not want to be named, said.  Lawmakers in South Korea earlier cited their spy agency as saying it suspected two female North Korean agents had murdered Mr Kim. US government sources also said they believed North Korean assassins were responsible.”

     

    www.telegraph.co.uk  2/16/17

    A very complex plot for North Korean agents, wouldn’t you say?  It sounds pretty much “par for the course” for a Western intelligence agency, such as MI6 or the CIA.  The bio of the half-brother does not leave room for any “intentions” as reported by the US and South Koreans for the half-brother to try and displace Kim Jung Un.  The narrative is being “crafted” little by little in Western News Media sources, and take note of this excerpted report.  The article Navy fleet commanders: The next conflict hotspot is going to be in Korea, was released by Business Insider regarding developments with North Korea:

    “SAN DIEGO, Calif. — Two top Navy fleet commanders said Tuesday that the next potential conflict hotspot would likely be in Korea. “If there’s a fight tonight, it’s probably going to happen on the Korean peninsula,” said Vice Adm. Joseph Aucoin, commander of 7th Fleet, in a panel discussion at the AFCEA West 2017 conference.” 

    As the anti-ICBM missile systems are emplaced in South Korea and possibly Japan, the North Koreans have been test firing more submarine-launched ballistic missiles and have increased the war-rhetoric.  We view it from a “North Korea BS” perspective; however, it is a hotspot that is fostered by the globalists toward their own ends: a small piece in the puzzle but a potential flashpoint to trigger a world war.  North Korea may very well be the vehicle they use to initiate hostilities that ends the map of the world as it is now and places the ball in their court for global rule.

    Finally, we have what has been occurring with Russian diplomats.  There is an excellent report by Stefan Stanford at All News Pipeline released on entitled Are Russian Diplomats Being Assassinated? Globalists Continue March Towards World War 3 As Russian Ambassador To The UN Mysteriously Dies In New York.

    This report summarizes everything in astounding detail concerning the astonishing number of Russian Diplomats “buying the farm” since December of 2016.  There are no coincidences in “statecraft,” specifically the business of assassinations and counter-intelligence operations that “mutate” into those lines…specifically referring to those sponsored by governments.  These deaths do not even include other “accidents,” such as the death of Vladimir Putin’s chauffer last year who many believe was killed as a warning to Putin by Obama.

    As I have mentioned in previous articles, Sen. John McCain (R, AZ) is a major contributing factor to the chaos we’re seeing in Ukraine and Russia.  Cool heads are prevailing right now, and we have a President who is determined to make inroads with Russia and reset the relations with all of the nations that the State Department has left in shambles.  Still, there are forces at work here whose destabilizing efforts may lead to a different reaction than hoped for.  As long as globalist oligarchs such as Soros and the Rothschilds are operating, we can bank on continued destabilization and the creation of hot spots in addition to the three outlined in this article.

  • Size Matters: Visualizing The Tallest Building In Each State

    The United States has some of the world’s tallest skyscrapers, but their distribution is extremely uneven. Today’s infographic comes from Highrises.com, and it covers the tallest building in each state.

    As Visual Capitalist's Jeff Desjardins explains, New York City alone has 6,229 highrises – more than the next nine cities combined, including Chicago, Los Angeles, Honolulu, San Francisco, Houston, Philadelphia, Washington D.C., Miami, and Dallas.

    Surprisingly, multiple states don’t have a single building over 200 feet (61 m) tall. The tallest building in Vermont is an 11-story apartment building called Decker Towers. South Dakota is nearly as quaint – the CenturyLink Tower in Sioux Falls is the tallest building in the state, but it’s also only 11 stories tall.

    TOP TEN LIST: THE TALLEST STATES

    Here is the building that tips the scale for each of the ten “tallest” states:

    TOP TEN LIST: THE SHORTEST STATES

    Here is what ranks as the tallest building for the “shortest” ten states (also includes D.C.):

    WHAT IS THE TALLEST BUILDING IN EACH STATE?

    Courtesy of: Visual Capitalist

    Not surprisingly, about 76% of these highrises are office buildings, with one of every three named after a bank. However, the tallest buildings in some of states have pretty unique purposes. The tallest habitable building in D.C., for example, is the lengthily-named Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, which is also the largest Roman Catholic church in North America.

    The tallest building in Nevada is The Palazzo Resort Hotel Casino in Las Vegas. Meanwhile, the respective State Capitol buildings of North Dakota and West Virginia tower above any other skylines in those states.

  • As Bitcoin Surges To Record High, China Prepares Its Own Digital Currency

    Submitted by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

    Bitcoin hit an all-time high over $1200 today.

    Traders are happy because the SEC is expected to rule on a Bitcoin ETF by March 11.

    Meanwhile, Bloomberg reports China Is Developing its Own Digital Currency.
     

    https://www.bloomberg.com/api/embed/iframe?id=fd7ef38e-47f1-446c-b2c4-1cf2875e2f85

    After assembling a research team in 2014, the People’s Bank of China has done trial runs of its prototype cryptocurrency. That’s taking it a step closer to becoming one of the first major central banks to issue digital money that can be used for anything from buying noodles to purchasing a car.

     

    At the same time as it builds up its own capabilities, the PBOC is increasing scrutiny of bitcoin and other private digital tenders. It doesn’t want a bitcoin bubble to blow up. And since currencies have historically been issued by the state, not private players, it doesn’t want to cede the cryptocurrency space to companies it has no control over.

     

    Chinese people have embraced online payments for just about everything. To buy a can of Coke, thirsty commuters scan QR codes on their smartphones rather than feed coins into a vending machine. At Lunar New Year gatherings, money is exchanged via a few presses on a smartphone instead of crisp notes handed over in red envelopes.

     

    All of that poses a challenge to the PBOC’s status as the central bank of both the digital and physical realms. So if you can’t beat them, join them.

     

    “Getting to know more precisely how much banks lend, where the money goes and the pace of credit creation is key to curbing money laundering and making monetary policy more effective,” said Duan Xinxing, vice president of Beijing-based OKCoin Co., one of the country’s biggest bitcoin exchanges. Issuing digital currency will make it easier for the PBOC to monitor risk in the financial system and track transactions economy-wide, he said.

     

    OKCoin is among cryptocurrency exchanges that has recently taken steps to halt bitcoin withdrawals amid efforts to clamp down on capital outflows.

     

    In January 2016, the PBOC said it will have its own cryptocurrency “soon,” but there has still been no formal start date announced. In the meantime, there’s been strong advocacy from senior officials, including Fan Yifei, one of the PBOC’s deputy governors.

     

    “Cutting costs is an obvious benefit, but the impact of shifting to blockchain-based digital money from the current payment structure goes beyond that,” said Larry Cao, director of content at the CFA Institute in Hong Kong. “There’s a potential you can pay anybody in the system, any bank, and any merchant directly. Blockchain will change the whole infrastructure. This is revolutionary.”

     

    Real-time data

    For the PBOC, using blockchain, the technology that underpins the digital currency bitcoin, will allow it to trace transactions and collect “real-time, complete and authentic” data to compile precise monetary indicators such as money supply growth, OKCoin’s Duan said.

     

    “The transparency of economic activities in every corner in the country will significantly improve,” Duan said. “The central bank will have unprecedented knowledge of how the economy runs.”

     

    So instead of relying on monthly surveys of businesses, or collations of spending from the statistics authority, the PBOC and therefore the government would have real-time readings on the pulse of consumers. Policies could then be fine tuned on a day-to-day, even hour-to-hour basis, giving an unprecedented level of precision to monetary management.

    Capital Flight

    Bitcoin is a primary means of capital flight out of China. How long will that last?

    Here’s one key thought on bitcoin from the article: “OKCoin is among cryptocurrency exchanges that has recently taken steps to halt bitcoin withdrawals amid efforts to clamp down on capital outflows.”

    When China launches its own cryptocurrency, will it ban Bitcoin transactions?

    If so, what happens to the price of Bitcoin?

    Contrary Indicators

    The launch of a Bitcoin ETF reminds me of those waiting for the launch of JDSU Leap Options in 2000 so they could “load the boat”.

    During the 1990s, JDS Uniphase stock was a high-flyer tech stock investor favorite. Its stock price doubled three times and three stock splits of 2:1 occurred roughly every 90 days during the last half of 1999 through early 2000, making millionaires of many employees who were stock option holders, and further enabling JDS Uniphase to go on an acquisition and merger binge. After the telecom downturn, JDS Uniphase announced in late July 2001 the largest (up to then) write-down of goodwill. Employment soon dropped as part of the Global Realignment Program from nearly 29,000 to approximately 5,300, many of its factories and facilities were closed around the world, and the stock price dropped from $153 per share to less than $2 per share.

    Blockchain Technology

    I like the blockchain technology behind digital currencies like Bitcoin. Blockchain is perfectly suited for recording mortgages, deeds, autos, etc.

    Title insurance companies will cease to exist, at least as stand alone title companies.

    Scalability  

    Every transaction is recorded on the blockchain so the requirement of resources to process and store the information continually grows.

    This poses a scalability issue for high volume transactions. Recording every payment would certainly constitute high volume.

    Scalability Articles

    1. The Real Blockchain Scalability Challenge
    2. Waves Platform Implements New Blockchain Scalability Approaches
    3. Blockchain scalability

    If blockchain can scale to the point where governments can ban cash and record every transaction, expect instant tax collection and loss of privacy.

    Digital Downside 

    1. The government will know where every penny is at every second.
    2. The government will know every monetary transaction real time.
    3. You will no longer be able to give the babysitter, gardener, bartender, a friend, or anyone else an extra penny without the government knowing.
    4. Sales tax collection and VAT tax collection will be instantaneous.
    5. Governments can impose negative interest rates and other confiscation schemes at will.

    If cash is banned, the blockchain will record every penny you spend, and who you gave it to.

    Money laundering will become much more difficult, but the cost will be a loss of privacy, threats of negative interest rates, and other cash confiscation schemes.

  • 78 Seconds Of Farage "Red-Pilling"

    Warning – feelings will get hurt as Nigel Farage exposes the "liberal left's hijacking" of the education process…

    They have "indoctrinated an entire generation that any 'other' point of view is detestable and should be banned…"

    Bonus Clip: Nigel Farage spoke at today's CPAC Conference…

    h/t The Burning Platform

    As we noted previously…

    Your Feelings Are Largely Irrelevant

    20151114_crybully

    Seriously, nobody who has already graduated college cares about your feelings. That means that when you complain to your boss because your co-worker mis-gendered you, he’s probably not going to bend over backwards to bandage your wounds. Given feelings are entirely subjective in nature, it’s completely unreasonable to demand everyone tip-toe around you to prevent yours from being hurt. The reality is that people will offend you and hurt your feelings, and they won’t stop to mop up your tears because they shouldn’t have to. Learning to accept criticism, alternative viewpoints, and even outright insults will make you happier in the long run than routinely playing the victim card.

    You DO Have The Right To Live As You Please — But Not To Demand People Accept It

    Woman-yelling-in-megaphone

    By contrast, you do have the right to live however you please, so long as it’s within the confines of the law. If you want to cross-dress, smoke marijuana, drink lots of alcohol, have lots of sex, and, yes, even go to school for gender studies, then by all means, go for it. Government should not be allowed to legislate people’s behavior as long as it doesn’t infringe upon someone else’s rights, but that doesn’t mean society isn’t allowed to have an opinion. You don’t have the right to demand people keep their opinions about your lifestyle to themselves, especially if you’re open and public about it. I have as much of a right to comment on the way you live your life as you do to actually live it. Your feelings are not a protected right, but my speech is.

    The Only Safe Space Is Your Home

    111315-RickMcKee2

    No matter where you go in life, someone will be there to offend you. Maybe it’s a joke you overheard on vacation, a spat at the office, or a difference of opinion with someone in line at the grocery store. Inevitably, someone will offend you and your values. If you cannot handle that without losing control of your emotions and reverting back to your “safe space” away from the harmful words of others, then you’re best to just stay put at home. Remember, though: if people in the outside world scare you, people on the internet will downright terrify you. It’s probably best to just accept these harsh realities of life and go out into the world prepared to confront them wherever they may be waiting.

  • White House Bars CNN, NYT, Others From Media Briefing

    Just a few hours after Trump warned during his CPAC speech that “we’re gonna do something about the media”, he did just that after the White House barred a number of news outlets from covering Sean Spicer’s Q&A session on Friday afternoon.  Spicer decided to hold an off-camera “gaggle” with reporters inside his West Wing office instead of the traditional on-camera briefing in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room according to press reports. 

    Among the outlets not permitted to cover the gaggle were various news organizations that Trump has singled out in the past including CNN, The NYT, The Hill, Politico, BuzzFeed, the Daily Mail, BBC, the Los Angeles Times and the New York Daily News.

    Several non mainstream outlets were allowed into Spicer’s office, including Breitbart, the Washington Times and One America News Network.  Several other major news organizations were also let in to cover the gaggle. That group included ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, Reuters and Bloomberg, however AP and Time have boycotted the event.

    The White House Correspondents’ Association sharply criticized the decision.

    “The WHCA board is protesting strongly against how today’s gaggle is being handled by the White House,” Jeff Mason, the association’s president, said in a statement.  “We encourage the organizations that were allowed in to share the material with others in the press corps who were not,” he added. “The board will be discussing this further with White House staff.”

    The New York Times’ Peter Bakersaid he “can’t remember any press secretary from Clinton, Bush or Obama canceling briefing and handpicking small group for gaggle.”

    A White House spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.

    CNN’s political reporter Sara Murray confirmed that CNN has been blocked from attending a White House press briefing this morning. 

    //platform.twitter.com/widgets.js//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    //platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    //platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

     

    Some boycotted the event due to CNN’s treatment.

    //platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

     

    While some – including recently accredited – Breitbart were allowed in…

    //platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

     

    This follows President Trump’s earlier remarks At CPAC against fake news.

    //platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

     

    Here is Sean Spicer saying “You don’t get to just yell out questions. We’re going to raise our hands like big boys and girls.”

    * * *

    This move by The White House is in sharp contrast to what Spicer said in December (via HuffPo):

    Sean Spicer, the senior communications advisor for Donald Trump’s presidential transition team and a leading candidate to become White House press secretary, said Thursday night that the incoming president would “absolutely not” kick out news organizations in response to critical coverage.  This is an understandable fear given how the Trump campaign blacklisted nearly a dozen outlets through much of the election. In addition to denying some news organizations press credentials, the campaign sometimes placed unusual restrictions on journalists once inside.  During an interview with Fox News host Megyn Kelly, Spicer said Trump would not “bounce” reporters from the briefing room and “has a healthy belief in the First Amendment.”

     

    …

     

    “So if the New York Times does a scathing editorial on President Trump, they’re still going to let the New York Times reporters in the press briefing room and have access just the same as all the other news organizations,” Kelly asked.

     

    “They’re in the [press] pool right now and they still have scathing editorials and pretty poor reporting,” Spicer responded.

     

    “So yes, the answer to my question is yes?” she continued.

     

    “Yes,” Spicer said. “Absolutely.”

    We now expect most if not all of the presidential press corps to boycott all future White House media events, as the war between Trump and the media goes nuclear.

  • The Revenge Of Comet Pizza

    Submitted by Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com,

    Remember that one? It was about as weird as it gets. A meme generated out of the voluminous hacked John Podesta emails that some conspiracy connoisseurs cooked up into a tale of satanic child abuse revolving around a certain chi-chi Washington DC pizza joint. I never signed on with the story, but it was an interesting indication of how far the boundaries of mass psychology could be pushed in the mind wars of politics.

    Sex, of course, is fraught. Sex and the feelings it conjures beat a path straight to the limbic system where the most primitive thoughts become the father of the most primitive deeds. In our American world, this realm of thought and deed has turned into a political football with the Left and the Right scrimmaging ferociously for field position — while the real political agenda of everything important other than sex lies outside the stadium.

    The Comet Pizza story was understandably upsetting to Democrats who didn’t like being painted as child molesters. Unfortunately for them, it coincided with the bust of one Anthony Weiner — and his infamous laptop — disgraced former “sexting” congressman, husband of Hillary’s top aide and BFF, Huma Abedin. The laptop allegedly contained a lot of child porn.

    That garbage barge of sexual allegation and innuendo couldn’t have helped the Hillary campaign, along with all the Clinton Foundation stuff, in the march to electoral loserdom. I suspect the chthonic darkness of it all generated the “Russia-did-it” hysteria that cluttered up the news-cloud during the first month of Trumptopia. The collective superego of America is reeling with shame and rage.

    On the Right side spectrum stood the curious figure of Milo Yiannopoulos, the self-styled “Dangerous Faggot,” who has made a sensational career lately as an ideological provocateur, especially on the campus scene were he got so into the indignant faces of the Maoist snowflakes with his special brand of boundary-pushing that they resorted to disrupting his events, dis-inviting him at the last moment, or finally rioting, as in the case at UC Berkeley a few weeks ago.

    Milo’s battles on campus were particularly ripe because his opponents on the far Left were themselves so adamant about their own brand of boundary-pushing along the frontier of the LGBTQ agenda. The last couple of years, you would’ve thought that half the student population fell into one of those “non-binary” sex categories, and it became the most urgent mission of the Left to secure bathroom rights and enforce new personal pronouns of address for the sexually ambiguous.

    But then Milo made a tactical error. Despite all the mutual boundary-pushing on each side, he pushed a boundary too far and entered the final dark circle of taboo: child molesting. That was the point were the closet Puritan hysterics went in for the kill. This is what he said on a Web  talk radio show:

         What normally happens in schools, very often, is you have an older woman with a younger boy, and the boy is the predator in that situation. The boy is like, let’s see if I can fuck the gym teacher, or let’s see if I can fuck the hot math teacher, and he does. The women fall in love with these nubile young boys, these athletic young boys in their prime. We get hung up on the child abuse stuff to the point where we’re heavily policing consenting adults, grad students and their professors, this arbitrary and oppressive idea of consent, which totally destroys the understanding many of us have about the complexities, subtleties, and complicated nature of many relationships. In the homosexual world particularly, some of the relationships between younger boys and older men, the sort of coming-of-age relationships in which these older men help those young boys discover who they are, and give them security and provide them with love…. [Milo is shouted down by his podcast hosts]

    So that was the final straw. Milo got bounced by his platform, Breitbart News, and went through the now-routine, mandatory, abject ceremonial of the televised apology required by over-stepping celebrities — though he claimed, with some justification I think, that his remarks were misconstrued. Anyway, I’m sure he’ll rebound on his own signature website platform and he’ll be back in action before long.

    His remarks about the “coming-of-age” phase of life prompted me to wonder about the boundary-pushers on the Left, on the college campuses in particular, who are encouraging young people to go through drastic sex-change surgeries, at an age before the development of that portion of their frontal lobes controlling judgment is complete. Who are these diversity deans and LGBTQ counselors who lead confused adolescents to self-mutilation in search of some hypothesized “identity?” Whoever they are, this dynamic seems pretty reckless and probably tragic to me. There ought to be reasonable doubt that an irreversible “sexual reassignment” surgery may not lead to personal happiness some years down the line — when, for instance, that person’s frontal lobes have developed, and they begin to experience profound and complicated emotions such as remorse.

    Our sexual hysteria has many more curious angles to it. We live in a culture where pornography, up to the last limits of freakishness and depravity, are available to young unformed personalities at a click. We stopped protecting adolescents against this years ago, so why should we be surprised when they venture into ever-darker frontiers of sexuality? It was the Left that sought to abolish boundaries in sex and many other areas of American life. And yet they still affect to be shocked by someone like Milo.

    I maintain that there is a dynamic relationship between our inability to act on the truly pressing issues of the day — energy, economy, and geo-politics — and our neurotic preoccupation with sexual identity.

    The epic amount of collective psychic energy being diverted from what’s important into sexual fantasy, titillation, confusion, and litigation leaves us pathetically unprepared to face the much more serious crisis of civilization gathering before us.

  • Meet China's Biggest Oil Trader: At 39, He Generated $38 Billion In Revenue

    Ye Jianming isn’t a name that rings many bells… yet. But, according to SCMP, it will, considering what he’s achieved so far in a country where the state firms take all. As Fortune recently wrote, when it ranked Ye #2 in its “40 Under 40” list, he runs a $42-billion-a-year oil business in China, (No. 229 on the Fortune Global 500), yet few in China know anything about the mysterious tycoon or the firm he created, CEFC.

    Ye bought a collection of oil ­assets in his twenties and ­secured loans from state-owned banks to expand abroad, a privilege for a private company. CEFC has oil agreements in Kazakhstan, Qatar, Abu Dhabi, and Chad and has gone into ventures with state-owned giants to transport oil to China, making him a rare powerful private player aligned with the Chinese government.

    Little else is known about Ye: as of this moment, he is the sole private entrepreneur to win a stake in an Abu Dhabi onshore oil concession (whose lifespan is 40 years) with 4%. British Petroleum and China National Petroleum Corp got 10% and 8% respectively.

    Why would state giants like CNOOC and Sinopec Group tolerate that? Simple: Ye holds a “full” licence in China’s financial industry – covering insurance, brokerage, banking, trusts, commodities and asset management, alongside state-owned Citic Group and China Everbright Holdings. Yet what’s so different here from the hundreds of firms that are queuing up for an insurance license?

    Well, the money helps: his empire, CEFC China Energy, has seen its revenue double to 263 billion yuan (US$38.3 billion) between 2012 and 2015, becoming the largest oil trader in China. That was before the company won a lucrative permit to import oil.

    But most important and puzzling of all – according to SCMP – Ye is only 39 years old.

    Ye is now venturing into Hong Kong. Last week, he announced the HK$600 million acquisition of listed Runway Global with the intention to make it a financial conglomerate. In October 2016, he paid HK$1.4 billion (US$180 million) for three floors at the Convention & Exhibition Centre in Wanchai. Before putting a price tag on Ye and Runway, one question needs to be satisfied. How did he manage all this? Or rather, who is he?

    It’s a mystery.


    Ye Jiangming, the 39-year-old CEO of CEFC China Energy

    He calls himself Ye Jianming. Mainland media found a different name. He said he started as a forest police officer in a tiny town in Fujian. Local journalists said he was a carpenter. He told Fortune Magazine his business took off in 2006 after buying oil trader Xiamen Huahang at auction, which was once owned by smuggling king Lai Changxing. He was then only 27. He said he was funded by investors in Hong Kong and Fujian.

    Domestic newspapers questioned how Xiamen Huahang, which is owned by the Fujian government, was linked to Lai’s circle and ended up in auction. It’s the same dark cloud surrounding almost every high-flying private player from China.

    Yet what makes Ye different is the structure of his company; it’s that of a state firm.  The company has a Communist Party Committee, a Disciplinary Committee and a Youth League. It boasts a middle management that largely consists of party members. It set up two think tanks in Hong Kong – China Energy Fund Committee that sponsors events and research advocating China’s territorial claims, and the China Institute of Culture, that pledges its support for Taiwan’s reunification with mainland China.

    Add to this a Czech news report that Ye was a deputy secretary general with close associations to the People’s Liberation Army, and speculation runs wild: CEFC is a shadow state firm set up to win deals in sensitive areas; CEFC is a business of the People’s Liberation Army; or Ye is the grandson of revered Marshall Ye Jianying. Ye denied any army links.

    No less puzzling is its financing, that doesn’t quite seem to match its fame and connections.

    On December 15, its Hong Kong subsidiary borrowed HK$600 million from state-owned Huarong International Financial Holdings to pay for the Convention Centre office. It’s paying 7.5% interest – triple what other commercial banks charge.

    On February 18, Huarong said it loaned US$45 million (HK$349 million) to CEFC to fund its US$880 million investment in the Abu Dubai oil concession. That is conditional on CEFC signing a letter of intent with the Hainan branch of the State Development Bank for a loan to pay off the difference. Huarong is charging 8% interest – plus 1% transaction fee – rising to 12% in case of extension beyond six months. That’s almost double the prevailing bank rate.

    Ye is also borrowing to acquire Runway. Guotai Junan will provide HK$320 million, or 53% of the acquisition cost. There is no information on whether Ye will pledge his controlling stake in Runway for that loan.

    None of these amounts are Big Money. A better question is why a company as “strong” as CEFC, has to rely on loans, which charge far greater than market interest rates, rather than choose cheaper, prevailing market rates at commercial banks.

    * * *

    While the question swirl, perhaps some answers can emerge in his background.

    In a recent piece, Fortune profiled how over the course of just one week last fall, CEFC China Energy became Prague’s hottest investor, buying the Czech Republic’s top soccer club, Slavia Prague; a Czech publishing house; a couple of Renaissance-era historic buildings; one of the country’s oldest breweries; and biggest of all, a controlling interest in Prague’s J&T Finance Group, making CEFC the first private Chinese company to own a European bank. The company’s spending totaled $1.5 billion when all was said and done.

    The shopping spree played out against a noteworthy political backdrop. The Czech Republic’s leftist government was encouraging Chinese investment. And China was launching diplomatic efforts to expand its world influence by reviving the old Silk Road trading route through Central Asia into Europe.

    CEFC may be privately owned, but in Prague it was a cog in the Chinese government’s plan, and happy to be. In fact, aligning itself with the government has been central to the company’s strategy to become China’s newest oil power. CEFC ranks #229 on the Global Fortune 500 list, with $42 billion in revenue in 2015, double its 2012 total.

    Its global reach has continued to grow: CEFC now owns a couple thousand European gas stations, many bought from Kazakhstan’s state oil company, along with a one-million-ton oil storage system in Spain and France that expands China’s connections with the world oil supply.

    Behind the strategy is CEFC’s founder, Ye Jianming, who ranks at No. 2 on the Fortune 40 Under 40 list this year, thanks largely to his company’s remarkable recent rise. “We closely follow the national strategies. So we‘ll map out our corporate strategy according to the national ones,” Ye told Fortune this September, in his first interview with a Western media outlet. He speaks matter-of-factly, describing CEFC’s plans the way an American CEO might on a roadshow with investors.

    * * *

    The 39-year-old Ye stands out as much for the intrigue around him as for his success. He bought oil assets in China while only in his twenties, rarely makes public appearances, and avoids the typical lubricants of Chinese business, alcohol and smoking. Reporters and researchers have also raised questions about about ties between Ye and CEFC and nationalistic elements of China’s People’s Liberation Army — connections that can confer power and prestige in China, but can make for awkward optics in the eyes of potential partners overseas.

    Ye’s rise illustrates in vivid terms how tightly aligned China’s government and private companies continue to be, especially when doing business offshore, and also how similar the country’s private companies can look to their state-backed competition.

    Ye doesn’t seek publicity for that, he says. He feels more comfortable staying home studying Confucius or Buddhism than attending business dinners, which he avoids by sending lieutenants in his place. He has black eyes, a strong rectangular face free of wrinkles, and swept-back black hair. He speaks quietly and punctuates the end of sentences with a brief silence before a concluding, Ahh.

    Ye founded CEFC in his twenties. After a brief stint with the forest police in his home southern province, Fujian, he says he bought oil assets from auction once owned by a businessman named Lai Changxing, who fled to Vancouver in 1999 to avoid arrest after authorities discovered that he ran a large smuggling ring. (Lai was eventually convicted and sentenced in China for smuggling and bribery.) Ye got the funds for the purchase from wealthy investors in Hong Kong and Fujian, a province with a reputation for producing astute businesspeople. Ye pitched to those investors an oil business that would operate alongside China’s state oil companies, in the gaps those companies left open.

    At the time, China was hungry for crude, but its state-backed companies were having difficulty closing some deals abroad. The optics of China’s state-backed giants marching into a country to buy and extract oil weren’t great for central Asian politicians. This paved the way for private, under-the-radar firms like Ye’s, which can strike oil deals in Europe and the Middle East where SOEs would bring political liabilities.

    CEFC has signed agreements for oil rights or done deals in Kazakhstan, Qatar, Russia, Chad, Angola, and Abu Dhabi, and gone into ventures with China’s state-owned giants to transport oil and gas back to China. CEFC doesn’t have the right to sell directly in China, so it either stores the oil or sells it to the market through one of China’s SOEs.

    After several years of economic malaise in Europe following the 2008 global banking crisis, European energy assets started coming up for sale. “They decided to sell their refineries and gas stations,” Ye says. “This wouldn’t happen in China. In China, oil exploration, refining and sales are all monopolized by the SOEs.” CEFC is building an energy storage and logistics system in Europe from its second headquarters in the Czech Republic to create an exchange between China, Europe and the Middle East. That, in turn, serves China’s ambitions to have overseas storage locations connected with world markets. The alignment with Beijing has paid off. CEFC’s won a license to import crude into China in the last year, a potentially lucrative venture. China is the world’s second-largest consumer of crude behind the U.S., but declining profits and margins at the country’s oil SOEs are increasing the pressure for reform.

    * * *

    CEFC says almost two thirds of its $42 billion in revenues last year came either from the agreements it has with foreign governments to oil rights, the oil and gas transportation networks it runs, or its oil storage business. Its Singapore-based oil-trading desk is also one of the biggest affiliated with a Chinese company. “The Chinese government now wants to reform, and they are inviting independent companies to play a bigger role in the industry,” says Oceana Zhou, a writer at commodities research firm Platts.

    Ye’s seldom-used office in Shanghai includes traditional and modern Chinese touches: a three-foot lounging Buddha statue on his desk; an expressionist Mao painting; President Xi Jinping’s framed calligraphy from his time leading Ye’s home Fujian province 15 years ago. The office also has three separate desk phones, including a clunky red phone that appears similar to a “red machine,” an encrypted phone service used by the country’s largest state-owned companies to keep their conversations secure from prying foreign intelligence agencies. (The company says this phone is actually tied to CEFC’s internal executive line.)

    And then there are the military connections.

    CEFC’s culture emphasizes military-style regimentation and promotion. In the past, it hired former military officers as consultants and managers. CEFC’s hiring of former military brass and its Communist Party influences can be interpreted a couple different ways. In one, CEFC is a de facto tool for the state to cut deals around the world, which would make it one of many Chinese private companies expanding abroad with the help of unclear government relationships. In the second, CEFC really is a private player, but casts itself as close to the government because it’s good for business.

    The second explanation appears more probable, though conversations with Ye don’t do much to clarify the blurry lines. Ye says CEFC may not even be an oil company in the future, and might instead focus on its fledgling investment bank division, which already has investments in the energy sector. Such a strategy would explain CEFC’s Czech investments. But those same investments were also in tandem with the government’s $4 trillion One Belt One Road foreign investment program.

    “We have to look at geopolitics,” Ye says. “If one day the Czech Republic goes against China, we need to pull back our investments to rethink our strategies there.”

    In late 2016, Ye also opined on the outcome of the US election: “Once Madame Hillary steps into her office, because she is anti-Russia … oil prices will be coming down,” he says. “Because Mr. Trump is pro-Russia … if he’s elected the oil price will go up.”

    So far, the latter has failed to materialize.

    At times, having close links to the government has created tensions for Ye. CEFC runs a think tank called China Energy Fund Committee. One of its analysts was Dai Xu, a former senior air force colonel. Writing under the pen name Long Tao in 2011, Dai advocated using force in the South China Sea, a hot-button issue in those contested international waters, where half a dozen countries claim territorial rights.

    But it is Ye’s own potential military ties that have generated the most intrigue. After CEFC’s weeklong investing spree in the Czech Republic, Czech news organizations reported finding an old biography listing Ye as deputy secretary general of an association close to the People’s Liberation Army. That group, the China Association for International Friendly Contact (CAIFC), bills itself as a forum to connect high-level military and political figures in China with those abroad. But it is essentially an influence and propaganda platform, writes Washington, D.C.-based researcher Mark Stokes of the Project 2049 Institute. Stokes says that related departments engage in political warfare, including spreading propaganda and recruiting potential intelligence sources, to serve goals including China’s ultimate aim of reunifying China and Taiwan.

    A connection to this group would cast a shadow over the perception of Ye and CEFC in some countries where the company operates. But in conversation with Fortune, Ye denies having such ties. He says he was invited to become a director on CAIFC, but declined. He believes CEFC’s smaller partners in China have tried to inflate his role with the government for their own benefit, which is why his name appeared in the old biographies.

    “Actually,” he says, “I’ve received invitations from the People’s Congress, the People’s Political Consultative Conference, associations related to foreign affairs, the institute of international relations in China….all to undertake some role or duty in their organization.” He says he declined all the invitations.Even without such ties, CEFC’s close alliance with the government is likely to continue to generate concern as the company grows. China’s desire to hoard crude oil for its strategic purposes is no secret. And the fresh-faced Ye has positioned himself in the middle of China’s economic and political desires — the exact place he wants to be.

    With China set to dominate the global oil market, having surpassed the US as the world’s biggest importer of oil, not to mention Ye’s grand ambitions to gradually roll up the financial world with Beijing’s backing, keep a close eye on the low-profile 39-year old who is quietly becoming one of China’s most important people.

  • California, Nestle, And Decentralization

    Authored by Antonius Aquinas, annotated by Acting-Man's Pater Tenebrarum,

    Goodbye, Socialist Paradise

    Nestle USA has announced that it will move its headquarters from Glendale, California, to Rosslyn, Virginia, taking with it about 1200 jobs.

    The once Golden State has lost some 1690 businesses since 2008 and a net outflow of a million of mostly middle-class people from the state from 2004 to 2013 due to its onerous tax rates, the oppressive regulatory burden, and the genuine kookiness which pervades among its ruling elites.

     

    There has been a remarkable reversal of flow of people and businesses – but California’s ruling elite seemingly remains utterly clueless as to why this is happening and/or doesn’t seem to care. When people and businesses flee from such a well-developed region with such a favorable climate, one should realize that something is probably very wrong. Here is a link to a comprehensive study of the flight of businesses and a million middle class people (net) since 2008 (PDF).

     

    A clueless Glendale official is apparently unconcerned about the financial repercussions of Nestle’s departure saying that it was “no big deal” and saw it as an “opportunity,” whatever that means!

    The stampede of businesses out of what was once the most productive and attractive region in all of North America demonstrates again that prosperity and individual freedom are best served in a political environment of decentralization.

    That the individual states of America have retained some sovereignty, despite the highly centralized “federal” system of government of which they are a part, has enabled individuals and entrepreneurs living in jurisdictions that have become too tyrannical to “escape” to political environments which are less oppressive.

     

    The routes people aspiring to become small businessmen in California can take….

     

    This, among other reasons (mainly air conditioning), led to the rise of the Sun Belt as people sought to escape the high taxes and regulations of the Northeast to less burdensome (and warmer!) southern destinations.

    This can also be seen on a worldwide scale.  The US, for a long time, had been a haven of laissez-faire economic philosophy, which, not surprisingly, became a magnet for those seeking opportunity and a higher standard of living.

    No longer is this the case as increasing numbers of companies and individuals are seeking to avoid American confiscatory tax and regulatory burdens and move “offshore” or expatriate to more favorable economic climates.

     

    2016 state income taxes – to this one must add a more than 8% sales tax in California, all of which comes on top of federal taxes, plus onerous regulations and extremely litigation-happy “activists”. The only area in which California’s citizens got lucky (via referendum) are property taxes. On the other hand, the state has become extremely real estate bubble-prone, and low property taxes are probably not offsetting the drawbacks of the enormous, malignant housing boom-bust cycles the population centers are experiencing – click to enlarge.

     

    Decentralization – the Key to Liberty and Progress

    The idea of political decentralization as a catalyst for economic growth has become a part of a “school of thought” in the interpretation of how Europe became so prosperous compared to other civilizations.

    After the fall of the Roman Empire, Europe for centuries was divided politically among numerous jurisdictions and ruling authorities with no dominant central state on the Continent.

    The multitude of governing bodies kept in check, to a large degree, the level of taxation and regulation.  If one state became too draconian, it would lose population to less oppressive regimes.

    Just as important, Europe’s governing system was aristocratic and monarchical which has proven to be far more conducive for economic growth than democracies.

     

    Germany shortly before its unification in 1871 –  a patchwork of competing small states. Note that this was well after an initial wave of consolidation and centralization – a century earlier, Germany actually consisted of more than 370 independent territories! We previously discussed why highly decentralized polities are the best possible political dispensation for the common man and how extremely conducive they are to liberty and the progress of civilization in this brief missive on secession.

    Map via genealogy.net

     

    While the economic oppressed can escape among the various states, there is no avoidance from the wrath of the federal government unless through expatriation and that option has become less viable with those leaving still subject to tax obligations.  This, fundamentally, is the crux of the problem and has been since the ratification of the US Constitution in 1789.

    The chance that a totalitarian state such as California or the Leviathan on the Potomac would actually reform themselves or relinquish power through legislative means is a mirage.  Nor will revolution work as revolutionaries while appearing altruistic, typically get a hold of the machinery of government to plunder society for their own self interest on a far grander scale than the supposed despots which they replaced!

    The only viable option for the productive members of society to seek redress of state oppression is to argue, work, and eventually fight for political secession and the fragmentation of states as much as possible.

    Decentralization is the only hope for those opposed to the modern, omnipotent nation state.  Moreover, any notion or effort to salvage the current centralized political system must be abandoned.

     

    After Donald Trump’s election, many on the political left in California have begun to talk about secession – normally an idea libertarians (and some conservatives) are more likely to be sympathetic to. One thing the presidential election showed quite clearly was that regardless of the winner, about half of the US population was always going to be deeply unhappy about the outcome. In a patchwork of numerous completely independent territories, people would be free to move to whatever area had the political dispensation they preferred. We confidently predict that socialist experiments would be few and far between if they had to depend entirely on voluntary participants. It should be no surprise that Europe’s socialists are all in favor of centralization and “harmonization” (the latter is new-speak for “let’s introduce the most onerous taxes and regulations everywhere, then no-one can escape our clutches”).

     

    Conclusion – The Ideological Battle Comes First

    Naturally, before the breakup of the nation state can become a reality, the ideological case for political decentralization must be made.  Public opinion must be convinced of the superiority of a world consisting of many states.  Such a cause, however, will be considerably difficult after generations have been raised and made dependent upon social democracy.

    When Nestle and other oppressed businesses and individuals can easily escape the clutches of totalitarian entities like California and, more importantly, the most dangerous government on the face of the earth for freer destinations, then will individual liberty and economic growth be assured.

  • Baffled WaPo Still Arguing That Only Dumb, White Men 'Approve' Of Trump

    The Washington Post, still supremely perplexed by how President Trump managed to win the White House, is apparently even more confused now as to why his approval ratings stubbornly refuse to drop into the teens. Nevertheless, the disaffected mainstreamers at WaPo seem to derive some comfort from a handful of recent polls which all peg Trump’s “approval rating” at under 50%, a statistic they victoriously used to declare the following:

    “Most Americans don’t think that President Trump is doing a good job.”

    Of course, as Gallup pointed out last month, half of the Presidents that have held the White House since World War II failed to win the approval of a majority of Americans over the course of their terms, including WaPo’s beloved President Obama who averaged just 47.9%…but we digress.

    Gallup

     

    Still, dissatisfied with an approval rating anywhere north of 0%, the ever-skeptical WaPo figured there must be some nefarious explanation for why such a vile person like Trump could possibly avoid impeachment after a full month in the White House, nonetheless enjoy the ‘approval’ of 48% of the electorate (at least according to the Fox News poll).

    So they set out on a mission to scour polling methodologies and demographics of respondents for a clue to the Trump approval enigma.  Fortunately they were able to quickly focus in on a pleasant “narrative” that Trump’s sole support emanated from a consolidated group of white (a.k.a. “racist”), male (a.k.a. “sexist”) voters without a college degree (a.k.a. “dumb”).

    Wapo

     

    Meanwhile, knowing that their efforts to diminish the President’s approval rating would be harshly received by roughly half of the population, they decided to preemptively mock all you dumb, racist, sexist people out there.

    I know, I know: You and your friends think he’s doing a great job, and this is more fake news. Or maybe: No one you know likes Trump at all. Or the classic: LOL all the polls were wrong last year, who cares what polls say. To which I’d quickly reply, in order: (1) That’s your bubble, (2) that’s your bubble and (3) actually, national polls were pretty accurate.

    And, of course, these same dumb, racist, sexist people who are propping Trump’s approval ratings today are the same ones that voted him into the White House in November.

    Those of you who were paying close attention during the general election will recognize whites without college degrees as having always made up the core of Trump’s base of support. (We even wrote about it!) According to exit polling, about half of those who voted for Trump fell into the whites-without-a-college-degree category.

     

    So far, it seems as though Trump’s strict adherence to the campaign promises he outlined for that group in the primary has not been successful at wooing many other people to his side. (Contrary to what White House chief of staff Reince Priebus might think, most people generally disapprove of what Trump’s done.) Trump won the primary with that core, powered through the general on the strength of that core of support and now enjoys it as one of the only groups to think he’s doing a good job.

     

    That should be easy for anyone to accept — regardless of their bubble.

    Wapo

     

    But, we’re sure you’re right WaPo…the national polls were spot on in November and dumb, sexist, racist people have suddenly overtaken the American electorate.  In fact, we suspect that if you keep pushing hard on this narrative you’ll be right again in about 4 years.

Digest powered by RSS Digest

Feb 24

Today’s News 24th February 2017

  • Tucker Carlson Takes on DNC Advisor Who Doesn't Know How to Identify a Gender

    So why does ‘the party of science’, the enlightened ones, the people with thousands of scientists from accredited colleges throughout the country who tell us about dangers of global warming, carbon emissions, and how many vegetables to eat on a daily basis — cling to the inane subject of ‘gender identity’? You’d think that these men of letters would eschew rudimentary ‘feelings’ and only accept the biology of one’s gender when determining which bathroom he/she could use. But this isn’t about science, in spite of what they tell you.

    Thousands of years ago, when the Romans would conquer territories that were hostile, they’d enter villages and take the men as slaves and order the women to raise her children loyal to the Roman standard. To make an example, often times they’d kill one of her children, so she knew they meant business. After a generation of destroying families, these territories were docile and soft — loyal to the Roman power structure.

    Today we have a corrupt establishment on its last legs, fighting desperately to keep its citizens in line. After decades of permitting drugs to ravage through minority communities, passing harsh drug laws designed to break up and destroy the black family structure, the nuclear black family is on its last legs. In 1965, just before the onset of the drug epidemic, 76.4% of black children were born into married households. Today, 77% of first black births are born into pre-marital households.

    So what the fuck happened?

    The men were carted off to jail, while the women were left tending to her children, as wards of the state.

    Sound familiar?

    Now the target is everyone else. While oxycontin and meth have done a number on white neighborhoods throughout the country, it wasn’t working fast enough to truly break the family structure — especially in well-heeled families.

    Enter the gender identity crisis. What better way to disrupt the family structure and create a generation of mentally challenged morons than to have them question the very essence of life and purpose: identity and procreation? Schools are pushing this hard on children, creating safe zones and sexualizing institutions that were never designed to do that. In other words, the state is attempting to take control of your children’s’ minds by blurring the lines of gender, confusing them and galvanizing a generation of potential social justice warriors who will fight the good fight for ‘human rights’, aka become WARDS OF THE STATE.

    Rant over.

    Here is Tucker Carlson, proving, once and for all, the DNC is run by complete morons, unable to answer a simple question: what makes a person a man?

    The correct answer should’ve been, ‘your balls.’

    Content originally generated at iBankCoin.com

  • In A Battle Between Trump And The Federal Reserve, Who Really Wins?

    Submitted by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.com,

    As a part of the increasingly obvious set-up of conservative movements by international banking interests and globalist think-tanks, I have noticed an expanding disinformation campaign which appears to be designed to wash the Federal Reserve of culpability for the crash of 2008 that has continued to fester to this day despite the many claims of economic “recovery.”  I believe this program is meant to set the stage for a coming conflict between the Trump Administration and the Fed, but what would be the ultimate consequences of such an event?

    In my article 'The False Economic Recovery Narrative Will Die In 2017', I outlined the propaganda trap being established by globalist owned and operated media outlets like Bloomberg, in which they consistently claim that Donald Trump has “inherited” an economy in recovery and ascendancy from the Obama administration.  I thoroughly debunked their positions and “evidence” by showing how each of their fundamental indicators has actually been in steady decline since 2008, even in the face of massive monetary intervention and fiat printing by the Fed.

    My greatest concern leading up to the 2016 election was that Trump would be allowed to win because he represents the perfect scapegoat for an economic crisis that central banks have been brewing for years. Whether or not Trump is aware of this plan cannot yet be proven, but as I have mentioned in the past, his cabinet of Goldman Sachs alumni and neo-con veterans hardly gives me confidence.  In the best case scenario, Trump is surrounded by enemies; in the worst case scenario, he is surrounded by friends.

    Trump’s loyalties, though, are a secondary issue for now.  The primary focus of this article is to discern whether or not a battle between Trump and the Fed will result in a net positive or a net negative for the public.  My position is that any action against the Fed should have happened years ago, and that today, the Fed is nothing more than a sacrificial appendage of a greater globalist agenda.  Meaning, conservative groups should be aware that a victory over the Fed is not actually a victory over the globalists.  In fact, the globalists may very well WANT a war between the Fed and the White House at this time.

    First, some facts need to be established to counter the propaganda claims that the Fed is some kind of  innocent victim of a rampaging President Trump or “misguided” conservative rhetoric.

    The Scapegoat Setup Continues

    The latest extension of the Fed’s propaganda has been initiated, of course, by the mainstream media and liberals in general; you know, the same people that were applauding the (in some cases misguided) efforts of the Occupy Wall Street movement.  With Trump’s negation of the Dodd-Frank Act, the media has been looking for any opportunity to assert that Trump is either acting to enrich his corporate friends or that he is an idiot man-child when it comes to matters of business and economics.

    This led to some sniping by Elizabeth Warren and Federal Reserve Board Chair Janet Yellen‘s testimony before congress last week.  The argument?  That Trump was wrong or “lying” when he said that Dodd-Frank had frozen loans from major banks.  You can see the glee in media outlets over the stab; a recent article by Vanity Fair, which seemed to focus more on snide ankle biting of Trump than concrete evidence, is a perfect example.

    Now, in Trump’s defense (or at least, in defense of his position), Yellen is actually the one lying, here.  While it is true that commercial lending has expanded, her claim that small business loans have improved is simply false.  Even Bloomberg begrudgingly acknowledges that small business loans have fallen by at least 6% since the passage of Dodd-Frank.  In Obama’s favorite liberal home-base, Chicago, loans to small neighborhood businesses declined by 49% between 2008 and 2014.

    In 2015, Yellen herself argued that small business loans were in decline because small business owners “don’t want loans anymore.”   This is a bit like the Bureau of Labor Statistics arguing that over 95 million unemployed working age Americans should not be counted as unemployed in their stats because they really “don’t want a job.”  It is an attempt to muddy the waters on the greater issue, which is that the U.S. economy is in considerable danger.

    You see, I don’t think Trump was debating that major corporations and banks were not receiving ample loans, I think he was primarily pointing out the disparity in small business loans and personal loans.  Yellen and the mainstream media attempted to use one data point — commercial loans, to dismiss the entire debate over loan stagnation.

    The Fed Is Culpable For Our Bubble Economy And Trying To Shift Blame Before A Collapse

    The fact is, we all KNOW that major corporations and banks have been flooded with ample loans, and much of this capital was conjured out of thin air by the Fed itself through fiat creation and near zero interest rates.  We know this because of the $16 trillion in loans made to companies around the world exposed by the revealing (but limited) TARP audit.  We also know this because much of these loans have been used to inflate the stock market bubble for the past few years through endless stock buybacks that most companies never would have been able to afford otherwise. We also know that the mainstream investment world is aware of the importance of these loans because they started to panic as the Fed announced its ongoing program of interest rate hikes.

    Beyond that, we know that the Fed’s low interest loans and culture of circular inbred lending between corporations and banks have been instrumental in keeping stocks hyperinflated, because Fed officials have OPENLY ADMITTED that this is the case.  As Richard Fisher of the Dallas Fed stated in an interview with CNBC:

    “What the Fed did — and I was part of that group — is we front-loaded a tremendous market rally, starting in 2009.It’s sort of what I call the “reverse Whimpy factor” — give me two hamburgers today for one tomorrow. I’m not surprised that almost every index you can look at … was down significantly.” [Referring to the results in the stock market after the Fed raised rates in December 2015.]

     

    “…I was warning my colleagues, “Don’t go wobbly if we have a 10-20 percent correction at some point. … Everybody you talk to … has been warning that these markets are heavily priced.”

    So, again, the issue is not whether or not banks are lending, we know they are lending, they just aren’t lending to the people that need it most.

    I think Fisher was dishonest in his evaluation of the extent of the consequences of the Fed bubble and that a 10% to 20% drop in equities is an absurd underestimation.  But setting aside the "little white lies", it is at least widely available knowledge that the Federal Reserve initiated a corporate loan free-for-all, knowing that the supposed benefits were limited in scope as well as in duration.  They know that a crash is coming, and they have been stalling until they can find the right scapegoat to divert blame.  That scapegoat is Trump, and by association, all conservatives.

    As far as Dodd-Frank is concerned, the act was supposed to be a primer for stopping destructive behavior in the financial sector, more specifically in derivatives.  Yet, in spite of Dodd-Frank, banks like Citigroup are STILL bloated with derivatives after receiving at least $476 billion in taxpayer funds to stop them from going bankrupt for the very same irresponsibility.

    Dodd-Frank accomplished absolutely nothing in terms of what it was mandated to do.  I believe the only true purpose of Dodd-Frank was to distract everyone from Ron Paul’s Fed audit bill, which was gaining major traction at the time.

    Liberals And The Fed Become Bedfellows?

    So, why does Trump’s undercutting of Dodd-Frank even matter?  As outlined above, it is a propaganda point for the establishment to perpetuate the narrative that Trump is incompetent, that the people who support him are incompetent, and that when the economy does shift into greater crisis it will be his fault and the fault of conservatives.  It is also a springboard for the Federal Reserve to “attack” Trump, as shown in Yellen’s congressional testimony.

    I also find it interesting that through the Dodd-Frank issue as well as others, leftists are being galvanized in support around the Federal Reserve, something that they probably would not have done a couple of years ago.  This is all culminating in what I believe will become a titanic battle not only between Trump and Leftists, but also between Donald Trump and the Fed.  But why would the establishment want to incite a conflict between the president and the central bank?

    This is something conservatives and liberty activists have wanted for decades — a president that would be willing to take on the Federal Reserve and expose its innards.  The problem is, the time for the effectiveness of such an action is long gone.  Auditing the Fed under Obama (an openly pro-globalist president) would have been a disaster for the powers that be.  It would have thrown their entire agenda into disarray and killed any chance that they could complete what they call the “great global economic reset.”  Auditing or shutting down the Fed under Trump is another matter.

    As I examined in detail with evidence in my article 'The Economic End Game Explained', the Federal Reserve has a shelf life.  It has already served its purpose, which was to undermine the American economy and our currency system.  The Fed will now begin deflating the bubbles it has engineered in stocks, Treasuries and the dollar through continued interest rate hikes and rolling out the over $4 trillion (official amount) on its balance sheet.  The goal?  Sinking America and reducing it to third world status over the course of the next several years to make way for total global centralization of economic administration, eventually leading to global fiscal management under the IMF and perhaps the BIS, and a global currency system; all while making conservative movements look like the monster behind the crisis.

    To summarize, the U.S. economy and the dollar are slated for a controlled demolition.  The Fed will do everything in its power to prod Trump and conservatives into war with the central bank, because the Fed is now ready to sacrifice itself and the dollar’s world reserve status in order to clear a path for a new global system and ideology. The Federal Reserve is a suicide bomber.

    If this takes place as I predict then the international banks and the establishment elites will be able to lay the blame for the death of king dollar squarely at the feet of Trump and conservatives, and at least a third of the country (leftists) will buy into the narrative lock, stock and barrel because they desperately WANT to believe it.  Remember, the tale being scripted here is that Trump is a rampaging maniac that does not know what he is doing.

    To be clear, I am not supporting the continuing dominance of the Fed, or the existence of the fiat dollar.  What I am saying is that conservatives may just get what we have been wishing for all these years but not in the manner we had hoped.

    To counter this threat our list of targets must expand to meet reality.  The delusion that the core problem is the Federal Reserve must stop.  The Fed is a box store, a franchise in a chain of franchises, nothing more.  If we do not also turn our scrutiny and aggression towards root globalist institutions like the IMF and the BIS as well as international banks, then our efforts will only serve to bolster the enemy we are trying to fight.

    In a battle limited to Trump versus the Fed, only the bankers will win.

  • The $74 Trillion Global Economy In One Chart

    The latest GDP numbers from the World Bank were released earlier this month, and today’s visualization from HowMuch.net breaks them down to show the relative share of the global economy for each country.

    As Visual Capitalist's Jeff Desjardins explains, the full circle, known as a Voronoi Diagram, represents the entirety of the $74 trillion global economy in nominal terms. Meanwhile, each country’s segment is sized accordingly to their percentage of global GDP output. Continents are also grouped together and sorted by color.

    Courtesy of: Visual Capitalist

     

    Here is the data for the Top 20 Countries in table form:

  • Calexit – Beat The Crowd

    Submitted by Dennis Miller via MillerOnTheMoney.com,

    Our country has become bitterly divided. No matter who won the election, I predicted we would soon be reading about states wanting to secede from the union.

    Even before President Trump was sworn in, the California movement, known as Calexit, began. The first step is to ask voters to adopt a state Constitutional Amendment revoking the U. S. Constitution as the supreme law.

    YesCalifornia.org makes this appeal:

    “As the sixth largest economy in the world, California is more economically powerful than France and has a population larger than Poland. Point by point, California compares and competes with countries, not just the 49 other states.

    Since 1987, California has been subsidizing the other states at a loss of tens and sometimes hundreds of billions of dollars in a single fiscal year.

    …In our view, the United States of America represents so many things that conflict with Californian values, and our continued statehood means California will continue subsidizing the other states to our own detriment, and to the detriment of our children.”

    They outline reasons why citizens should vote for secession. Point 9 is a bit different, “California has some of the best universities but in various ways, our schools are among the worst in the country.”

    I’m unable to determine if the claim “hundreds of billions of dollars” is accurate. How is it calculated? Is a post office or military base returning money back to the state? Creditloan.com indicates California receives $.78 back for every $1.00 is sends to the federal government. Maybe they have a point.

    Different values causes divorce

    Our founding fathers felt the values of the King of England conflicted with the values of the colonies. Many Americans cheered the British on when they opted out of the European Union. For both situations, oppressive taxation, different values and cost and control of the central government was a motivating factor.

    Be careful what you wish for

    Things are not all sunny in the land of milk and honey. Currently the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) is woefully underfunded. The Mercury News editorial, “CalPERS again falls short of addressing deficit” reports the fund has lowered the projected earnings estimates from 7.5% down to 7% in 2019. They add one inconvenient truth:

    “To understand how far short this move falls, consider that CalPERS announced Wednesday that it hadn’t hit a 7 percent average over the last 20 years and, going forward, it estimates that there’s only roughly a 1-in-4 chance that it will meet that target.

    … CalPERS consultant warns that the pension system should anticipate only an average 6.2 percent in each of the next 10 years.

    … That places the system’s shortfall at about $170 billion, which averages more than $13,000 of debt for each California household.”

    The optimistic vision of the secessionist movement overlook a major factor. The California political class is predominantly socialists, redistributing wealth through progressive taxation and free programs to voters to maintain their power. If secession brings an economic windfall it would quickly be spent. As Margaret Thatcher warned, “The problem with socialism is you run out of other people’s money.”

    Beat the Crowd

    George Bernard Shaw said, “A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.” In many cases Peter quietly moved away and took his money with him.

    Remember when top professional golfer, Phil Michelson created quite a stir complaining about California taxes, while putting his home up for sale? He would have been better off staying quiet about his reasons. California Political Review reports:

    “Tiger Woods moved from Orange County, California to Orange County, Florida. In the first year of that move, he saved $13 million in taxes. Is it worth $13 million a year taken by government to live in California? Woods said no. Now it looks like Phil Michelson is about to make the same decision. He earns $60 million a year-he would save north of $5 million a year to move to a free State, like Florida or Texas.”

    The New York Post reports:

    “Billionaire David Tepper has moved from New Jersey to Florida, and the loss of his income tax could leave a $140 million hole. … Forty percent of the state’s revenue comes from personal-income tax – a third of which is collected from less than 1 percent of taxpayers. Tepper was New Jersey’s wealthiest resident.”

    It’s not just the heavy hitters

    When we moved to Phoenix we joined a local club in order to meet people. Each month new members stand up and introduce themselves. We noticed a large number of Californians. While my survey is unscientific, I’ve asked many why they moved. Every one mentioned how expensive California is to live. One former Californian remarked, “There are a lot of California refugees in Arizona and Nevada.”

    We lived in Georgia when they passed a state income tax. While it’s progressive, the top rate (6%) kicks in at $7,000. At the time I was in my peak earning years and could live anywhere.

    I was an early immigrant. The first time I paid GA income tax, I realized our other taxes did not go down. What did I get back from the government for confiscating an additional 6% of my earnings? We quickly moved to Florida, with no state income taxes. Florida is full of refugees fleeing other high tax states.

    The migration continues. In 2013 the Tax Foundation published a State Migration Calculator and great graphic:

    The high tax socialist states are losing billions in adjusted gross income, while states like Texas and Florida are growing. The Washington Examiner reports the trend is continuing and concludes, “The growth in no-income-tax and right-to-work states was fueled largely by net domestic migration rather than international migration (Emphasis mine), according to the 2016 Census estimates.”

    The landscape is changing

    The election of President Trump sent shock waves through much of the political class. Many public union pensions are woefully underfunded. They donated millions to Hillary Clinton’s election campaign and expected federal bailouts. They knew they could count on Mrs. Clinton; she has a great track record of rewarding her political donors. Today no one knows what the new administration will do.

    In the meantime, the scramble is on. The politicians in states that have been heavily supporting Paul have a huge base, not because they have won over the hearts and minds of Peter; but rather because the working class got tired of being fleeced and left. The politicos have to find ways to make good on all their free programs. Cutting benefits will cause citizens to storm the palace. They must find ways to generate more revenue.

    Brian Daniels warns us, The Growing Specter of State “Exit Taxes” as Residents Abandon High-Tax States:

    “To be clear, it is not legal for states to charge a true exit tax on citizens changing their residency from one state to another (this is not the case for the federal government, which does charge a large exit tax).

    So what do high-tax states do to try and prevent their residents from moving their legal residence to low- or no-tax states? In a word, they audit them.”

    When a taxpayer is audited, the agency issues an assessment for unpaid taxes. It’s not “innocent until proven guilty.” You must prove they are wrong or the assessment stands.

    Once you intend to leave you are of no value to the politicos. Most people do not have the means to go to court. For some, it becomes a government shakedown to extract as much wealth as they can on your way out the door.

    What about Calexit?

    With the mindset of California voters, who knows what will happen?

    I don’t recommend holding any California government debt, including holdings in bond funds. While the probability of secession may be small, might they establish their own currency and try to renegotiate their debt? Holding California debt is an unnecessary risk to take with retirement money.

    Should they vote to secede, Californians would face a choice of leaving or staying. If you choose to leave, expect a hefty exit tax. If you are thinking about leaving, why wait? Walk quietly and beat the rush!

  • Banned HuffPo Contributor: Trump "Must Go Through Hell Every Day If This Is How The Press Is Behaving"

    What happens when a prolific progressive Huffington Post contributor deviates from the narrative and publishes an article admitting Donald Trump was correct about something?

    HuffPo deletes the article and bans the guy, of course!

    Norwegian journalist, author, and world traveler René Zografos had the audacity to suggest that Donald Trump was telling the truth about Sweden’s ongoing nightmare related to the violent tidal wave of predominantly North African refugees. Zografos wrote:

    It’s well known for Scandinavians and other Europeans that liberal immigration comes with drugs, rapes, gang wars, robbery and violence. Additional to that we see the respective nations cultures fading away, for good and for bad.

    Hours after publication, the article was gone – and Zografos’ access to the Huffington Post was revoked:

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    When reached for comment, Zografos’ told iBankCoin:

    I just think this it’s a silly behavior, and actually a bit scary, because free press is crucial in our world. I don’t always agree with Trump, but he must go through hell everyday if this is how the press is behaving.

    For the liberal media to actively ignore, suppress, and lie about what’s going on in Sweden (which now has a grenade problem of all things, which did not exist prior to 2012) is beyond the pale. Between no-go zones, riots, news crews being assaulted, and a recently earned reputation as the “rape capital of Europe” – all of which have been vehemently denied by the MSM and the hypocritical Swedish government, the level of propaganda and cover-up is astounding.

    //platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

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    In the meantime, Mr. Zografos granted iBankCoin permission to republish his now-deleted article in it’s entirety:

    —————-

    Sweden has huge problems because of liberal immigration policy

    Many journalists around the world are eager to condemn Donald Trump no matter what. When he tweeted about immigration in Sweden few days ago, the social media exploded. Most of the opponent said that Trump had made up the immigration problem Sweden are having. They are wrong.

    Only hours later there was a riot of violence and destructions by immigrants in the capitol of Sweden, Stockholm. The police was forced to shoot with ammunition to put and end to it. In Malmö, another city south in Sweden they have struggle with gang violence and lawlessness for years. So when Trump talk about that Sweden have an immigration problem he is actually spot on.

    It’s well known for Scandinavians and other Europeans that liberal immigration comes with drugs, rapes, gang wars, robbery and violence. Additional to that we see the respective nations cultures fading away, for good and for bad.

    But the immigration problem is not only a Swedish predicament. The truth is, that several European cities have huge immigration problems where even the police force is afraid to interfere in some locations in these cities. UK, France and several other European countries are changing rapidly with extreme quantity of immigration. I’m not saying immigration is only bad, but a lot of problems come with poor immigration policy, as consequences we get violence, terror and gangs. The fact is that the press here in Europe hasn’t doing their job properly. There is this fear for journalists to not report the basic truth – which is that Europe has enormous problems that comes from liberal immigration politics, and as we also now can see in Sweden, but also here in Norway. But it’s not political correct for journalists to say or write that immigration in Europe is unsuccessful. When that said, most of the people that come from other countries are behaving flawless and are a gift to our society, but then again to report that everything is all good is simply wrong and these journalists should find another job, because they do not have enough integrity that requires to be decent journalist.

    –renezografos.com

     

    Content originally generated at iBankCoin.com * Follow on Twitter @ZeroPointNow

  • Meanwhile, In Every News Editor's Office Across America

    Speaking the unspeakable…

     

    Source: Townhall.com

  • 7 Murders In Chicago's Deadliest Day Of 2017 As Trump Tweets "Totally Out Of Control"

    Yesterday marked the most violent day of 2017 for folks living in Chicago as the city recorded at least 13 shootings and 7 homicides.  According to the Chicago Tribune, five of the victims were killed over just a two hour period, including a woman who was eight months pregnant.  Meanwhile, the violent Wednesday night brought total shootings for the year to 495 with 99 homicides.

    Of course, Trump has been persistent in his threats to “send in the feds” if Chicago Mayor Rahm Emmanual fails to “fix the horrible ‘carnage’ going on” in his streets.  Earlier this evening Trump commented on the latest spike of violence, saying:

    “Seven people shot and killed yesterday in Chicago. What is going on there – totally out of control. Chicago needs help!”

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    Of course, this latest Trump tweet mimics similar messages sent last month:

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    Per data from HeyJackAss!, Wednesday marked the deadliest day in Chicago since Christmas Day last year when the city recorded 8 homicides.

    Chicago Murders

     

    And, for the first time in 2017, YTD homicides have officially exceeded the violent 2016 pace and looks set to surpass 100 for just the first two months of the year. 

    Chicago Murders

     

    Finally, just like 2016, the violence continues to be heavily concentrated in just a handful of neighborhoods on Chicago’s South and West Side.

    Like last year, the Harrison police district on the West Side has seen the most homicides: 16 this year compared to 12 this time last year, according to Tribune data.

     

    The Austin district, also on the West Side, is close behind with 11 homicides.  Last year, it wasn’t even among the top five at this time, Tribune data shows.

     

    The next three districts are Ogden on the Near West Side, 10, Englewood on the South Side, 9, and Calumet on the South Side, 6.  The Near North district had no homicides this time last year but has recorded two this year, according to Tribune data.

    Chicago Murders

  • "Mystery Poison" Used To Murder Kim Jong Nam Revealed As VX Nerve Agent

    What was until recently was a real-life reincarnation of the move “The International”, just got a double dose of “The Rock” thrown in for good measure.

    When yesterday we shared the most recent update in the bizarre assassination of Kim Jong Nam, the half brother of North Korea’s ruler, who was murdered in broad daylight inside Kuala Lumpur’s budget airline terminal, we reported that while the two women suspected in the fatal poisoning attack had coated their hands with “mystery” toxic chemicals which they then wiped on Nam’s face, a key question remained unanswered, namely what was the poison used to by the woman with the “LOL” shirt used to murder the North Korean scion.

    As CBS reported previously, experts routinely tasked with finding answers in poisoning cases were stumped: what substance could have been used to kill the victim so quickly without sickening the women who apparently deployed it, along with anyone else nearby? Difficult, they said, but doable.

    “It’s not an agent that could be cooked up in a hotel room. It’s going to take a lot of knowledge regarding the chemical in order to facilitate an attack like this,” said Bruce Goldberger, a leading toxicologist who heads the forensic medicine division at the University of Florida. He said a nerve gas or ricin, a deadly substance found in castor beans, could be possible. A strong opioid compound could also have been used, though that would likely have incapacitated the victim immediately.

    “It would have to be cleverly designed in order to be applied in this fashion without hurting anyone else,” Goldberger said.

    “The more unusual, the more potent, the more volatile a poison is, the less likely it is to be detected,” said Olif Drummer, a toxicologist at Australia’s Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine who has spent 40 years in the field. Khalid said the women knew they were handling poisonous materials and “were warned to take precautions.” Surveillance footage showed both keeping their hands away from their bodies after the attack, he said, then going to restrooms to wash. Such details are unclear in video footage that has been released to media.

    Well, moments ago the Malaysian police provided the answer, when it reported that the chemical substance used to kill Kim Jong Nam last week was the nerve agent right out of the movei “The Rock” called VX, which happens to be listed as a weapon of mass destruction by the United Nations.

    Khalid Abu Bakar, Malaysia’s inspector general of police, said Friday in a statement that identification of the substance came from a preliminary report. He said swabs were taken from the eye and face of the victim.

    VX is described by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as “the most potent of all nerve agents”, with a large dose leading to loss of consciousness, paralysis and respiratory failure. Its only known use is as a chemical warfare agent. 

    VX is banned under the UN Chemical Weapons Convention, to which North Korea is not a party.

    The nerve agent, also known as ethyl N-2-Diisopropylaminoethyl Methylphosphonothiolate, was developed in the UK in the 1950s.

    As the FT further adds, Malaysian police are seeking at least four North Korean suspects in connection with the murder, who are now believed to be back in Pyongyang. Two other North Korean nationals, including a diplomat in Malaysia, are wanted for questioning.

    Police have detained a Vietnamese woman, an Indonesian woman and a North Korean man in connection with Kim’s death.

    The murder has frayed relations between North Korea and Malaysia, which this week recalled its ambassador from Pyongyang.

    In the aftermath of the fallout from North Korea’s ballistic missile launch and alleged orchestration of Kim Jong Nam’s murder, we reported earlier today that China, which last weekend announced it would ban all coal imports from North Korea, was preparing for “regime collapse” in North Korea, and would “take the necessary measures to safeguard national security in the event of the collapse of the neighbouring North Korean regime”, a defence official said on Thursday. 

  • The Road To Hell Was Paved With Obama Cronyism

    Submitted by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,

    President Donald Trump’s naïve (or willfully blind) notion that Wall Street will work better at raising capital if it is unleashed from strident Federal regulation is unhinged from the facts on the ground. Those facts, as illustrated above, are that the Boards of two of the largest banks in the U.S. are utterly spineless when it comes to holding their CEOs and employees accountable in the face of a tsunami of crimes.

     

    – From the Wall Street on Parade article: What JPMorgan and Citigroup Have in Common When It Comes to Crime

    Opposition to Trump is extremely important, particularly when it comes to someone like me who sees his Wall Street love affair and disregard for civil liberties as serious threats to the nation. That said, it is absolutely imperative to see Trump as a symptom of a sick and broken system as opposed to the root cause of anything. The corporate media and legions of mourning Hillary cultists continue to present the Trump threat in extraordinarily simplistic and unhelpful terms. They act as if he’s the head of some evil snake, and that disposing of him as an individual will get America back on track. This couldn’t be more wrong.

    I spent most of the Obama years warning about the dangers of his policies. I didn’t do this for kicks, or because I thought he would try to stay in power forever, but because I knew his monumental cronyism would only pave the way for major problems down the road. Well the backlash to Obama came quick, and we the people won’t do the country any good if we focus on Trump the man, as opposed to the entirely corrupt, billionaire/special interest-controlled cesspool of a society we inhabit. We need to focus on Trump’s policies, not Trump the man.

    We also need to be under no illusions when it comes to the disaster that was the Obama administration, and the key role his failures played in providing the fertile ground for Trump to believe he can do whatever he wants — because Obama largely did.

    As such, today’s article by Trevor Timm at the Freedom of the Press Foundation is extremely important. It provides new documentation demonstrating how the Obama administration worked tirelessly behind the scenes to prevent Congress from expanding government transparency. 

    Here are a few excerpts from the article, New Documents Show the Obama Admin Aggressively Lobbied to Kill Transparency Reform in Congress”:

    New documents obtained through Freedom of the Press Foundation’s lawsuit against the Justice Department reveal that the Obama administration – the self described “most transparent administration ever” – aggressively lobbied behind the scenes in 2014 to kill modest Freedom of Information Act reform that had virtually unanimous support in Congress.

     

    Three months ago, we sued the Justice Department (DOJ) under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) for communications between the DOJ and Congress, since there were vague reports that the DOJ may have opposed the bill – despite much of it being based word-for-word based on the Justice Department’s own policies.

     

    Today, we are publishing a detailed memo authored by the Justice Department that strongly objected to almost every aspect of FOIA reform put forth by the House of Representatives at the time.

     

    The bill in question – known as the FOIA Act – was unanimously passed by the House in early 2014. The Senate passed a similar bill – known as the FOIA Improvement Act – in December of 2014, but a final vote in the House to merge the two bills was held up at the last minute by then-Speaker of the House John Boehner and the session of Congress ended before it could become law. It was unclear at the time why the bill did not come up for a final vote, but the Washington Post later reported that a few federal agencies—including the Justice Department—had “warned” lawmakers about some provisions in the bill.

     

    But these new documents show it went well beyond that: the Justice Department vehemently objected to both House and Senate members on nearly all aspects of the bill from the very start, and made clear: “The Administration strongly opposes passage of [the FOIA Act].”Notably, the Justice Department indicates that this policy memo (published in full below) is not just the agency’s individual opinion, but that it is speaking for the entire Obama administration.

     

    The Obama administration’s specious objections to FOIA reform were manifold. They were against codifying the Obama administration’s “presumption of openness” policy that Obama declared upon his first month in office, they were against Congress mandating that the federal government create a unified online portal to process FOIA requests, they were against mandating discipline for FOIA redactors who break any of rules or regulations for processing FOIA requests, and they were against providing more reporting and oversight to Congress to make sure FOIA was being complied with.

     

    The administration tried to couch some of its opposition in concern that the bill would “cause delays” in the FOIA process, despite the fact that many of the provisions were written to speed up the process, modernize the system with an online portal, and encourage proactive disclosure by making more information available to the public without even having to file a request. Concerning other provisions, the DOJ claimed the administration is not opposed in principle, but its is against seeing them codified into law — which allows the Executive Branch to delay implementation indefinitely and gives the next administration carte blanche power to rescind any good policies the Obama administration did put in place.

     

    While the Freedom of Information Act remains a valuable tool (this lawsuit can attest to that), any reporter who has filed a FOIA request can corroborate the fact that the law is badly broken. Multiple investigations have shown that the Obama administration has been the most secretive ever when it comes to FOIA. Requests can often take years to be fulfilled if at all, and the only way to get results is to sue, like we were forced to. (We did not receive any documents for over a year from our first requests, and only received these documents after filing a lawsuit).

     

    This summer is the 50th anniversary of the Freedom of Information Act, and Congress is yet again debating a FOIA reform bill, this time with even more holes in it than last time. We hope that Congress will amend the proposed reform in the strongest possible way and send it to the president’s desk with the same message they did fifty years ago when the Johnson administration opposed it, yet was forced to sign it anyways: transparency is vital to democracy.

    If I had to pick the most pernicious aspect of Obama’s entire presidency, it unquestionably would be the Department of Justice. By failing to prosecute a single bank executive, the DOJ made it clear to anyone paying attention that crime pays if you’re wealthy and powerful. With that incentive structure in place, financial crime flourished during the Obama administration, as was perfectly described in today’s article in Wall Street on Parade, What JPMorgan and Citigroup Have in Common When It Comes to Crime.

    Here’s some of what we learned:

    Jamie Dimon became the CEO of JPMorgan Chase on January 1, 2006. At that point, the bank was more than a century old and had never been charged with a criminal felony. In 2014, the Justice Department charged JPMorgan Chase with two felony counts in connection with their role in facilitating the Madoff Ponzi scheme. The bank was given a two-year deferred prosecution agreement.

     

    The very next year, in May 2015, JPMorgan Chase was hit with a new felony count for its role in rigging foreign currency markets as part of a banking cartel. That’s three felony counts in two years and yet Jamie Dimon kept his job. Before the felony counts there was a $13 billion settlement with the Justice Department and Federal and State regulators in 2013 for JPMorgan Chase’s role in selling toxic mortgage investments to investors as worthwhile products when the bank had good reason to believe they would blow up.

     

    Senator Carl Levin, Chair of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations at the time, said that the bank “piled on risk, hid losses, disregarded risk limits, manipulated risk models, dodged oversight, and misinformed the public.”  And, unbelievably, Jamie Dimon continued his tenure as Chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase.

     

    The crime spree at JPMorgan Chase became so surreal that two trial lawyers, Helen Davis Chaitman and Lance Gotthoffer, published a breathtaking book on the subject, comparing the bank to the Gambino crime family. In addition to the settlements noted above, the authors add more details as to what has occurred on Dimon’s watch, such as:

     

    “In April 2011, JPMC agreed to pay $35 million to settle claims that it overcharged members of the military service on their mortgages in violation of the Service Members Civil Relief Act and the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008.

     

    “In March 2012, JPMC paid the government $659 million to settle charges that it charged veterans hidden fees in mortgage refinancing transactions.

     

    “In October 2012, JPMC paid $1.2 billion to settle claims that it, along with other banks, conspired to set the price of credit and debit card interchange fees.

     

    “On January 7, 2013, JPMC announced that it had agreed to a settlement with the Office of the Controller of the Currency (‘OCC’) and the Federal Reserve Bank of charges that it had engaged in improper foreclosure practices.

     

    “In September 2013, JPMC agreed to pay $80 million in fines and $309 million in refunds to customers whom the bank billed for credit monitoring services that the bank never provided.

     

    “On December 13, 2013, JPMC agreed to pay 79.9 million Euros to settle claims of the European Commission relating to illegal rigging of benchmark interest rates.

     

    “In February 2012, JPMC agreed to pay $110 million to settle claims that it overcharged customers for overdraft fees.

     

    “In November 2012, JPMC paid $296,900,000 to the SEC to settle claims that it misstated information about the delinquency status of its mortgage portfolio.

     

    “In July 2013, JPMC paid $410 million to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to settle claims of bidding manipulation of California and Midwest electricity makets.

     

    “In December 2013, JPMC paid $22.1 million to settle claims that the bank imposed expensive and unnecessary flood insurance on homeowners whose mortgages the bank serviced.”

    Interesting how Jamie Dimon seemed to think being crowned “Obama’s favorite banker” entitled him to a multi-year crime spree.

    Let’s now turn to Citigroup.

    Michael Corbat has been CEO of Citigroup since October 2012. Below is just a sampling of the regulatory charges against the bank under Corbat’s reign, including a guilty plea to a felony count in May 2015 which covered conduct that continued after Corbat took the helm.

     

    July 1, 2013: Citigroup agrees to pay Fannie Mae $968 million for selling it toxic mortgage loans.

     

    September 25, 2013: Citigroup agrees to pay Freddie Mac $395 million to settle claims it sold it toxic mortgages.

     

    December 4, 2013: Citigroup admits to participating in the Yen Libor financial derivatives cartel to the European Commission and accepts a fine of $95 million.

     

    July 14, 2014: The U.S. Department of Justice announces a $7 billion settlement with Citigroup for selling toxic mortgages to investors. Attorney General Eric Holder called the bank’s conduct “egregious,” adding, “As a result of their assurances that toxic financial products were sound, Citigroup was able to expand its market share and increase profits.”

     

    November 2014: Citigroup pays more than $1 billion to settle civil allegations with regulators that it manipulated foreign currency markets. Other global banks settled at the same time.

     

    May 20, 2015: Citicorp, a unit of Citigroup becomes an admitted felon by pleading guilty to a felony charge in the matter of rigging foreign currency trading, paying a fine of $925 million to the Justice Department and $342 million to the Federal Reserve for a total of $1.267 billion.

     

    May 25, 2016: Citigroup agrees to pay $425 million to resolve claims brought by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission that it had rigged interest-rate benchmarks, including ISDAfix, from 2007 to 2012.

     

    July 12, 2016: The Securities and Exchange Commission fined Citigroup Global Markets Inc. $7 million for failure to provide accurate trading records over a period of 15 years.

     

    President Donald Trump’s naïve (or willfully blind) notion that Wall Street will work better at raising capital if it is unleashed from strident Federal regulation is unhinged from the facts on the ground. Those facts, as illustrated above, are that the Boards of two of the largest banks in the U.S. are utterly spineless when it comes to holding their CEOs and employees accountable in the face of a tsunami of crimes.

    While it’s unquestionably true that Donald Trump is a gigantic Wall Street-coddler, so was Obama. When it comes to the real power running this country, no one dares take on the financial criminals. Not even Trump, despite all his big talk.

     

     

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Feb 23

Today’s News 23rd February 2017

  • Orgy Enthusiast Bill Maher Defends Statutory Rape On Several Occasions – "The Crime Is That We Didn't Get It On Videotape"

    What an interesting turn of events. Days after outspoken Trump-supporter Milo Yiannopoulos appeared on Bill Maher’s panel of idiots where he was subject to a liberal hit-job, the left decided to execute operation McMuffin; a collaboration between liberals and former CIA “never-Trumper” Evan McMullin to strategically release dredged up flippant remarks Milo made about homosexual grooming – which led to a canceled book deal and his resignation as tech editor for Breitbart. With over 1500 sex trafficking and child exploitation arrests in the first month of Trump’s presidency, this was clearly the left’s desperate attempt to try and insinuate some sort of hypocrisy on the right concerning pedophilia. Weak.

    The MSM, predictably, wasted no time attacking Milo – a strategy which surely couldn’t backfire:

    Salon.com even deleted a pro-pedophilia article so they wouldn’t look like total hypocrites when they ran an story quoting Bill Maher, who took credit for kicking off the Milo smear campaign:

    Hours later, thanks to 4chan and Reddit – the tides are turning, and Bill Maher’s about to get blown the fuck out…

    Turns out the 61 year old host of HBO’s Real Time With Bill Maher, who attends a $75K / year elite Los Angeles sex club, is also a huge fan of pedophilia as long as the abuser is a woman – as told in a 2007 issue of Playboy magazine:

    This isn’t the first time Maher has defended statutory rape. While the official DSM definition of pedophilia has an age cutoff of 13, the HBO host vehemently defended former teacher and convicted statutory child rapist Mary Kay Letourneau for having a sexual relationship with one of her students, which began when the boy was 12 – firmly putting Maher’s advocacy for the relationship in pedo territory.

    (Note how Henry Rollins is completely on point?)

     

      

    Karma Bill, karma. Oh, and about that sex club mentioned earlier; it appears Maher is into some Eyes Wide Shut shit. While normally I wouldn’t care – the hypocrisy of his ivory tower judgment of a gay conservative, and the fact that he piled on and took credit for kicking off Milo’s “downfall” for the exact same practice he’s advocated several times, makes it fair game to point out that the HBO host loves him some expensive orgies!

    At a swanky party in a Beverly Hills, Calif., mansion last Saturday, I spot Bill Maher in a sea of beautiful young women and make my approach.

     

    “Are you a Leo?” I ask the host of HBO’s “Real Time,” while eyeing a lion pendant around his neck.

     

    “No, they make me wear this stupid thing because I’m a member,” he replies, stroking the back of his date, a pretty younger woman in a short black leather dress.

     

    Single men pay $1,850 per party, or $1,500 if they come with a female partner. For the erotic elite, there’s an annual Dominus membership for $75,000, which includes admission to all parties, a sterling-silver necklace with a lion pendant and access to private rooms at parties and Lawner’s network of sex experts.

    The sex club also has an interesting initiation:

    Dominus members sign a “blood oath,” involving blood and a paper document, to join — but Lawner won’t go into details. –NY Post

    What??? AIDS tests are in the back of the store at the pharmacy counter, Bill.

    The crickets are warming up for yet another prolonged silence from the MSM.

     

      

  • MSNBC Anchor: "Our Job" Is To "Control Exactly What People Think"

    During a lively discussion centered on fears that President Trump is “trying to undermine the media,” MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski let slip the awesome unspoken truth that the media’s “job” is to “actually control exactly what people think.”


    SCARBOROUGH: “Exactly. That is exactly what I hear. What Yamiche said is what I hear from all the Trump supporters that I talk to who were Trump voters and are still Trump supporters. They go, ‘Yeah you guys are going crazy. He’s doing — what are you so surprised about? He is doing exactly what he said he is going to do.'”

     

    BRZEZINSKI: “Well, I think that the dangerous, you know, edges here are that he is trying to undermine the media and trying to make up his own facts. And it could be that while unemployment and the economy worsens, he could have undermined the messaging so much that he can actually control exactly what people think. And that, that is our job.”

    As grabien points out, the comment failed to raise any eyebrows from her co-panelists. Instead, her co-host, Joe Scarborough, said that Trump’s media antagonism puts him on par with Mussolini and Lenin…

  • How Tennessee Could Be About To Start A Constitutional Crisis

    The State Senate of Tennessee has laid the legislative groundwork for something that hasn’t been done in the United States of America since the Constitutional Convention of 1787 in Philadelphia.  With a vote of 27-3, the Tennessee Senate has voted to call a “convention of the states” in order to draft and pass an amendment to the Constitution that would require balanced budgets to be passed every year. 

    For those who are little fuzzy on their high school U.S. history knowledge, the Tennessean explains that the U.S. Constitution can be amended in two ways.  The first would require a two-thirds majority vote in both chambers of Congress, an unlikely outcome in today’s hyper-partisan political arena.  The second, on the other hand, requires that two-thirds of the states (34 in total) pass a resolution calling for a Constitutional Convention. 

    There are two ways to propose amendments to the Constitution. The first and more traditional method is through a two-thirds majority vote in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. Then the amendment is sent to the state legislatures, where it needs ratification by three-fourths or 38 states in order to become law. Nearly all 27 amendments have followed this path.

     

    But the Constitution also provides a second, more populist path to amending the document. If two-thirds or 34 states pass a resolution calling for a Constitutional Convention, delegates from all 50 states will meet to draft an amendment. This is what the Tennessee lawmakers are calling for in their resolution.

    Of course, calls for a convention to pass a balanced budget amendment started in the 1970s and have failed each time.  That said, with Republicans now controlling 32 state legislatures, this latest effort initiated by Tennessee seems to have the best chance of succeeding so far. 

    And while there have been close calls for Constitutional Conventions before, each time Congress has acted preemptively to stave off the need for a convention. In 1911, for example, 28 states of the required 32 passed a resolution calling for direct election of Senators before Congress intervened and drafted the Seventeenth Amendment instead.

    Con

     

    But, as the Tennessean notes, the problem with amending the Constitution through a convention is that once the convention is convened anything can happen.  For example, the last time the states gathered for a convention in 1787 they ended up tossing out the Articles of Confederation and forming an entirely new government based on the current Constitution.

    The last time the states gathered to amend a governing document on the scale the resolution calls for, the delegates threw out America’s first basis of government and replaced it with the Constitutional system used today.

     

    “They were supposed to meet to make amendments to the Articles of Confederation but ended up with a whole new form of government,” said Nathan Griffith, an associate professor of political science at Belmont University. “Not just a new constitution, but a whole new form of government.”

    If enough states pass a similar resolution, then a planning convention could meet as early as this upcoming July, and by November the first Article V Convention in history could be called by Congress.

    Meanwhile, as we noted earlier today, President Trump offered his own warning on America’s national debt this morning saying that “[spending] was out of control,” as officials gathered to discuss the budget, adding that there is “enormous work to do on the national debt.”

    There is a “moral duty” to taxpayers, President Trump says at White House budget lunch, “we must do a lot more with less.”

     

    “Our budget is absolutely out of control” he added, and in the future “will reflect our priorities.”

     

    The hiring freeze for non-essential workers will remain.

     

    “We have enormous work to do on the national debt”

     

    There will be “no more wasted money, we will spend in a careful way.”

     

    Of course, we’re not really sure what all the fuss is about…only $10 trillion has been added to the national debt over the past 8 years, which, when you think about it, is a very manageable $31,000 per man, woman and child.

    TN

     

    And balancing the budget 5 years out of 50 is pretty good, right?

    Budget Deficit

  • The Conflictual Relationship Between Donald Trump And The US "Deep State" – Part 2

    Submitted by Federico Pieraccini via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

    In just two weeks as president of the United States, Donald Trump has left traces of how he intends to tackle various international political situations. The previous article dealt with a series of possible sabotage efforts suffered by the Trump administration. In this second and concluding article, I intend to analyze the situations in Iran, Russia, Ukraine, and Syria as well as the stance towards NATO, the EU and China. The goal is to decipher how Trump has used admissions, silences and bluffs in order to advance his intentions and obviate the deep state’s sabotage efforts.

    Deep-state sabotage is in full swing and is increasingly influencing the Trump administration. The latest example can be seen in the resignation of former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn. He was forced to resign either for inappropriate contacts with the Russian ambassador in the US prior to his appointment, or for not telling the truth about his phone call to the Vice President and President.

    As with the whole Trump presidency, it is very difficult to understand whether we are facing an act of sabotage from the deep state or whether this is yet another semi-improvised strategy to muffle the drums of war. We all know of Flynn’s closeness to his Russian counterparts, a rapprochement that cannot be placed in danger with the dismissal of the new National Security Adviser. Trump needs Russia more than Russia needs Washington; improving ties is something that Trump needs in order to avoid major conflicts and de-escalate the international situation. One could even imagine that Flynn was wisely removed given his harsh and trenchant positions on Iran that would send Washington on a terrible path of war with Tehran.

    There are several international situations in which the intentions of the new administration are very difficult to understand and sometimes even provoke amazement. Let us first examine the administration’s attitude towards the Iran and Yemen. As noted a few weeks ago, very harsh words from the US administration were directed towards Tehran following a legitimate missile test, and especially with the defensive actions of the Houthis in Yemen. With Yemen and Iran not looking like diminishing their legitimate actions, the affair regarding Flynn could fall into a de-escalation strategy to contain excesses in Islamophobia expressed by the former National Security Advisor.

    Trump has always preferred to counter deep-state sabotage attempts with substantial bluffing, as seen with the strong rhetoric used against Tehran regarding its recent actions, exactly as in Yemen for the actions of Ansarullah defense forces. The Trump strategy seems to want to please the factions closest to the neoconservative wing, the Israeli and Saudi lobbies. Targeting Yemen and Iran with words has at least temporarily quietened the drums of war of an important part of the establishment in Washington. Trump has to carry out a careful balancing act involving his words and actions in order not to not draw too harsh a response from the Washington establishment.

    Flynn's dismissal could also be seen as an easy attempt to sabotage and prevent a rapprochement with Russia; indeed this is likely to be so.

    But meanwhile, we can consider one positive aspect: Flynn has always been highly Islamophobic, tending to find it difficult to distinguish between Wahhabi terrorist goons and legitimate Islamic fighters like the Houthis or Hezbollah. Flynn has usually maintained pro-Saudi positions and even pro-Qatar Muslim Brotherhood positions. It may even be that Trump has torpedoed his own personally chosen pick dampening the excessive saber-rattling against the Islamic Republic of Iran that was possibly laying the groundwork for an escalation that Trump had to reign in. This is pure speculation, but everything is possible with this unpredictable presidency.

    Much talk, little action

    Trump still gives the strong impression that he intends to avoid any further conflict. Bluffing on Iran and Yemen seems to be the ideal choice for the Trump administration: harsh tones and words to placate the most hawkish factions without actually taking any action appears to be the new normal. The first strategy of Trump's foreign policy therefore seems to be to employ a tactic of inaction. Not acting could well represent a new turning point in American foreign policy, avoiding further involvement in the Middle East and in the Persian Gulf. This would represent the first confirmation of Trump’s intention not to squander American resources by going to war and betraying his election promises, thereby further impoverishing the United States. Observing the very intense words on Iran, let us try and analyze the intentions of the Trump administration. Certainly having people like General Mattis within the administration is a big test for how Trump will manage to contain the most anti-Iranian wing of his inner council. Could Flynn's departure be the first step of this internal cleansing, a warning signal to other pro-war figures? Or maybe it is none of the above and in actual fact the first successful sabotage from the deep state.

    Silence as a strategy of inaction

    Another important approach in Trump’s presidency is a frequent silence or lack of comment on international events. Two most recent cases concern Syria and China. With regard to the «One China» policy, Trump confirmed assumptions made in the past, namely that his intentions are anything but malicious. The tone was initially hard, only to be replaced by a long silence, and then finally words one would not expect, averting an international crisis on this front. It is a modus operandi that should be taken as an example for understanding the psychology of Trump. At first he was critical in a decisive way, calling into question China and Taiwan, then he no longer mentioned the topic, and finally he gave his blessing to the «One China» policy, initiating a likely mutually fruitful cooperation.

    Another important part of Trump’s policy of silence involves Syria. Since becoming president, Trump has rendered events in Syria irrelevant, making the issue disappear from the media radar. Thanks to Trump’s guerrilla tactics, lobbing smoke grenades hither and tither and signing two executive orders a day, the media simply does not have the time and perseverance to keep up with everything. One of the sacrificial victims has been the reality in Syria; but a lack of attention from the mainstream media is currently the best hope that we can desire for the Syrian people. Trump’s attitude seems to be deliberately cautious and silent about developments in that nation. The situation in Syria is firmly in Russian hands, and what seems to be occurring is an indirect coordination between Washington and Moscow against Daesh in the country. The silence from Trump certainly irritated the most radical and extreme wing of the deep state, but any attempt to sabotage this progress in Syria now seems to be wrecked thanks to the inaction of the Trump administration and the actions of Moscow. The final coup de grace would be to openly cooperate or act in joint US-Russia actions to defeat terrorism in the region.

    Admissions to confirm the election promises

    Finally, Trump has never hidden and indeed has often touted his vision of the approach that should be taken with the Russian Federation. A rapprochement with Putin to combat terrorism is one of the pivotal points around which the Trump presidency rotates. During the election campaign he has never hidden his positive intentions, even though this increased the criticism directed towards him. This part of his tactic is based on the admission from the beginning of his campaign of his intention to reach a deal with Moscow. The first confirmation of this intention can be seen in Syria, with Washington apparently ceasing the flow of money and weapons to the so-called moderate rebels, pleasing Moscow and looking for a de-escalation of the conflict. Another important aspect regarding Trump’s statements in terms of foreign policy concerns the role of NATO and his European allies.

    During the election campaign he repeatedly attacked the role of NATO, but then was forced to reach an agreement given the importance of the international framework guaranteed by NATO in Europe. This provided a very clear indicator of how Trump’s strategy works out if he has to defer to other considerations. He changed his initial positions by placing a strong emphasis on the need for US allies to pay their share of military spending, namely 2% of GDP. Currently all NATO countries, excluding the United States and Greece, fall below this commitment. Sharp focus is brought on the EU members on the cost of keeping NATO alive, forcing them to come to terms with the harsh economic reality that this implies. In the long term this could lead to a strong treaty revision of NATO. EU countries are increasingly facing difficulty in increasing defense spending, especially when considering existing austerity measures as well as the lack of importance placed on NATO by the European public, with the exception of the EU elite.

    This tactic will further weaken the integrity of the European Union. In a sense, the Trump strategy in this case is crystal clear and will probably achieve its objectives.

    This situation will provide the perfect opportunity for the European populist and nationalist parties to further attack the foundations of the European Union and its security framework guaranteed by NATO. If Trump wanted to undermine the EU's foundations, pointing to the futility of NATO and at the same demonstrating to his base that he will act on his election promises, then this strategy seems perfectly calibrated.

    Ultimately, we can already say that the relations between Trump and the deep state are essentially based on sabotage efforts against Trump, and the asymmetrical responses of his administration, ranging from bluffing, to silences, and admissions.

    To correctly assess Trump’s foreign policy, one should divide into three categories the vicissitudes of the United States. In a first column we can include words and rhetoric; in the second, inaction; and in the third, actions taken.

    While it is clear and obvious that the first column includes Iran, Yemen and the EU/NATO, it is worthwhile noting that the second column certainly includes inaction like shown towards China, Syria, and the events in Ukraine. The third column, for the moment, essentially concerns the first steps towards Russia and the rapprochement with Moscow. In this sense, it is worth remembering that the resignation of Flynn may just be a deep-state move to sabotage Trump before he takes decisive action to settle a deal with Russia. The tactic of not acting, or of inaction, is difficult to sabotage, as the deep state came to realize when Obama decided not to act in Syria in 2013. Criticizing actions taken is much more effective and easy for the media, as seen with the attacks on Trump’s team for ties with Putin that are deemed too close. In this sense, the hypothesis that Flynn has been sacrificed should not be discarded in this context as a way of promoting a rapprochement with Russia, eliminating one of the most contentious issues between the administration and the deep state.

    On this aspect we will need to await the developments between Moscow and Washington, and how this will possibly change the rhetoric against countries such as Yemen and Iran, two countries long criticized by Flynn and his colleagues.

    Conclusions

    The only possible conclusion relates to the previous point, namely the clear division between words, actions, or inaction. At the moment, the Trump team’s strategy seems to use these three options to further advance their own interests and strategic objectives. Given the uncertainty surrounding the intentions of Trump’s administration, the only sensible attitude seems to wait and see whether the aggressive rhetoric remain just that. Another consideration relates to actions taken by the administration to approach and mend troubled relations with the Russian Federation. Finally is the inaction in foreign policy that amounts to a precise tactic. If words remain words and inaction will continue to remain a key part of the current presidency, perhaps for the first time in decades we will see in practice a positive change in direction from the new US administration.

    In all this it remains to be seen whether Trump will really change the direction set by liberal hegemony with its global ambitions for a more realistic one as repeatedly suggested by the school of political realism represented by Mearsheimer. Only time, and actions, will tell.

  • Dallas Police Pension Board Approves Benefit Cuts; Asks For More Taxpayer Money To Avoid Collapse

    For the past several months we’ve warned that the taxpayers of the City of Dallas, despite all of the tough talk coming out of their elected city council members, would ultimately be forced to bail out the failing Dallas Police and Fire Pension (DPFP) system.  And just last night the DPFP board voted 9-0 to approve a plan that would do just that. 

    The plan to save the DPFP was proposed by Dan Flynn, chair of the pensions committee in the Texas House of Representatives, and calls for Dallas taxpayers to contribute 34.5% of police and firefighter salaries each year into the failing pension system, up from 27% in 2015, plus an incremental $11 million per year.  In total, the adopted plan will cost Dallas taxpayers an extra $22 million per year.

    That said, the plan also calls for pensioners to grant concessions, including the following:

    • Increase in retirement age to 58 from 55
    • Increase in employee contributions to 13.5% of payroll from 8.5%
    • Elimination of COLAs in the near term
    • Elimination of exorbitant interest payments made on employees DROP accounts

    Of course, the $7 billion shortfall in the DPFP triggered downgrades to Dallas’s credit rating from Moody’s and S&P in recent months which has wreaked havoc on the city’s bond yields. (chart per Bloomberg).

    Dallas

     

    Meanwhile, no amount of incremental taxpayer funding will ever be sufficient to stop angry pensioners from playing the victim card when the realities of their pension ponzi schemes are exposed for all to see.  Per NBC 5:

    There was a whirlwind of emotions at the meeting, from clapping, to tears and obvious tension, both from board members and from those whose futures hang in the balance.

     

    “I think we’re being treated like animals to a certain degree, and I was hesitant to even come down here today,” said Frank Varner, a retired Dallas firefighter.

     

    “How do you fix broken promises? These people deserve better. The firefighters and officers working today deserve better,” said Mike Mata, a Dallas police officer and president of the Dallas Police Association.

    http://www.nbcdfw.com/portableplayer/?cmsID=414291733&videoID=ZglWSJ0UXaSo&origin=nbcdfw.com&sec=news&subsec=local&width=600&height=360&t=63

     

    Don’t worry dear pensioners, there is no problem too large for taxpayers to bail out.

    A summary of the plan adopted by the DPFP board can be viewed below:

    https://www.scribd.com/embeds/340019651/content?start_page=1&view_mode=scroll&access_key=key-gcElNzntRia0JNQ6iMqR&show_recommendations=true

  • As China's Housing Minister Admits There Is A Bubble, Axiom Warns "Sell Commodities Now"

    After several months of slowing price growth across China’s bubbly housing market, if mostly in the lower-tiered cities, last month we reported that China’s National Bureau of Statistics confirmed that the latest Chinese housing bubble has finally popped, after housing prices across the 70 cities tracked by the NBS were up 12.7% Y/Y, below the 12.9% annual growth rate in November. This was the first deceleration in year-over-year housing price growth after 19 months of continued acceleration.

    Then, overnight, China reported that after the November peak, January house prices decelerated again, and according to Goldman calculations, on a year-over-year, population-weighted basis, housing prices in the 70 cities were up 12.4% vs. 12.7% yoy in December, and 12.9% in November, the second consecutive month of deceleration.

    On year-over-year basis, housing price growth moderated in January

    On a month-over-month basis, house price inflation decelerated modestly in tier-1 and tier-4 cities, and remained stable in tier 2 and tier 3 cities: In tier-1 cities, January price growth was 0.3% month-over-month after seasonal adjustment, vs. 0.5% in December. In tier-4 cities, property price growth was 0.2% month-over-month after seasonal adjustment, vs. +0.3% in December. Average property price inflation in tier 2/3 cities was 0.5%/0.4% month-over-month after seasonal adjustment respectively in January.

    Average house price inflation stabilized in January compared with December

    According to Goldman’s China analyst, Maggie Wei, “we expect property transactions and house price inflation to slow this year from the rapid growth last year. On the other hand, property construction and investment activities may remain solid, supported by the strong land sales last year. We forecast only a small moderation in property FAI growth this year compared with last year.”

    Consultancy giant McKinsey, which also is never too late to point out the obvious, said earlier on Wednesday that it sees “early signs of slowdown in China property market”, with McKinsey partner Oliver Ramsbottom speaking at an iron conference in Dalian adding that “our belief is that in property market we’re starting to see a slowdown.” He added that slower mortgage lending will be key indicator for slowing starts and completions, and that the government’s reaction to growth of price appreciation suggests increased focus on cooling, and slower starts.

    As a result, he expects cooling in demand for recently red hot commodities such as steel and iron ore.

    Another analyst who sees the bursting of China’s housing bubble as a big negative for commodities is Axiom Capital’s Gordon Johnson, who likewise looked at China’s slowing housing data and asked, rhetorically “what’s the significance of these data points?”

    His answer: “the last time we had 18 consecutive months of home price acceleration in China (7/31/12-to-12/31/13), iron ore prices rallied, as did steel prices; yet, when year-over-year (“y/y”) growth in home prices turned negative 1/31/14, it marked the beginning of 16 consecutive months of deceleration in home prices, which also ushered in a collapse in both steel prices and iron ore prices, as well as other bulk commodity prices – we remind our readers that Chinese investors use home price growth, y/y, as a catalyst to invest in real estate in China (real estate, by far, is the most steel-intensive sector in China).”

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    As a result, with the second consecutive deceleration in home
    price growth in China in 20 months, Axiom sees imminent risk to construction
    activity, and thus steel/iron ore prices.

    His suggestion: sell commodities now.

    Furthermore, Johnson has noticed a troubling trend when looking at land sales in China. As detailed in the chart below, land sales in China have shown an acute falloff recently. He reminds readers that land sales are a key funding source for local governments in China, and also lead key indicators of Chinese growth, like freight volumes, by around six months.

     

    Johnson’s conclusion: “We see C1Q17 as the exact opposite of C4Q16 (i.e., stocks are rallying, despite what we see as a pending downturn in economic data points in China); with the data already beginning to support this narrative, yet investors completely ignoring it at present, we see an acute reversal in the commodity stocks as likely. At risk of stating the obvious, we do not believe this is consensus thinking at present.”

    And speaking of rallying stocks, we pose the same question we asked – rhetorically – last month: “now that the Chinese housing bubble has finally hit its inflection point and is headed downward, prompting the momentum chasers to flee, the question is whether the Chinese stock market is about to become the bubble choice du jour, as happened in mid to late 2014 and early 2015, when the bursting of the home bubble once again pushed all the housing speculators into the stock market with scary, if entertaining, consequences. It may not be a bade idea to buy some deep out of the money calls on the Shenzhen composite, as that is the place where the most degenerate of Chinese gamblers eventually congregate to every time the housing bubble bursts, only to be reincarnated two years down the line.”

    With headlines such as this one in Caixin from last week, “China Relaxes Curbs on Stock-Index Futures Trading“, the answer is clearly yes.

    Finally, while China will do everything in its power to assure another soft landing for the burst Chinese housing bubble, a curious headline popped up moments ago, one which may assure a far more aggressive selling for Chinese real estate in the coming months: according to Bloomberg,  “China Is Doing Preparation Work on Property Tax: Vice Minister” adding that “China will unveil property tax in “timely” manner, Lu Kehua, vice minister of the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, says at a briefing in Beijing.“

    Meanwhile, China’s Housing Minister Chen Zhenggao said at the briefing China property prices to “continue to stabilize” in 1Q, and admitted that mainland real estate is about to crash when he said that “China will contain the property bubble and prevent large fluctuations in property market.”

    Well, thanks for the admission, because few things inspire confidence in artificial real estate values quite like the threat of imminent property taxes (which only those who sell now won’t have to pay) coupled with the local housing minister admitting the entire housing market in a bubble that has now burst.

  • New Study Finds That Trump's Immigration Crack Down Could Cost $5 Trillion In GDP Over 10 Years

    Earlier today we wrote about the impacts that Trump’s immigration policies may have on the U.S. housing market (see “Could Trump’s Immigration Ban Cause Another Housing Crash?“), but that’s just the beginning of the story.  No matter where you come down on the immigration debate, like it or not, there are millions of low-skill jobs in this country, particularly in the Southwest, that our pampered, snowflake millennials wouldn’t touch with a 10-foot pole and are thus filled by “undocumented” workers primarily from Mexico and other portions of South America. 

    Courtesy of a recent study from the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), we know that the industries that employ the highest percentage of migrant workers are, quite unsurprisingly, industries like Agriculture, Construction and Leisure and Hospitality, all of which require either back-breaking work in the blistering sun and/or low pay.  In fact, per the NBER study, nearly 20% of all agricultural labor in the United States is performed by illegal aliens while 13% of construction jobs are filled by illegals….jobs that most entitled American youth are unlikely to fill at almost any price.

    Labor Market

     

    Meanwhile, as we pointed out last fall, the seasonality of agricultural jobs makes them even more unattractive to domestic laborers.  Per the chart below, the total number of people working in the ag industry in California spikes by about 33% starting in May every year and remains elevated for about 6 months through October.  Ask any farmer in California how tight the labor market is during those summer months and you’ll quickly understand that, even with the 1,000’s of illegal migrants working in the state, that farmers find it almost impossible to fully staff their operations during the peak harvesting seasons. 

    California Farmworkers

     

    And, of course, the majority of the illegal migrant workers in the U.S. come from Mexico and Central/South America.

    Labor Market

     

    Meanwhile, the NBER study estimates that every 1 million fewer workers in the U.S. equates to a roughly 0.5% drag on GDP.  Per Bloomberg:

    President Donald Trump’s sweeping crackdown on undocumented immigrants will strain an already tight U.S. job market, with one study suggesting that removing all of them would cost the economy as much as $5 trillion over 10 years.

     

    “The challenge is particularly high now because the labor market has tightened up not just overall but in areas in which you would think undocumented immigrants would be important, so that means that it’s going to be hard to fill these jobs if you deport these employees,” Harris said. “You have to think about indirect effects when you disrupt production in industries in which they’re a critical part of getting things done. So there’s a transition cost, as well as the cost of a reduced labor force.”

     

    Harris estimates that for every 1 million fewer workers in the economy, GDP would be reduced by about 0.5 percent. That’s the equivalent of $94 billion, based on the annualized pace of $18.9 trillion in fourth-quarter GDP.

    And here are the states that would be forced to absorb the greatest economic losses:

    Labor Market

     

    Perhaps it’s time to start preparing young Tristan James Abernathy III for a life in the fields?  Good luck with that…

    Labor

  • The New Wave Of Violent Protests Is Exactly What The Elite Want – Here's Why

    Submitted by Chase Rachels via The Free Thought Project,

    Over the past 18 months, there has been a significant increase in the frequency and severity of riots conducted by the extreme left.  Their ranks are comprised of self-described anti-fascists,  anarcho-communists, radical 3rd wave feminists, Black Lives Matter (BLM), and other social justice warriors (SJWs).  They have attained great notoriety through their willingness to employ violence/intimidation, vandalize/loot private property, and engage in the very same behavior they accuse their ideological opponents of perpetrating.  Tragically, innocent and non-interested bystanders often get caught in the cross hairs whilst they throw their violent temper tantrums.  To add further cause for concern, these otherwise marginal groups are coalescing under the banner of “intersectionality” thereby effecting a swelling of their ranks, temerity, and menace.

    However, as Professor Matthew Feinberg of the University of Toronto recently published a study confirming “extreme protest tactics reduce popular support for social movements.” Violent and destructive protests render peaceful protestors inept and guilty by association. The following summarizes the results of the study in greater detail:

    “Social movements are critical agents of change that vary greatly in both tactics and popular support. Prior work shows that extreme protest tactics – actions that are highly counter-normative, disruptive, or harmful to others, including inflammatory rhetoric, blocking traffic, and damaging property – are effective for gaining publicity. However, we find across three experiments that extreme protest tactics decreased popular support for a given cause because they reduced feelings of identification with the movement. Though this effect obtained in tests of popular responses to extreme tactics used by animal rights, Black Lives Matter, and anti-Trump protests (Studies 1-3), we found that self-identified political activists were willing to use extreme tactics because they believed them to be effective for recruiting popular support (Studies 4a & 4b). The activist’s dilemma – wherein tactics that raise awareness also tend to reduce popular support – highlights a key challenge faced by social movements struggling to affect progressive change.”

    To further illustrate the nature of such protests/riots a brief outline and analysis of the more notable examples will be provided in the following sections.

    Berkeley Students Racist Barricade

    In late October of 2016, a number of angry Berkeley SJWs barricaded a key bridge on campus to physically bar any white people from crossing.   The objective of the protest was to secure more segregated spaces for people of color a.k.a. “spaces of color”.  Any white person who attempted to breach the barricade was violently denied.  The group also saw fit to post faux eviction notices on a private bookstore with the threat that “community action will continue to escalate” lest they cede the location to the student protesters for the purpose of transforming it into a “space of color.”  Though obvious, it is worth explicitly recognizing the utter hypocrisy of this allegedly “anti-racist” group employing violence and threats against others based merely on the color of their skin for the sake of securing racially segregated spaces.

    Berkeley Anti-Milo Riot

    Riots erupted on February 1st, 2017 at the University of California at Berkeley over the arrival of the conservative celebrity and self-described “dangerous faggot” Milo Yiannopoulos. So-called anti-fascists and other SJWs were inciting mass violence, vandalism, and hysteria in order to prevent the gay interracial loving Jewish foreigner from peacefully expressing a political opinion that differs from their own. They firebombed the location where Milo’s event was to take place, pepper sprayed a female while being interviewed (and who was ironically offering words of respect to the non-violent protestors who showed up), burned Milo effigies, beat Milo supporters unconscious, and even violated neutral yet curious bystanders. It has repeatedly been made clear that as soon as a person of color, queer, woman, or Muslim expresses non-leftist/non-egalitarian views, the left will treat him/her with the same or even greater level of disdain and prejudice they accuse “right leaning” bogeymen of.

    Yes, Yiannopoulos is a troll and says things to rile up the masses, but meeting free speech with violence only serves to empower your opposition.

    Free speech was stomped on by the radical left at the birthplace of the free speech movement. The poorly named “anti-fascists” (a.k.a antifas) were the ones leading the violent charge to silence and censor the gay Jew. If the irony weren’t thick enough, the topic of Milo’s discussion was a critical examination of “cultural appropriation,” yet it seems the antifas took no issue with culturally appropriating the tactics of fascists and Nazis.

    Presidential Inauguration Riots

    On January 20, 2017, in Washington D.C. several hundred antifas, anarcho-communists, and other radical leftists came together to protest the presidential inauguration of Donald Trump.  To the dismay of peaceful protestors and Trump supporters alike, the radical leftist rioters quickly resorted to tactics of violence and vandalism.  Many were caught throwing bricks and blocks of concrete, breaking the windows of private businesses, violently clashing with and intimidating Trump supporters, setting cars on fire, and harassing defenseless trash cans. Before the day was done, over 200 rioters would be arrested.  One may rest assured that engaging in such public, juvenile, and violent behavior is the surest way to secure a second term for the controversial commander in chief.

    Black Lives Matter (BLM) Riots

    While most Black Lives Matter protests across the country remain entirely peaceful the majority of the time, some of them, often with the help of outside instigators devolve into utter chaos. Examples of this chaos happened in August and September of 2016, when violent BLM protests devolved and riots broke out in Milwaukee, WI and Charlotte, NC respectively. In Milwaukee, BLM rioters set fires to gas stations, auto parts stores, banks, and several other businesses.  There were also reports of rioters firing off guns, hurling bricks, and looting local grocery stores.

    In Charlotte, BLM chaos erupted after a black police officer shot a black man. Rioters responded by shutting down an interstate and setting it ablaze, looting several private businesses, throwing rocks at random motorists, and even targeting white people for beat downs simply for being white. It’s fairly safe to say that if your cause is to diminish the ill effects that racism has on society and your community, then it’s probably best not to burn down local productive enterprises, hinder your community’s ability to travel safely, and beat down any white person you can find with extreme prejudice.

    Women’s March

    On January 21st, 2017 more than 2.5 million protestors participated in the worldwide “Women’s March” whose aim was to promote human, civil, and reproductive rights.  Unlike the other examples, this protest was largely absent the more injurious elements of violence and intimidation. However, many of the same themes were promoted and other off-putting tactics used thus a brief examination is warranted.

    Perhaps the most paradoxical feature of the protest was the ubiquitous presence of both vagina attire (ranging from subtle vagina shaped/colored headwear to ostentatious full bodied vagina costumes) and anti-“islamophobia” themes.

    It’s amusing to consider how the average Muslim, in his capacity as a Muslim, would be absolutely mortified upon encountering a woman dressed as a giant pubic hair infested vagina.  Such a costume must be the antithesis of the hijab.

    Beyond this, of course, the majority of the march’s themes were anti-libertarian as they included support for anti-discrimination laws, tax-funded healthcare, and the subsidization of both contraceptives and abortion.  It should go without saying that all such measures entail both theft and private property violations.  Thus, to say this was a march for liberty would be a gross misnomer.  It was instead a march for entitlements funded at liberty’s expense.

    Conclusion

    If one is sincerely opposed to racism, sexism, and fascism then it may be best for him to refrain from engaging in racist, sexist, and fascist means to support his cause.  The fact these radical leftist factions utilize such means indicates a more sinister and subtle objective than the purported one of “social justice.” And unfortunately, any legitimate peaceful protests to stop injustice will be deemed illegitimate and the cause ignored as it will be immediately associated with violence. Aside from the societal damage created by such violence and intolerance, this divisive and obstinate environment plays right into the hands of those who want to keep you under control.

    When objectively assessed, these violent protests are revealed as being among the most bigoted, hateful, and dangerous threats to the cause of liberty.

  • Taiwan Joins Global War On Cash: Plans To Ban Purchases Of Houses, Cars, & Jewelry

    The cancerous virus of freedom-destroying worldwide cash-bans – in the name of fighting terrorism – has reached Taiwan this week. With the aim of 'preventing money-laundering', Taiwan may ban cash purchases of properties and luxury goods, Taipei-based Economic Daily News reports, citing unidentified official at Ministry of Justice.

    As we previously noted, the War on Cash is not merely continuing, it is intensifying.

    It began in the West, with relatively minor infringements on our right to use the currency of our own nation. The War has now shifted to India, been radically ratcheted up, and inflicted upon a population of 1.2 billion people, where 68% of transactions were conducted with cash. And now, as The Economic Daily News reports (via Google Translate), to Taiwan…

    With the goal of strengthening the prevention and control of money laundering, Taiwan's Ministry of Justice plans to promote large-scale transactions without cash. The first wave may lock real estate, luxury cars and jewelry transactions.

     

    According to the provisions of the money-laundering control law, which currently controls the use cash payment tools, The Ministry of Justice to discuss the plan with other regulators in the second half of the year.

     

    Once finalized, the sale of real estate, cars, and jewelry will not be possible using cash; only non-cash payment tools, such as credit cards, financial cards, checks, electronic payments or remittances.

    Current regulations require the keeping of records and reporting of any transcations over 500,000 Yuan (around $72,000), with no limit on the amount of cash that can be used.

    As to whether a lower threshold will be set, it is unclear; but from indications, for the sale of real estate, luxury cars or jewelry the threshold will be zero – and only non-cash allowed.

    Officials said that in addition to changes in the concept of the majority of normal business people should not be affected, but for some with bad credit, who can not apply for a credit card or bank account, it admitted the new law may cause inconvenience.

    Of course, the excuse for all this cah ban is simple –

    The Ministry of Justice internal data show that the criminal group's asset allocation is especially heavy in gold, diamonds, and real estate. Real estate transactions are considered to high-risk money laundering transactions.

    As we noted previously, on the face of it, this 'war on cash' smacks of conspiracy theory, yet certainly, all governments would benefit from this control and would be likely to get on board. In fact, it might prove to be the only way out of their present economic problems.

    So, how would it play out? Here’s roughly how I saw Phase I:

    • Link the free movement of cash to terrorism (Create a consciousness that any movement of large sums suggests criminal activity.);
    • Establish upper limits on the amount of money that can be moved without reporting to some government investigatory agency;
    • Periodically lower those limits;
    • Accustom people to making all purchases, however small or large, through a bank card;
    • Create a consciousness that the mere possession of cash is suspect, since it’s no longer “necessary”.

    When I first wrote on the subject, there was considerable criticism as to the possibility that such a programme would ever be attempted, let alone succeed. And, granted, it was so Orwellian that it was understandably seen as a crackpot idea. But since that time, the programme has been developing extremely rapidly. In the last six months alone, it has become so visible that it has even garnered a name – “the War on Cash”.

    References in the media have been made that terrorist groups fund their attacks with cash. Dozens of countries have placed limits on the maximum amount of money that can be moved without reporting. Some, notably France, have already begun lowering their limits. Banks in some countries, notably Sweden, are already treating all cash transactions as suspicious. The previously theoretical Phase I is now well under way.

    It would appear Taiwan is joining the rest of the world in this war on cash. There are three major players involved in the war on cash:

    1. The Initiators

    Who? Governments, central banks.

     

    Why? The elimination of cash will make it easier to track all types of transactions – including those made by criminals.

     

    2. The Enemy

    Who? Criminals, terrorists

     

    Why? Large denominations of bank notes make illegal transactions easier to perform, and increase anonymity.

     

    3. The Crossfire

    Who? Citizens

     

    Why? The coercive elimination of physical cash will have potential repercussions on the economy and social liberties.

    The shots fired by governments to fight its war on cash may have several unintended casualties:

    1. Privacy

    • Cashless transactions would always include some intermediary or third-party.
    • Increased government access to personal transactions and records.
    • Certain types of transactions (gambling, etc.) could be barred or frozen by governments.
    • Decentralized cryptocurrency could be an alternative for such transactions

    2. Savings

    • Savers could no longer have the individual freedom to store wealth “outside” of the system.
    • Eliminating cash makes negative interest rates (NIRP) a feasible option for policymakers.
    • A cashless society also means all savers would be “on the hook” for bank bail-in scenarios.
    • Savers would have limited abilities to react to extreme monetary events like deflation or inflation.

    3. Human Rights

    • Rapid demonetization has violated people’s rights to life and food.
    • In India, removing the 500 and 1,000 rupee notes has caused multiple human tragedies, including patients being denied treatment and people not being able to afford food.
    • Demonetization also hurts people and small businesses that make their livelihoods in the informal sectors of the economy.

    4. Cybersecurity

    • With all wealth stored digitally, the potential risk and impact of cybercrime increases.
    • Hacking or identity theft could destroy people’s entire life savings.
    • The cost of online data breaches is already expected to reach $2.1 trillion by 2019, according to Juniper Research.

    This issue has expanded more quickly than we’d anticipated. Clearly, the governments that are forcing it into being are running out of time. There can only be one reason why they’d rush a programme that normally would be given more time for people to accept, and that’s that they see a crash coming before they can get Phase II of the programme underway.

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Feb 22

Today’s News 22nd February 2017

  • DHS Issues Sweeping New Rules On Deportation Of Illegal Immigrants

    The Department of Homeland Security released on Tuesday documents translating President Trump’s executive orders on immigration and border security into policy, providing details on how it will prosecute undocumented immigrants and criminal immigrants, repealing nearly all of the Obama administration’s guidances, and bringing a major shift in the way the agency enforces the nation’s immigration laws.

    As the WSJ notes, “almost everybody living in the U.S. illegally is now subject to deportation, and more undocumented arrivals at the southern border would be jailed or sent back to Mexico to await a hearing rather than released into the U.S.” according to the new guidance.

    “The Department no longer will exempt classes or categories of removable aliens from potential enforcement,” the enforcement memo says. “Department personnel have full authority to arrest or apprehend an alien whom an immigration officer has probable cause to believe is in violation of the immigration laws.”

    Secretary John Kelly’s two memos expand raids and the definition of criminal aliens, while diminishing sanctuary areas and enlisting local law enforcement to execute federal immigration policy. 

    The memos still outline priority groups, starting with serious criminals. But the priorities are much broader and include people charged with crimes who haven’t been convicted, people guilty only of immigration-related crimes such as using false documents, and anybody who an immigration officer believes is a risk to public safety.

    While DHS officials said they wouldn’t target otherwise law-abiding undocumented immigrants and don’t plan roundups of illegal immigrants, and said their limited resources would still require a focus on those people who pose a public-safety risk, they also said that people who don’t fall into a priority group aren’t exempt from deportation, and the DHS memo says exceptions would be made on a case-by-case basis.

    Previously, under Obama guidelines, undocumented immigrants convicted of serious crimes were the priority for removal. Now, immigration agents, customs officers and border patrol agents have been directed to remove anyone convicted of any criminal offense. That includes people convicted of fraud in any official matter before a governmental agency and people who “have abused any program related to receipt of public benefits.” The only Obama-era guidances left in place were those relating to undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children.

    According to the NYT, the policy also calls for an expansion of expedited removals, allowing Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to deport more people immediately. Under the Obama administration, expedited removal was used only within 100 miles of the border for people who had been in the country no more than 14 days. Now it will include those who have been in the country for up to two years, and located anywhere in the nation. The change in enforcement priorities will require a considerable increase in resources. With an estimated 11 million people in the country illegally, the government has long had to set narrower priorities, given the constraints on staffing and money.

    Some more details from the NYT:

    In the so-called guidance documents released on Tuesday, the department is directed to begin the process of hiring 10,000 new immigration and customs agents, expanding the number of detention facilities and creating an office within Immigration and Customs Enforcement to help families of those killed by undocumented immigrants. Mr. Trump had some of those relatives address his rallies in the campaign, and several were present when he signed an executive order on immigration last month at the Department of Homeland Security.

     

    The directives would also instruct Immigration and Customs Enforcement, as well as Customs and Border Protection, the parent agency of the Border Patrol, to begin reviving a program that recruits local police officers and sheriff’s deputies to help with deportation, effectively making them de facto immigration agents. The effort, called the 287(g) program, was scaled back during the Obama administration.

    The memos were decried by immigration advocates, and face resistance from many states and dozens of so-called sanctuary cities, which have refused to allow their law enforcement workers to help round up undocumented individuals.

    “These memos lay out a detailed blueprint for the mass deportation of 11 million undocumented immigrants in America,” Lynn Tramonte, Deputy Director of America’s Voice Education Fund, said Tuesday in a statement. “They fulfill the wish lists of the white nationalist and anti-immigrant movements and bring to life the worst of Donald Trump’s campaign rhetoric.”

    Senior Homeland Security officials told reporters Tuesday morning that the directives were intended to more fully make use of the enforcement tools that Congress has already given to the department to crack down on illegal immigration. The officials emphasized that some of the proposals for increased enforcement would roll out slowly as the department finalizes the logistics and legal rules for more aggressive action.

    According to Bloomberg, the memos could further inflame tensions between the U.S. and Mexico, which has advised its citizens living in the U.S. to take precautions in the face of Trump’s new immigration policy. DHS is considering employing a rarely used law to return people who traveled to the U.S. illegally through Mexico back into Mexico, even if they are not Mexican nationals. Officials said that returning Central American refugees to Mexico to await hearings would be done only in a limited fashion, and only after discussions with the government of Mexico, which however would most likely have to agree to accept the refugees.

    While nothing in the directives would change the program known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, which provides work permits and deportation protection for the young people commonly referred to as Dreamers, officials made clear that the department intended to aggressively follow Mr. Trump’s promise that immigration laws be enforced to the maximum extent possible, marking a significant departure from the procedures in place under President Barack Obama.

    That promise has generated fear and anger in the immigrant community, and advocates for immigrants have warned that the new approach is a threat to many undocumented immigrants who had previously been in little danger of being deported.

    Meanwhile Trump, who said during his campaign that he would cancel the program, has since changed his stance, calling those covered by DACA “incredible kids.” “The DACA situation is a very, very — it’s a very difficult thing for me because you know, I love these kids,” Trump said at a Feb. 16 press conference. “I find it very, very hard doing what the law says exactly to do and you know, the law is rough.”

  • Is James O'Keefe About To Smoke CNN? Tells Hannity He's Set To Release "Hundreds of Hours" Of Newsroom Footage "Wikileaks Style"

    James O’Keefe of Project Veritas is set to unleash holy hell Thursday on #FakeNews network CNN. Well, he didn’t exactly say it was CNN, but it was heavily implied. Apparently the network has a mole…

    O’Keefe is known for undercover sting operations which have led to such bombshells as the DNC’s paid agitator network, the outing of “DisruptJ20” / Antifa organizers which took place comet ping pong – and netted three arrests (including a suspected pedophile), and most recently New Hampshire election fraud.

    Today O’Keefe was interviewed on Sean Hannity’s radio show where he revealed that a major network has been “stung”

    O’Keefe: In the next 48 hours, Project Veritas, like Wikileaks, will be releasing hundreds of hours of tape from within the establishment media. Our next target is in fact, the media.

     

    Hannity: How long have you been working on this?

     

    O’Keefe: We’ve had people on the inside come to us. Just like Julian Assange has people come to him, we’ve had people, sources come to us and give us information, and we’re going to be releasing it “Wikileaks Style” this week.

    Moments later:

    Hannity: Can you give us a hint what organizations are going to be impacted by this?

     

    O’Keefe: It’s one that Trump has really been talking about, you can probably use your imagination.

     

    Hannity: So, it’s CNN…

    Listen here:

    //platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    In other words, a closeted Trump supporter working deep inside hyper-liberal CNN just gave O’Keefe a ton of behind the scenes footage of “The Most Trusted Name In News.” My guess is we’re about to hear a bunch of establishment media puppets revealing their extreme hatred for the sitting President of the United States.

    Remember that time CNN employees were laughing about Trump’s plane crashing? If O’Keefe’s release is anything along these lines, popcorn sales are about to go through the roof…

    //platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  • The Conflictual Relationship Between Donald Trump And The US "Deep State" – Part 1

    Submitted by Federico Pieraccini via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

    In just two weeks as president of the United States, Donald Trump has given indications of how he intends to tackle various international political situations. So far we have observed the controversy over Iran, the events related to NATO, rapprochement with Russia, escalation in Ukraine, silence on Syria, the US special-forces operation in Yemen, verbal clashes with the EU, and the absence of further criticism of China. This first article will focus on the he US deep state’s possible sabotage attempts of the Trump presidency.

    Tensions continue to rise unabated in the first two weeks of Donald Trump’s presidency, as more decisions come across Trump’s table. While we have seen many executive orders and pieces of legislation, most regard domestic politics, which is a core focus of the Trump presidency. On the other hand, in foreign policy, Trump seems to be using the common tactic of many politicians, which involves much talk and little action. Since US foreign policy has been a mess for quite some time, militating against common sense, taking little action can actually be a positive thing, the best thing a US president has been able to do in almost thirty years! If there is one thing that is clear to everyone about Trump’s way of doing things following two weeks in office, it is that it is completely different from his predecessor, especially in relation to the press and his willingness to engage with it.

    The use of executive orders looks more and more like a weapon to flood the press and news agencies with talking points concerning domestic policies, leaving little room for particular pressure on foreign policy from the media establishment. It almost looks like a tactic of guerrilla warfare to overwhelm the mainstream media. It could and probably is also a PR stunt to show the American people he is doing what he promised. Stunt or not, acknowledging the power of the media in creating a pretext for war, and therefore putting a stop to the drums of war, is one of the first key marks of his success.

    The main problem continues to be the ongoing war with the US deep state, something that will not be going away anytime soon, and a campaign that may have entered a new stage against the Trump presidency.

    Sabotage or Incompetence?

    The first two weeks of the new presidency have already provided a few significant events. The operation that took place in Yemen, conducted by the American special forces and directed against Al Qaeda, has reprised the previous administration. Being a complex operation that required thorough preparation, the new administration thereby had to necessarily represent a continuation of the old one. Details are still vague, but looking at the outcome, the mission failed as a result of incompetence. The American special forces were spotted before arriving at al Qaeda’s supposed base. This resulted in the shooting of anything that moved, causing more than 25 civilian deaths.

    The media that had been silent during the Obama administration was rightfully quick to condemn the killing of innocent people, and harsh criticism was directed at the administration for this operation. It is entirely possible that the operation was set up to fail, intended to delegitimize the operational capabilities of the new Trump team. Given the links between al Qaeda, the Saudis and the neoconservatives, something historically proven, it is not unthinkable that the failure of the operation was a consequence of an initial attempt at sabotaging Trump on a key aspect of his presidency, namely the successful execution of counter-terrorist efforts against Islamist terrorism.

    Another structural component in the attempts to undermine the Trump administration concern the deployment of NATO and US troops on the western border of the Russian Federation. This attempt is obvious and is one of the strategies aimed at preventing a rapprochement between Washington and Moscow. The EU persists in its self-defeating policy, focusing its attention on foreign policy instead of gaining strategic independence thanks to the new presidency. It is now even more clear that European Union leaders, and in particular the current political representatives in Germany and France, have every intention of continuing in the direction set by the Obama presidency, seeking a futile confrontation with the Russian Federation instead of a sensible rapprochement.

    Europe continues to insist on failed economic and social policies that will lead to bankruptcy, using foreign-policy issues as diversions and excuses. The consequences of these wrongheaded efforts will inevitably favor the election of nationalist and populist parties, as seen in the United States and other countries, which will end in the destruction of the EU. For the US deep state and their long-term objectives, this tactic has a dual effect: it prevents the proper functioning of the EU as well as significantly halts any rapprochement between the EU and the Russian Federation. The latter strategy looks more and more irreversible given the current European Union elites. In this sense, the UK, thanks to Brexit, seems to have broken free and started to slowly restructure its foreign- policy priorities, in close alignment to Trump’s isolationism.

    Finally the most obvious attempt to sabotage the administration can be seen in the events in Ukraine. Unsurprisingly, Senators Graham and McCain, two of the deep state’s top emissaries, visited Ukraine at the beginning of the year, prompting Ukrainian troops to resume their destructive offensive against the Donbass. The intentions are clear and assorted. First is the constant attempt to sabotage any rapprochement between Moscow and Washington, hoping to engulf Trump in an American/NATO escalation of events in Ukraine. Second, given the critical situation in Europe, is the effort to push Berlin to assume the burden of economically supporting the failing administration in Kiev. Third is the increasing pressure applied to Russia and Putin, as was already seen in 2014, in an effort to actively involve the Russian Federation in the Ukrainian conflict so as to justify NATO’s direct involvement or even that of the United States. The latter situation would be the dream of the neoconservatives, setting Trump and Putin on a direct collision course.

    The new American administration has thus far suffered at least three sabotage attempts, and it is the attitude Trump intends to have with the rest of the world that has spurred them. In an interview with Bill O'Reilly on Fox News, Trump reiterated that his primary focus is not governed by the doctrine of American exceptionalism, a concept he does not subscribe to anyhow. The religion driving democratic evangelization looks more likely to be replaced with a pragmatic, realist geopolitical stance.

    This is how one could sum up Trump’s words to Bill O’Reilly:

    «There are a lot of killers. We have a lot of killers», Trump said. «Well, you think our country is so innocent?»

    What the deep state refuses to accept is that they have lost the leading role in educating the rest of the world on humanitarian issues related to the concept of democracy. The main actors of the deep state clearly understand the negative implications for them personally in economic and financial terms associated with the abandonment of the pursuit of global hegemony. For over a hundred years, no US president has ever placed their country on a par with others, has ever abandoned the concept of a nation (the US) «chosen by God».

    In an article a few weeks ago, I tried to lay the foundations for a future US administration, placing a strong focus on foreign policy and revealing a possible shift in US historic foreign relations. In a passage I wrote:

    «Donald Trump has emerged with in mind a precise foreign policy strategy, forged by various political thinkers of the realist world such as Waltz and Mearsheimer, trashing all recent neoconservative and neoliberal policies of foreign intervention (R2P – Right to Protect) and soft power campaigns in favor of human rights. No more UN resolutions, subtly used to bomb nations (Libya). Trump doesn’t believe in the central role of the UN and reaffirmed this repeatedly.

     

    In general, the Trump administration intends to end the policy of regime change, interference in foreign governments, Arab springs and color revolutions. They just don’t work. They cost too much in terms of political credibility, in Ukraine the US are allied with supporters of Bandera (historical figure who collaborated with the Nazis) and in Middle East they finance or indirectly support al Qaeda and al Nusra front».

    The recent meeting in Washington with Theresa May, the first official encounter with a prominent US ally, revealed, among other things, a possible dramatic change in US policy. The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom expressed her desire to follow a new policy of non-intervention, in line with the isolationist strategy Trump has spoken about since running for office. In a joint press conference with the American president, May said: «The era of military intervention is over. London and Washington will not return to the failed policy in the past that has led to intervention in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya».

    During the election campaign, Trump made his intentions clear in different contexts, but always coming from the standpoint of non-interventionism inspired by the concept of isolationism. It is becoming apparent that these intentions are being put into action, though the rhetoric regarding Iran has become alarming. In typical Trump fashion (which contrasts with the Iran issue), the situation in Syria is normalizing and the initial threats directed at China appear to have been put aside. The case of Iran is a different and complex story, requiring a deeper analysis that deserves a separate article. What will gradually be important, as the Presidency progresses, is understanding the necessity to distinguish between words and actions, separating provocations from intentions.

    Conclusions and future questions

    There is a whole list of Trump statements that are seen as threats to other countries, primarily Iran. The next article will further explain the possible strategy to be employed by Donald Trump to fight these attempts to sabotage his administration, a strategy that seems to be based on silences, bluffs and admissions to counter the perpetual attempts to influence his presidency. If one wants to place weight on his words during the election campaign, it should be taken into consideration that Trump won the election thanks to the clear objectives of wanting to avoid a further spending spree on destructive wars. This priority was made clear and expressed in every possible way with the adoption of an America First policy, especially regarding domestic policy.

    The bottom line is always that Trump has the ability and willingness to be resilient to the pressures of the deep state, focusing on the needs of the average American citizen, rather than caving in to the interests of the deep state such as intelligence agencies, neocons, Israel lobby, Saudi lobby, the military-industrial complex, and many more. It is only in the next few months that we will come to understand if Trump will be willing to continue the fight against war or bend the knee and pay the price.

  • Irrespective Of Travel Ban, Trump Has Broad Executive Powers On Immigration Enforcement

    If eight years under Obama rule, 6 of which included Republican majorities in Congress, taught us anything, it’s that Presidents have fairly broad authority to govern through executive orders and rules changes implemented at the 100’s of government agencies responsible for overseeing our every move.  Fortunately for the Trump administration, this broad Presidential authority extends to immigration laws and, despite his recent defeat in the 9th Circuit, grants the executive branch of the federal government broad authority on vetting immigrants and enforcing immigration laws.  Per Bloomberg:

    The law vests the president with broad authority over immigration, said Austin Fragomen, whose Manhattan-based Fragomen, Del Rey, Bernsen & Loewy is the biggest U.S. law firm focused on immigration. Trump hasn’t wasted time tapping his power.

     

    The Department of Homeland Security oversees almost two dozen agencies that determine who enters and leaves the U.S., including Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Customs and Border Protection and Citizenship and Immigration Services. The agency has an annual budget of $41 billion and more than 229,000 employees. Trump has broad discretion to use the money and employees as he sees fit without seeking approval from Congress.

    In the wake of the 9th Circuit’s decision to overturn his “immigration ban”, Trump initially drew a hard line via the following tweet vowing to continue the litigation of the controversial executive order.

    //platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

     

    That said, in a fiery, surreal press conference hosted last week, he drew a slightly more subdued tone saying that his administration was working on a revised immigration executive order which would be “tailored to the 9th Circuit decision” (see “In Fiery, “Surreal” Press Conference, Trump Launches War On The Media“).

    But, irrespective of how new executive actions on travel bans play out, the fact is that the President of the United States has fairly broad authority under the Constitution to vet new immigrants coming into the country and enforce federal laws once they’re here. 

    Of course, one option is to simply ramp up the hiring of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to crack down on those currently residing in the country illegally.  As we’ve noted before, the Trump administration has already said it will hire 10,000 incremental ICE agents and utilize local law enforcement agents as well.

    The president wants to bolster that force, saying he’ll hire 10,000 more agents and use state and local law enforcement as immigration officials. As part of the executive order, Trump vowed to strip funds from so-called sanctuary cities that refuse to cooperate with his crackdown. Several state attorneys general have vowed to fight that initiative.

     

    “He can essentially unleash ICE officials to enforce however they choose,” said Cristina Rodriguez, a Yale Law School professor, referring to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

    Moreover, absent policies that target specific groups of immigrants based on nationality, religion, etc., which as the 9th Circuit recently confirmed becomes far more complicated, the executive branch has fairly broad authority to vet incoming immigrants as they see fit. 

    The president can instruct State Department and ICE officials to tighten criteria for letting people into the U.S. and to increase searches at the border, where agents have much more freedom to rifle through people’s belongings than police inside the country. Trump has said the order will hasten adoption of “extreme vetting” procedures.

     

    Trump has “very broad authority” to tighten entry requirements, particularly if he avoids policies that unfairly single out Muslims or other groups, Fragomen said.

     

    “The only restraint on doing that now is we want to facilitate visitors and people coming to visit the U.S. and facilitate global business,” he said. “But the U.S. could be much more strict in terms of the screening process.”

    Meanwhile, just as President Obama demonstrated by raising the caps, Trump also have fairly broad authority to lower the caps on refugees admitted into the country, a power which he has already utilized by reducing the 2017 target to 50,000 from Obama’s 110,000.

    Of course, no matter what powers the Constitution affords the President, rest assured that disaffected liberal lawyers, flush with cash from George Soros and others, stand ready to challenge the every move of the White House for the next 4 years.

  • The valuation of financial knowledge

    How does one value financial knowledge? Finance as both a topic and industry has been holding huge secrets guarded by the most rich and powerful in the world for hundreds of generations. Why don’t they teach these secrets to the masses? It’s the same reason a magician doesn’t reveal his tricks. But just like children are fascinated with the skilled magician pulling the rabbit out of a hat, adults are fascinated with the financial wizardry of financial experts. We show you in our simple to follow introductory course that finance and investing is not magic. Just like the magician, financial experts simply are well trained, and follow a financial philosophy of their choosing (there are several) such as “Value Investing.” Due to the internet, obtaining this knowledge is possible for anyone in any place at any time. It’s not necessary to go to an expensive Business school like Harvard or Wharton anymore (although, you won’t make high level connections anywhere else) to gain financial knowledge. You can do it in the comfort of your own home.

    The study of knowledge is known as Epistemology, roughly defined as:

    Epistemology studies the nature of knowledge, justification, and the rationality of belief. Much of the debate in epistemology centers on four areas: (1) the philosophical analysis of the nature of knowledge and how it relates to such concepts as truth, belief, and justification, (2) various problems of skepticism, (3) the sources and scope of knowledge and justified belief, and (4) the criteria for knowledge and justification.

    This definition provides a great template of how to understand what is financial knowledge and how to value it. If one knows how to take a dollar and turn it into two – this certainly is priceless. But there’s a big spectrum of financial knowledge, ranging from Wall St. genius to understanding personal finance and how to properly file taxes. The problem of the valuation of an investment strategy for example, it is binary – either it works, or it doesn’t. The difference between a 15% return and a 17% return is not statistically significant. But how to look at the mathematics of a return, and determine the difference between Bernie Madoff and George Soros? That’s priceless.

    The importance is to understand the ‘gestalt’ of what markets are, how finance works, that is – practically. Any system can be analyzed and understood by looking at its components and how they behave together. The specialization of finance has confused the larger view, with experts teaching micro-subjects like how to trade Candlestick patterns, or ‘how to make money’ using these simple tools. Making money is sometimes easy – many people stumble upon good luck and money falls into their hands. Not losing money, that is very difficult – something very few rich people and businesses can achieve. Only a full understanding of how markets operate globally, will make you a great trader – as well, will protect you from losing. Not losing is the big secret to financial success. It’s why investors are so concerned about risks. If one can simply not lose, ultimately what’s left will be profits and growth. Tools such as understanding risk, and even quantifying risk (as much as possible) are priceless.

    Building a financial knowledgebase is like building a house; the first step is to make a blueprint (usually by hiring an architect) and laying a strong foundation. By having a strong foundation, the building materials of your knowledge (wood, stone, clay) are not as important. With a ‘basement’ which is the modern day equivalent of a bunker, you’ll be able to withstand any tornado or storm that may rock the markets and the economy. Having a defense line, financially speaking – is the most important tactic in any personal finance strategy. For businesses too, but most business does this intuitively (not relying on a single customer or single product line). Tools like hedging, even if simple – can be extremely powerful. Preppers take things to the extreme but provide a great living example of how everyone should act regarding their financial portfolio – hope for the best and prepare for the worst. A portfolio should be like a castle – capable of withstanding any disaster, war, or siege.

    It’s true that the world’s Elite engineer financial disasters like stock market crashes to seize the wealth of the growing middle class. It’s like culling the herd for fresh competition. But the good news, seeded into this system are the tools to protect you and even profit. For the first time in history, anyone can access the same tools the Elite have used for centuries to maintain their wealth and seize the wealth of others. This knowledge can also help you in your career, in your business, in your portfolio, or for your retirement.

    There’s never been a better time than now to build financial knowledge for yourself. Whether you are wealthy and want to protect your wealth, or are not and want to grow your portfolio and become wealthy – a solid financial understanding of business and the markets is the first step towards achieving real financial self-actualization.

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  • The Illusion Of Freedom: The Police State Is Alive And Well

    Submitted by John Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,

    “What happened here was the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to being governed by surprise; to receiving decisions deliberated in secret; to believing that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand, or so dangerous that, even if the people could understand it, it could not be released because of national security… This separation of government from people, this widening of the gap, took place so gradually and so insensibly, each step disguised (perhaps not even intentionally) as a temporary emergency measure or associated with true patriotic allegiance or with real social purposes. And all the crises and reforms (real reforms, too) so occupied the people that they did not see the slow motion underneath, of the whole process of government growing remoter and remoter.”—Historian Milton Mayer, They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45

    Brace yourself.

    There is something being concocted in the dens of power, far beyond the public eye, and it doesn’t bode well for the future of this country.

    Anytime you have an entire nation so mesmerized by the antics of the political ruling class that they are oblivious to all else, you’d better beware. Anytime you have a government that operates in the shadows, speaks in a language of force, and rules by fiat, you’d better beware. And anytime you have a government so far removed from its people as to ensure that they are never seen, heard or heeded by those elected to represent them, you’d better beware.

    The world has been down this road before.

    As historian Milton Mayer recounts in his seminal book on Hitler’s rise to power, They Thought They Were Free, “Most of us did not want to think about fundamental things and never had. There was no need to. Nazism gave us some dreadful, fundamental things to think about—we were decent people?—and kept us so busy with continuous changes and 'crises' and so fascinated, yes, fascinated, by the machinations of the 'national enemies', without and within, that we had no time to think about these dreadful things that were growing, little by little, all around us.”

    We are at our most vulnerable right now.

    The gravest threat facing us as a nation is not extremism—delivered by way of sovereign citizens or radicalized Muslims—but despotism, exercised by a ruling class whose only allegiance is to power and money.

    Nero fiddled while Rome burned.

    America is burning, and all most Americans can do is switch the channel, tune out what they don’t want to hear, and tune into their own personal echo chambers.

    We’re in a national state of denial.

    Yet no amount of escapism can shield us from the harsh reality that the danger in our midst is posed by an entrenched government bureaucracy that has no regard for the Constitution, Congress, the courts or the citizenry.

    If the team colors have changed from blue to red, that’s just cosmetic.

    The playbook remains the same. The leopard has not changed its spots.

    Scrape off the surface layers and you will find that the American police state is alive and well and continuing to wreak havoc on the rights of the American people.

    “We the people” are no longer living the American Dream.

    We’re living the American Lie.

    Indeed, Americans have been lied to so sincerely, so incessantly, and for so long by politicians of all stripes—who lie compulsively and without any seeming remorse—that they’ve almost come to prefer the lies trotted out by those in government over less-palatable truths.

    The American people have become compulsive believers.

    As Nick Cohen writes for The Guardian, “Compulsive liars shouldn’t frighten you. They can harm no one, if no one listens to them. Compulsive believers, on the other hand: they should terrify you. Believers are the liars’ enablers. Their votes give the demagogue his power. Their trust turns the charlatan into the president. Their credulity ensures that the propaganda of half-calculating and half-mad fanatics has the power to change the world.”

    While telling the truth “in a time of universal deceit is,” as George Orwell concluded, “a revolutionary act,” believing the truth—and being able to distinguish the truth from a lie—is also a revolutionary act.

    Here’s a truth few Americans want to acknowledge: nothing has changed (at least, not for the better) since Barack Obama passed the reins of the police state to Donald Trump.

    The police state is still winning. We the people are still losing.

    In fact, the American police state has continued to advance at the same costly, intrusive, privacy-sapping, Constitution-defying, relentless pace under President Trump as it did under President Obama.

    Police haven’t stopped disregarding the rights of citizens. Having been given the green light to probe, poke, pinch, taser, search, seize, strip, shoot and generally manhandle anyone they see fit in almost any circumstance, all with the general blessing of the courts, America’s law enforcement officials are no longer mere servants of the people entrusted with keeping the peace. Indeed, they continue to keep the masses corralled, under control, and treated like suspects and enemies rather than citizens.

    SWAT teams haven’t stopped crashing through doors and terrorizing families. Nationwide, SWAT teams continue to be employed to address an astonishingly trivial array of criminal activities or mere community nuisances including angry dogs, domestic disputes, improper paperwork filed by an orchid farmer, and misdemeanor marijuana possession. With more than 80,000 SWAT team raids carried out every year on unsuspecting Americans for relatively routine police matters and federal agencies laying claim to their own law enforcement divisions, the incidence of botched raids and related casualties continue to rise.

    The Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security haven’t stopped militarizing and federalizing local police. Police forces continue to be transformed into heavily armed extensions of the military, complete with jackboots, helmets, shields, batons, pepper-spray, stun guns, assault rifles, body armor, miniature tanks and weaponized drones. In training police to look and act like the military and use the weapons and tactics of war against American citizens, the government continues to turn the United States into a battlefield.

    Schools haven’t stopped treating young people like hard-core prisoners. School districts continue to team up with law enforcement to create a “schoolhouse to jailhouse track” by imposing a “double dose” of punishment for childish infractions: suspension or expulsion from school, accompanied by an arrest by the police and a trip to juvenile court. In this way, the paradigm of abject compliance to the state continues to be taught by example in the schools, through school lockdowns where police and drug-sniffing dogs enter the classroom, and zero tolerance policies that punish all offenses equally and result in young people being expelled for childish behavior.

    For-profit private prisons haven’t stopped locking up Americans and immigrants alike at taxpayer expense. States continue to outsource prison management to private corporations out to make a profit at taxpayer expense. And how do you make a profit in the prison industry? Have the legislatures pass laws that impose harsh penalties for the slightest noncompliance in order keep the prison cells full and corporate investors happy.

    Censorship hasn’t stopped. First Amendment activities continue to be pummeled, punched, kicked, choked, chained and generally gagged all across the country. The reasons for such censorship vary widely from political correctness, safety concerns and bullying to national security and hate crimes but the end result remained the same: the complete eradication of what Benjamin Franklin referred to as the “principal pillar of a free government.”

    The courts haven’t stopped marching in lockstep with the police state. The courts continue to be dominated by technicians and statists who are deferential to authority, whether government or business. Indeed, the Supreme Court’s decisions in recent years have most often been characterized by an abject deference to government authority, military and corporate interests. They have run the gamut from suppressing free speech activities and justifying suspicionless strip searches to warrantless home invasions and conferring constitutional rights on corporations, while denying them to citizens.

    Government bureaucrats haven’t stopped turning American citizens into criminals. The average American now unknowingly commits three felonies a day, thanks to an overabundance of vague laws that render otherwise innocent activity illegal, while reinforcing the power of the police state and its corporate allies.

    The surveillance state hasn’t stopped spying on Americans’ communications, transactions or movements. On any given day, whether you’re walking through a store, driving your car, checking email, or talking to friends and family on the phone, you can be sure that some government agency, whether it’s your local police, a fusion center, the National Security Agency or one of the government’s many corporate partners, is still monitoring and tracking you.

    The TSA hasn’t stopped groping or ogling travelers. Under the pretext of protecting the nation’s infrastructure (roads, mass transit systems, water and power supplies, telecommunications systems and so on) against criminal or terrorist attacks, TSA task forces (comprised of federal air marshals, surface transportation security inspectors, transportation security officers, behavior detection officers and explosive detection canine teams) continue to do random security sweeps of nexuses of transportation, including ports, railway and bus stations, airports, ferries and subways, as well as political conventions, baseball games and music concerts. Sweep tactics include the use of x-ray technology, pat-downs and drug-sniffing dogs, among other things.

    Congress hasn’t stopped enacting draconian laws such as the USA Patriot Act and the NDAA. These laws—which completely circumvent the rule of law and the constitutional rights of American citizens, continue to re-orient our legal landscape in such a way as to ensure that martial law, rather than the rule of law, our U.S. Constitution, becomes the map by which we navigate life in the United States.

    The Department of Homeland Security hasn’t stopped being a “wasteful, growing, fear-mongering beast.” Is the DHS capable of plotting and planning to turn the national guard into a federalized, immigration police force? No doubt about it. Remember, this is the agency that is notorious for militarizing the police and SWAT teams; spying on activists, dissidents and veterans; stockpiling ammunition; distributing license plate readers; contracting to build detention camps; tracking cell-phones with Stingray devices; carrying out military drills and lockdowns in American cities; using the TSA as an advance guard; conducting virtual strip searches with full-body scanners; carrying out soft target checkpoints; directing government workers to spy on Americans; conducting widespread spying networks using fusion centers; carrying out Constitution-free border control searches; funding city-wide surveillance cameras; and utilizing drones and other spybots.

    The military industrial complex hasn’t stopped profiting from endless wars abroad. America’s expanding military empire continues to bleed the country dry at a rate of more than $15 billion a month (or $20 million an hour). The Pentagon spends more on war than all 50 states combined spend on health, education, welfare, and safety. Yet what most Americans fail to recognize is that these ongoing wars have little to do with keeping the country safe and everything to do with enriching the military industrial complex at taxpayer expense.

    The Deep State’s shadow government hasn’t stopped calling the shots behind the scenes. Comprised of unelected government bureaucrats, corporations, contractors, paper-pushers, and button-pushers who are actually calling the shots behind the scenes, this government within a government continues to be the real reason “we the people” have no real control over our so-called representatives. It’s every facet of a government that is no longer friendly to freedom and is working overtime to trample the Constitution underfoot and render the citizenry powerless in the face of the government’s power grabs, corruption and abusive tactics.

    And the American people haven’t stopped acting like gullible sheep. In fact, many Americans have been so carried away by their blind rank-and-file partisan devotion to their respective political gods that they have lost sight of the one thing that has remained constant in recent years: our freedoms are steadily declining.

    Here’s the problem as I see it: “we the people” have become so trusting, so gullible, so easily distracted, so out-of-touch and so sure that our government will always do the right thing by us that we have ignored the warning signs all around us.

    In so doing, we have failed to recognize such warning signs as potential red flags to use as opportunities to ask questions, demand answers, and hold our government officials accountable to respecting our rights and abiding by the rule of law.

    Unfortunately, once a free people allows the government to make inroads into their freedoms, or uses those same freedoms as bargaining chips for security, it quickly becomes a slippery slope to outright tyranny. And it doesn’t really matter whether it’s a Democrat or a Republican at the helm, because the bureaucratic mindset on both sides of the aisle now seems to embody the same philosophy of authoritarian government.

    As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, this is what happens when you ignore the warning signs.

    This is what happens when you fail to take alarm at the first experiment on your liberties.

    This is what happens when you fail to challenge injustice and government overreach until the prison doors clang shut behind you.

    In the American police state that now surrounds us, there are no longer such things as innocence, due process, or justice—at least, not in the way we once knew them. We are all potentially guilty, all potential criminals, all suspects waiting to be accused of a crime.

    So you can try to persuade yourself that you are free, that you still live in a country that values freedom, and that it is not too late to make America great again, but to anyone who has been paying attention to America’s decline over the past 50 years, it will be just another lie.

    The German people chose to ignore the truth and believe the lie.

    They were not oblivious to the horrors taking place around them. As historian Robert Gellately points out, “[A]nyone in Nazi Germany who wanted to find out about the Gestapo, the concentration camps, and the campaigns of discrimination and persecutions need only read the newspapers.”

    The warning signs were definitely there, blinking incessantly like large neon signs.

    “Still,” Gellately writes, “the vast majority voted in favor of Nazism, and in spite of what they could read in the press and hear by word of mouth about the secret police, the concentration camps, official anti-Semitism, and so on. . . . [T]here is no getting away from the fact that at that moment, ‘the vast majority of the German people backed him.’”

    Half a century later, the wife of a prominent German historian, neither of whom were members of the Nazi party, opined: “[O]n the whole, everyone felt well. . . . And there were certainly eighty percent who lived productively and positively throughout the time. . . . We also had good years. We had wonderful years.”

    In other words, as long as their creature comforts remained undiminished, as long as their bank accounts remained flush, as long as they weren’t being discriminated against, persecuted, starved, beaten, shot, stripped, jailed and turned into slave labor, life was good.

    This is how tyranny rises and freedom falls.

    As Primo Levi, a Holocaust survivor observed, “Monsters exist, but they are too few in number to be truly dangerous. More dangerous are the common men, the functionaries ready to believe and to act without asking questions.”

    Freedom demands responsibility.

    Freedom demands that people stop sleep-walking through life, stop cocooning themselves in political fantasies, and stop distracting themselves with escapist entertainment.

    Freedom demands that we stop thinking as Democrats and Republicans and start thinking like human beings, or at the very least, Americans.

    Freedom demands that we not remain silent in the face of evil or wrongdoing but actively stand against injustice.

    Freedom demands that we treat others as we would have them treat us. That is the law of reciprocity, also referred to as the Golden Rule, and it is found in nearly every world religion, including Judaism and Christianity.

    In other words, if you don’t want to be locked up in a prison cell or a detention camp—if you don’t want to be discriminated against because of the color of your race, religion, politics or anything else that sets you apart from the rest—if you don’t want your loved ones shot at, strip searched, tasered, beaten and treated like slaves—if you don’t want to have to be constantly on guard against government eyes watching what you do, where you go and what you say—if you don’t want to be tortured, waterboarded or forced to perform degrading acts—if you don’t want your children to grow up in a world without freedom—then don’t allow these evils to be inflicted on anyone else, no matter how tempting the reason or how fervently you believe in your cause.

    As German theologian and anti-Nazi dissident Dietrich Bonhoeffer observed, “We are not to simply bandage the wounds of victims beneath the wheels of injustice, we are to drive a spoke into the wheel itself.”

  • Dear Disaffected Hillary Protesters: Michael Moore Really Wants To Lead Your "Resistance"

    Michael Moore, the ultra-liberal documentary filmmaker who infamously predicted a Trump victory well before election night last November by stunningly calling Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio and Pennsylvania for the Republican nominee, has since had a noticeably difficult time processing the victory that he, himself, predicted long before anyone else.  Meanwhile, Moore’s inability to come to terms with Trump’s presence in the White House has since resulted in his very public broadcast of multiple nervous breakdowns over various social media outlets for all to see. 

    In fact, his latest “episode” came just last week when Moore lit up the Twittersphere asking Trump “What part of “vacate you Russian traitor” don’t you understand?” while threatening that “We can do this the easy way (you resign), or the hard way (impeachment).”

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    But apparently random social media rants and continuous calls for Trump’s resignation are no longer sufficient for Moore who has unilaterally taken it upon himself to organize “The RESISTANCE”, a very ‘clever’, crowd-sourced calendar featuring all of the anti-Trump rallies being organized by disaffected Hillary supporters all around the country. 

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    Resistance

     

    Meanwhile, in Facebook rant announcing the project, Moore describes the calendar as a “24/7 clearinghouse of the already MASSIVE resistance to Trump, to the Republican Congress, and, yes, to many of the spineless Democratic politicians out there.”

    GOOD NEWS FRIENDS! I’ve promised you a one-stop site, a clearinghouse of all actions — a RESISTANCE CALENDAR — where you can find EVERY upcoming action, protest, march, sit-in, town hall, anti-Trump, pro-democracy event in all 50 states! A site where YOU can post your own action so all can see it. A place where you can quickly go and check it daily, ensuring that you don’t miss any event in your area to stop the Trump madness.

     

    So, right now, I and a team of graphic designers are launching the RESISTANCE CALENDAR!

     

    In addition to you finding events in your area, we want you to be able to post any local actions you’re aware of. So much is happening so fast it’s hard to keep track of all the actions popping up — but our intention is to do just that. Every day. A 24/7 clearinghouse of the already MASSIVE resistance to Trump, to the Republican Congress, and, yes, to many of the spineless Democratic politicians out there. We welcome all resisters across the movement to use this tool. It’s completely free. There’s no big “funder” or group behind it. There will be no ads, no commercialization, no fundraising lists — all the stuff we hate. Just you, me, the volunteers donating their time to keep it going and the World Wide Web. BOOM!

     

    I sincerely hope this is a huge help and that all of you use it! Sign up on Facebook and Twitter now — and please tell your friends about it. Take a moment to add all the local events you know of. And remember — All hands on deck! It’s the only way we’re going to beat him and lessen the damage he’s doing. Our goal is his removal from office — and the defeat of any politician who isn’t with us. WE ARE THE MAJORITY.

    We must admit that we were previously somewhat dismissive of Moore’s 2AM twitter rants calling for Trump’s resignation.  That said, now that he has a calendar, we clearly see that he means business…

  • Break Up The USA?

    Submitted by Llewellyn Rockwell via The Mises Institute,

    Some of our assumptions are so deeply embedded that we cannot perceive them ourselves.

    Case in point: everyone takes for granted that it’s normal for a country of 320 million to be dictated to by a single central authority. The only debate we’re permitted to have is who should be selected to carry out this grotesque and inhumane function.

    Here’s the debate we should be having instead: what if we simply abandoned this quixotic mission, and went our separate ways? It’s an idea that’s gaining traction — much too late, to be sure, but better late than never.

    For a long time it seemed as if the idea of secession was unlikely to take hold in modern America. Schoolchildren, after all, are told to associate secession with slavery and treason. American journalists treat the idea as if it were self-evidently ridiculous and contemptible (an attitude they curiously do not adopt when faced with US war propaganda, I might add).

    And yet all it took was the election of Donald Trump for the alleged toxicity of secession to vanish entirely. The left’s principled opposition to secession and devotion to the holy Union went promptly out the window on November 8, 2016. Today, about one in three Californians polled favors the Golden State’s secession from the Union.

    In other words, some people seem to be coming to the conclusion that the whole system is rotten and should be abandoned.

    It’s true that most leftists have not come around to this way of thinking. Many have adopted the creepy slogan “not my president” – in other words, I may not want this particular person having the power to intervene in all aspects of life and holding in his hands the ability to destroy the entire earth, but I most certainly do want someone else to have those powers.

    Not exactly a head-on challenge to the system, in other words. (That’s what we libertarians are for.) The problem in their view is only that the wrong people are in charge.

    Indeed, leftists who once said “small is beautiful” and “question authority” had little trouble embracing large federal bureaucracies in charge of education, health, housing, and pretty much every important thing. And these authorities, of course, you are not to question (unless they are headed by a Trump nominee, in which case they may be temporarily ignored).

    Meanwhile, the right wing has been calling for the abolition of the Department of Education practically since its creation in 1979. That hasn’t happened, as you may have noticed. Having the agency in Republican hands became the more urgent task.

    Each side pours tremendous resources into trying to take control of the federal apparatus and lord it over the whole country.

    How about we call it quits?

    No more federal fiefdoms, no more forcing 320 million people into a single mold, no more dictating to everyone from the central state.

    Radical, yes, and surely not a perspective we were exposed to as schoolchildren. But is it so unreasonable? Is it not in fact the very height of reason and good sense? And some people, we may reasonably hope, may be prepared to consider these simple and humane questions for the very first time.

    Now can we imagine the left actually growing so unhappy as to favor secession as a genuine solution?

    Here’s what I know. On the one hand, the left made its long march through the institutions: universities, the media, popular culture. Their intention was to remake American society. The task involved an enormous amount of time and wealth. Secession would amount to abandoning this string of successes, and it’s hard to imagine them giving up in this way after sinking all those resources into the long march.

    At the same time, it’s possible that the cultural elite have come to despise the American bourgeoisie so much that they’re willing to treat all of that as a sunk cost, and simply get out.

    Whatever the case may be, what we can and should do is encourage all decentralization and secession talk, such that these heretofore forbidden options become live once again.

    I can already hear the objections from Beltway libertarians, who are not known for supporting political decentralization. To the contrary, they long for the day when libertarian judges and lawmakers will impose liberty on the entire country. And on a more basic level, they find talk of states’ rights, nullification, and secession – about which they hold the most exquisitely conventional and p.c. views – to be sources of embarrassment.

    How are they going to rub elbows with the Fed chairman if they’re associated with ideas like these?

    Of course we would like to see liberty flourish everywhere. But it’s foolish not to accept more limited victories and finite goals when these are the only realistic options.

    The great libertarians – from Felix Morley and Frank Chodorov to Murray Rothbard and Hans Hoppe — have always favored political decentralization; F.A. Hayek once said that in the future liberty was more likely to flourish in small states. This is surely the way forward for us today, if we want to see tangible changes in our lifetimes.

    Thomas Sowell referred to two competing visions that lay at the heart of so much political debate: the constrained and the unconstrained. In the constrained vision, man’s nature is not really malleable, his existence contains an element of tragedy, and there is little that politics can do by way of grandiose schemes to perfect society. In the unconstrained vision, the only limitation to how much society can be remade in the image of its political rulers is how much the rubes are willing to stomach at a given moment.

    These competing visions are reaching an endgame vis-a-vis one another. As Angelo Codevilla observes, the left has overplayed its hand. The regular folks have reached the limits of their toleration of leftist intimidation and thought control, and are hitting back.

    We can fight it out, or we can go our separate ways.

    When I say go our separate ways, I don’t mean “the left” goes one way and “the right” goes another. I mean the left goes one way and everyone else — rather a diverse group indeed — goes another. People who live for moral posturing, to broadcast their superiority over everyone else, and to steamroll differences in the name of “diversity,” should go one way, and everyone who rolls his eyes at all this should go another.

    “No people and no part of a people,” said Ludwig von Mises nearly one hundred years ago, “shall be held against its will in a political association that it does not want.” So much wisdom in that simple sentiment. And so much conflict and anguish could be avoided if only we’d heed it.

  • "It Looks Like A War Zone": Trump Vindicated After Violent Riot Erupts In Swedish Suburb

    As we reported last night, just days after the media mocked Trump for his allegations of major problems with Swedish migrant policies, the president was vindicated after a violent riot broke out in the borough of Rinkeby, also known as “little Mogadishu.” Now that the incident is over, in their “post-mortem” Swedish officials confirm that riots erupted in the “heavily immigrant Stockholm suburb” Monday night, as masked looters set cars ablaze and threw rocks at cops, injuring one police officer, Swedish officials said.

    The violence erupted just days after President Trump was ridiculed during a Saturday campaign rally for mentioning Sweden alongside a list of European targets of terror. Trump later said his “You look at what’s happening last night in Sweden” remark was in response to a Fox News report on the country’s refugee crime crisis that aired on Friday evening.

    “Sweden. They took in large numbers [of refugees],” Trump added at the Florida rally. “They’re having problems like they never thought possible.”

    Sweden’s official Twitter account – which is operated by a different user each week – tweeted at Trump on Monday morning: “Hey Don, this is @Sweden speaking! It’s nice of you to care, really, but don’t fall for the hype. Facts: We’re OK!”

    Events just hours later refuted that optimistic assessment.

    The violence in Rinkeby began around 8 p.m., when officers arrested a suspect at an underground station on drug charges, The Local reported. A group soon gathered, hurling rocks and other objects at officers and prompting one cop to fire his gun “in a situation that demanded he use his firearm,” police spokesman Lars Bystrom said.

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    Hours later, the Rinkeby riots began, with a second wave starting around 10:30 p.m. Seven or eight cars were set on fire and many stores saw looting, The Local reported. A photographer from media outlet Dagens Nyheter said a group of 15 people beat him as he tried to document the chaos. Swedish Police were forced to fire warning shots at the unidentified group of rioting protesters, who set cars on fire, throwing stones at police and looting local stores.

    A police officer was injured during the clashes, forcing law enforcers to fire several warning shots at the crowd, Swedish public service broadcaster SVT reported, citing a local police spokesperson.

    A policeman investigates a burnt car in Rinkeby, Sweden February 21, 2017

    The silver lining is that “nobody has been found injured at the scene and we have checked the hospitals and there hasn’t been anyone with what could be gunshot wounds,” Bystrom added.

    “I was hit with a lot of punches and kicks both to my body and my head. I have spent the night in hospital,” said the photographer, who was not named. “It looks like a war zone” he added.

    The rioting ended just after midnight.

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    No arrests were made; however, reports were filed on three violent acts, violence against a police officer, two assaults, vandalism and aggravated thefts, authorities said.

    Firefighters survey the scene in the suburb of Rinkeby where riots erupted on Monday night.

    As we reported last night, Rinkeby is the same area where an Australian “60 Minutes” crew was attacked by a group of men in April 2016. The film crew was attempting to enter a so-called “no go zone,” which authorities deny they use as a label. Rinkeby, however, has been officially classified as one of 15 “particularly vulnerable” areas across Sweden.

    The country’s prime minister, Stefan Lofven, said Monday, “Yes, we have challenges like all other countries. There’s no doubt. We have a situation in the world where 65 million people had to flee their countries last year, the year before that. 65 million. So that’s a war for us together.” He also said Sweden was investing more in housing, technology and its welfare system.

    Reports of rapes in Sweden jumped 13 percent in 2016 compared to the previous year, and reports of sexual assaults were up 20 percent, according to preliminary data from the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention. Recent migration to Sweden hit its peak in 2015 with more than 160,000 asylum applications. It dropped to almost 30,000 in 2016.

    The mainstream media, so eager to mock Trump’s “error” on Saturday, has been oddly delayed in reporting on last night’s Swedish violence.

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Feb 21

Today’s News 21st February 2017

  • Don’t Short This Dog, Report 20 Feb, 2017

    This week, the prices of the metals mostly moved sideways. There was a rise on Thursday but it corrected back to basically unchanged on Friday.

    This will again be a brief Report, as yesterday was a holiday in the US.

    Below, we will show the only true picture of the gold and silver supply and demand fundamentals. But first, the price and ratio charts.

    The Prices of Gold and Silver
    The Prices of Gold and Silver

    Next, this is a graph of the gold price measured in silver, otherwise known as the gold to silver ratio. It moved sideways this week.

    The Ratio of the Gold Price to the Silver Price
    The Ratio of the Gold Price to the Silver Price

    For each metal, we will look at a graph of the basis and cobasis overlaid with the price of the dollar in terms of the respective metal. It will make it easier to provide brief commentary. The dollar will be represented in green, the basis in blue and cobasis in red.

    Here is the gold graph.

    The Gold Basis and Cobasis and the Dollar Price
    The Gold Basis and Cobasis and the Dollar Price

    The price was unchanged, but the basis is up slightly and cobasis is down (i.e. gold became slightly more abundant). This is not the news dollar shorters (i.e. those betting on the gold price) want to see.

    Our calculated fundamental price is all but unchanged around $1,360.

    Now let’s look at silver.

    The Silver Basis and Cobasis and the Dollar Price
    The Silver Basis and Cobasis and the Dollar Price

    In silver, the basis is basically unchanged but the cobasis went up a bit. The silver market got just a bit tighter, and our calculated fundamental price is up more than 30 cents to about a quarter above the market price. Not exactly “bet the farm with leverage territory”, but definitely not “short this dog” either.

    Watch this space. We have some exciting data science to reveal soon.

    © 2016 Monetary Metals

  • Stockman Warns Trump "Flynn's Gone But They're Still Gunning For You, Donald"

    Submitted by David Stockman via The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity,

    General Flynn's tenure in the White House was only slightly longer than that of President-elect William Henry Harrison in 1841.  Actually, with just 24 days in the White House, General Flynn's tenure fell a tad short of old "Tippecanoe and Tyler Too".  General Harrison actually lasted 31 days before getting felled by pneumonia.

    And the circumstances were considerably more benign. It seems that General Harrison had a fondness for the same "firewater" that agitated the native Americans he slaughtered at the famous battle memorialized in his campaign slogan. In fact, during the campaign a leading Democrat newspaper skewered the old general, who at 68 was the oldest US President prior to Ronald Reagan, saying:

    Give him a barrel of hard [alcoholic] cider, and… a pension of two thousand [dollars] a year… and… he will sit the remainder of his days in his log cabin.

    That might have been a good idea back then (or even now), but to prove he wasn't infirm, Harrison gave the longest inaugural address in US history (2 hours) in the midst of seriously inclement weather wearing neither hat nor coat.

    That's how he got pneumonia! Call it foolhardy, but that was nothing compared to that exhibited by Donald Trump's former national security advisor.

    General Flynn got the equivalent of political pneumonia by talking for hours during the transition to international leaders, including Russia's ambassador to the US, on phone lines which were bugged by the CIA. Or more accurately, making calls which were "intercepted" by the very same NSA/FBI spy machinery that monitors every single phone call made in America.

    Ironically, we learned what Flynn should have known about the Deep State's plenary surveillance from Edward Snowden. Alas, Flynn and Trump wanted the latter to be hung in the public square as a "traitor", but if that's the solution to intelligence community leaks, the Donald is now going to need his own rope factory to deal with the flood of traitorous disclosures directed against him.

    In any event, it was "intercepts" leaked from deep in the bowels of the CIA to the Washington Post and then amplified in a 24/7 campaign by the War Channel (CNN) that brought General Flynn down.

    But here's the thing. They were aiming at Donald J. Trump. And for all of his puffed up bluster about being the savviest negotiator on the planet, the Donald walked right into their trap, as we shall amplify momentarily.

    But let's first make the essence of the matter absolutely clear. The whole Flynn imbroglio is not about a violation of the Logan Act owing to the fact that the general engaged in diplomacy as a private citizen.

    It's about re-litigating the 2016 election based on the hideous lie that Trump stole it with the help of Vladimir Putin. In fact, Nancy Pelosi was quick to say just that:

    'The American people deserve to know the full extent of Russia's financial, personal and political grip on President Trump and what that means for our national security,' House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said in a press release.

    Yet, we should rephrase. The re-litigation aspect reaches back to the Republican primaries, too. The Senate GOP clowns who want a war with practically everybody, John McCain and Lindsey Graham, are already launching their own investigation from the Senate Armed Services committee.

    And Senator Graham, the member of the boobsey twins who ran for President in 2016 while getting a GOP primary vote from virtually nobody,  made clear that General Flynn's real sin was a potential peace overture to the Russians:

    Sen. Lindsey Graham also said he wants an investigation into Flynn's conversations with a Russian ambassador about sanctions: "I think Congress needs to be informed of what actually Gen. Flynn said to the Russian ambassador about lifting sanctions," the South Carolina Republican told CNN's Kate Bolduan on "At This Hour. And I want to know, did Gen. Flynn do this by himself or was he directed by somebody to do it?"

    We say good riddance to Flynn, of course, because he was a shrill anti-Iranian warmonger. But let's also not be fooled by the clinical term at the heart of the story. That is, "intercepts" mean that the Deep State taps the phone calls of the President's own closest advisors as a matter of course.

    This is the real scandal as Trump himself has rightly asserted. The very idea that the already announced #1 national security advisor to a President-elect should be subject to old-fashion "bugging," albeit with modern day technology, overwhelmingly trumps the utterly specious Logan Act charge at the center of the case.

    As one writer for LawNewz noted regarding acting Attorney General Sally Yates' voyeuristic pre-occupation with Flynn's intercepted conversations, Nixon should be rolling in his grave with envy:

    Now, information leaks that Sally Yates knew about surveillance being conducted against potential members of the Trump administration, and disclosed that information to others. Even Richard Nixon didn’t use the government agencies themselves to do his black bag surveillance operations. Sally Yates involvement with this surveillance on American political opponents, and possibly the leaking related thereto, smacks of a return to Hoover-style tactics. As writers at Bloomberg and The Week both noted, it wreaks of 'police-state' style tactics. But knowing dear Sally as I do, it comes as no surprise.

    Yes, that's the same career apparatchik of the permanent government that Obama left behind to continue the 2016 election by other means. And it's working. The Donald is being rapidly emasculated by the powers that be in the Imperial City due to what can only be described as an audacious and self-evident attack on Trump's Presidency by the Deep State.

    Indeed, it seems that the layers of intrigue have gotten so deep and convoluted that the nominal leadership of the permanent  government machinery has lost track of who is spying on whom. Thus, we have the following curious utterance by none other than the Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Devin Nunes:

    'I expect for the FBI to tell me what is going on, and they better have a good answer,' he told The Washington Post. 'The big problem I see here is that you have an American citizen who had his phone calls recorded.'

    Well, yes. That makes 324 million of us, Congressman.

    But for crying out loud, surely the oh so self-important chairman of the House intelligence committee knows that everybody is bugged. But when it reaches the point that the spy state is essentially using its unconstitutional tools to engage in what amounts to "opposition research" with the aim of election nullification, then the Imperial City has become a clear and present danger to American democracy and the liberties of the American people.

    As Robert Barnes of LawNewz further explained, Sally Yates, former CIA director John Brennan and a large slice of the Never Trumper intelligence community were systematically engaged in "opposition research" during the campaign and the transition:

    According to published reports, someone was eavesdropping, and recording, the conversations of Michael Flynn, while Sally Yates was at the Department of Justice. Sally Yates knew about this eavesdropping, listened in herself (Pellicano-style for those who remember the infamous LA cases), and reported what she heard to others. For Yates to have such access means she herself must have been involved in authorizing its disclosure to political appointees, since she herself is such a political appointee. What justification was there for an Obama appointee to be spying on the conversations of a future Trump appointee?

    Consider this little tidbit in The Washington Post. The paper, which once broke Watergate, is now propagating the benefits of Watergate-style surveillance in ways that do make Watergate look like a third-rate effort.  (With the) FBI 'routinely' monitoring conversations of Americans…… Yates listened to 'the intercepted call,' even though Yates knew there was 'little chance' of any credible case being made for prosecution under a law 'that has never been used in a prosecution.'

    And well it hasn't been. After all, the Logan Act was signed by President John Adams in 1799 in order to punish one of Thomas Jefferson's supporters for having peace discussions with the French government in Paris. That is, it amounted to pre-litigating the Presidential campaign of 1800 based on sheer political motivation.

    According to the Washington Post itself, that is exactly what Yates and the Obama holdovers did day and night during the interregnum:

    Indeed, the paper details an apparent effort by Yates to misuse her office to launch a full-scale secret investigation of her political opponents, including 'intercepting calls' of her political adversaries.

    So all of the feigned outrage emanating from Democrats and the Washington establishment about Team Trump's trafficking with the Russians is a cover story. Surely anyone even vaguely familiar with recent history would have known there was absolutely nothing illegal or even untoward about Flynn's post-Christmas conversations with the Russian Ambassador.

    Indeed, we recall from personal experience the thrilling moment on inauguration day in January 1981 when word came of the release of the American hostages in Tehran. Let us assure you, that did not happen by immaculate diplomatic conception — nor was it a parting gift to the Gipper by the outgoing Carter Administration.

    To the contrary, it was the fruit of secret negotiations with the Iranian government during the transition by private American citizens. As the history books would have it because it's true, the leader of that negotiation, in fact, was Ronald Reagan's national security council director-designate, Dick Allen.

    As the real Washington Post later reported, under the by-line of a real reporter, Bob Woodward:

    Reagan campaign aides met in a Washington DC hotel in early October, 1980, with a self-described 'Iranian exile' who offered, on behalf of the Iranian government, to release the hostages to Reagan, not Carter, in order to ensure Carter's defeat in the November 4, 1980 election.

    The American participants were Richard Allen, subsequently Reagan's first national security adviser, Allen aide Laurence Silberman, and Robert McFarlane, another future national security adviser who in 1980 was on the staff of Senator John Tower (R-TX).

    To this day we have not had occasion to visit our old friend Dick Allen in the US penitentiary because he's not there; the Logan Act was never invoked in what is surely the most blatant case ever of citizen diplomacy.

    So let's get to the heart of the matter and be done with it. The Obama White House conducted a sour grapes campaign to delegitimize the election beginning November 9th and it was led by then CIA Director John Brennan.

    That treacherous assault on the core constitutional matter of the election process culminated in the ridiculous Russian meddling report of the Obama White House in December. The latter, of course, was issued by serial liar James Clapper, as national intelligence director, and the clueless Democrat lawyer and bag-man, Jeh Johnson, who had been appointed head of the Homeland Security Department.

    Yet on the basis of  the report's absolutely zero evidence and endless surmise, innuendo and "assessments", the Obama White House imposed another round of its silly school-boy sanctions on a handful of Putin's cronies.

    Of course, Flynn should have been telling the Russian Ambassador that this nonsense would be soon reversed!

    But here is the ultimate folly. The mainstream media talking heads are harrumphing loudly about the fact that the very day following Flynn's call — Vladimir Putin announced that he would not retaliate against the new Obama sanctions as expected; and shortly thereafter, the Donald tweeted that Putin had shown admirable wisdom.

    That's right. Two reasonably adult statesman undertook what might be called the Christmas Truce of 2016. But like its namesake of 1914 on the bloody no man's land of the western front, the War Party has determined that the truce-makers shall not survive.

    The Donald has been warned.

  • UK Police Chief: Former British PM Was HUGE Pedo, Establishment Covered Up

    In the four weeks since Donald Trump’s inauguration there have been a record number of human trafficking arrests – including the largest bust in US history which received virtually no MSM attention. In total, over 1500 suspects have been taken down, including high profile serial child molester Jerry Sandusky’s adopted son, Jeffrey Sandusky, who was arrested a week ago on charges of sexually assaulting two minors and sending Anthony Weiner-esque texts.

    And it’s way more than just domestic busts in the United States; two days before the Clinton Foundation pulled out of Haiti, a sting rescued at least 31 victims of human trafficking right next to where Bill and Hillary spent their honeymoon. There have also been international busts in Quebec, a huge takedown in Japan, and another in Ghana. A little over two weeks ago, a fifth of the “dark web” was taken down – around half of which was related to human trafficking and pedophilia.

    Even before Trump’s inauguration but after the US election, Norway (around the same time they eliminated almost all contributions to the Clinton Foundation) conducted a gigantic takedown of a child-porn ring, which the New York Times initially reported on but then deleted from their website. Not surprising, considering the NYT’s history of defending pedophilia – which I’m sure has nothing to do with CEO Mark Thompson’s career spent covering up or otherwise “normalizing” the heinous proclivity.

    The latest revelation comes from Wiltshire, UK police chief Mike Veale, who sources say is certain that long-suspected former British Prime Minister – Sir Edward Heath, was in fact a huge pedophile; allegations Veale believes are “120 percent” genuine:

    More than 30 people have come forward with claims of sexual abuse by the former Conservative Prime Minister, according to well-placed sources. And they are said to have given ‘strikingly similar’ accounts of incidents to Wiltshire Police – even though the individuals are not known to each other. 

     

    Astonishingly, Mr Veale is also understood to support claims that Sir Edward’s alleged crimes were reported to police years ago but covered up by the Establishment.


    The investigation into Sir Edward, called Operation Conifer, was set up in 2015 in the wake of the Jimmy Savile scandal.

    –DailyMail

    Veale, in response to the leaked “120 percent” headline, called the speculation “unhelpful,” though he did not deny he said it:

    “In relation to the recent unhelpful speculation regarding the veracity of the allegations made, let me once again be clear, it is not the role of the police to judge the guilt or innocence of people in our criminal justice system. –The Guardian

    Let’s take a quick look at the Savile case that NYT boss Mark Thompson swept under the rug, and which launched Veale’s investigation:

    Of note, Savile was good friends with Prince Charles and disgraced pedophile bishop Peter Ball. Yikes.

    Indeed, it looks like it’s open season on human traffickers and child predators around the world. If all of these recent busts are Trump’s way of setting the stage for those high profile arrests we keep hearing whispers about – it’s a brilliant strategy, even if the MSM has been deafeningly quiet on the topic.

    This official ad from Trump’s Department of Homeland Security and ICE is telling:

    //platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    At this rate I think it’s safe to say we can all look forward to more episodes of To Catch a Pedator…

     

    Content originally generated at iBankCoin.com * Follow on Twitter @ZeroPointNow

  • Government Knows Best – Junk Food Ban Goes Global

    Obesity is a ‘big’ (pardon the pun) problem in the Pacific Islands.  In fact, a recent World Bank study found that over half the adult population in 16 of the 17 Pacific Island countries and territories were obese while over 75% of the population was obese in 11 of those counties.

    Pacific Island Obesity

     

    So what do you do when you just can’t count on citizens to make sound judgements about their own personal health decisions?  Well, you call in the Nanny State to ban sodas and sugary snacks, of course…which, according to the New York Times, is exactly what the tiny Pacific island nation of Vanuatu is doing.

    While many governments struggle to ban soda to curb obesity, the tiny Torba Tourism Council in the remote Pacific island nation of Vanuatu is planning to outlaw all imported food at government functions and tourist establishments across the province’s 13 inhabited islands.

     

    Provincial leaders hope to turn them instead into havens of local organic food. The ban, scheduled to take effect in March, comes as many Pacific island nations struggle with an obesity crisis brought on in part by the overconsumption of imported junk food.

     

    “We want to ban all other junk food from this province,” Luke Dini, the council’s chairman and a retired Anglican priest, said in a telephone interview from Torba. He said the province had about 9,000 residents and got fewer than 1,000 tourists a year, mostly Europeans.

    Nanny State

     

    Not surprisingly, so-called “public health experts” have praised Vanuatu’s ban on imported food while blasting international consumer goods companies for “exploiting these nations by providing a food supply that is not, in the long term, better for health” while “decimating” local populations.

    Public health experts who study the island nations of the Pacific welcomed the ban, saying that bold measures were necessary for an impoverished and isolated region of 10 million people — one where the cost of sending legions of patients abroad for dialysis treatment or kidney transplants is untenable.

     

    “Imagine if 75 million Americans had diabetes — that’s the scale of the epidemic we’re talking about in Vanuatu,” Roger Magnusson, a professor of health law and governance at Sydney Law School in Australia, said in an email.

     

    “Can anyone seriously say that Vanuatu doesn’t have the right to exercise its health sovereignty in every way possible to protect its population from an epidemic of that scale?” he added.

     

    “It is so wrong what is being done to exploit these nations by providing a food supply that is not, in the long term, better for health,” said Elaine Rush, a professor of nutrition at the Auckland University of Technology in New Zealand who has studied health problems in the Pacific islands. She described the effect that the health crisis was having on families there as “decimating.”

    Of course, there are just a couple of small problems with the “evil corporation” theory as presented by “public health experts” and the New York Times.  Unfortunately, while the “health experts” would like for you to believe that obesity is a new problem plaguing the people of the Pacific islands, as Wendy Snowden of the World Health Organization points out, in reality obesity rates on these islands were simply “higher to start with.”  Moreover, as Snowden also notes, one other small problem is that no level of “taxes and prohibitions” on sugary food products has “been able to demonstrate reductions in obesity prevalence.”

    Still, Dr. Snowdon said, the taxes and prohibitions on drinks in the Pacific islands — along with education, food labeling and school-nutrition programs — have not reduced the region’s overall incidence of obesity or its associated health problems.

     

    “No country in the world has been able to demonstrate reductions in its obesity prevalence, so we’re not that different,” she said. “It’s just that our levels are higher to start with.”

    But rest assured, dear citizens of the world, that your Nanny State’s aggressive, invasive policies stripping you of your basic personal liberties are intended for your own good and are in no way a meaningless attempt to cram their liberal agendas down your throat at all costs, irrespective of scientific data proving their complete lack of effectiveness in achieving their stated goals.

  • The Billionaire-Owned, Corporate Media Is As Worthless As Ever

    Submitted by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,

    I think the U.S. citizenry is being afflicted by a sort of mass insanity at the moment. There are no good outcomes if this continues. As a result, I feel compelled to provide a voice for those of us lost in the political wilderness. We must persevere and not be manipulated into the obvious and nefarious divide and conquer tactics being aggressively unleashed across the societal spectrum. If we lose our grounding and our fortitude, who will be left to speak for those of us who simply don’t fit into any of the currently ascendant political ideologies?

     

    From the post: Lost in the Political Wilderness

    Rather than focus its journalistic energy on chronicling the economic insecurity plaguing so many of our fellow Americans, the billionaire-owned corporate media appears entirely obsessed with chattering endlessly about Russia conspiracy theories and domestic coup plots. Instead of looking in the mirror and admitting how its countless errors and propaganda pushing led to multiple humanitarian disasters over the last couple of decades, the oligarch-owned mainstream media insist upon a narrative that Trump the individual is at the root of our problems, as opposed to an entrenched executive branch with excessive power. This is because the mainstream media isn’t actually concerned about our cancerous, systemic metastasizing statism, it merely doesn’t want Trump in charge of it. I, on the other hand, want to dismantle that unconstitutional state entirely and transfer power to the American people where it belongs — self-government. Does anyone actually think for a second the media would be this adversarial if Hillary won?

    This weekend’s article by Nicholas Kristof in The New York Times represents a sort of coming out party for the billionaire-owned, corporate media. More than anything else I’ve seen, it perfectly demonstrates how completely disconnected and worthless billionaire-owned media truly is. It’s the height of absurdity that these media organizations, owned by billionaires or giant corporate conglomerates, are playing the victim in all this when they’ve been the world’s primary abuser for the entire 21st century.

    You can be a staunch defender of the free press and the 1st Amendment, and at the same time point out that the billionaire-owned media has failed us. This is my position, and Trump’s election hasn’t changed that. The handful of corporations and billionaires who control the mainstream press does not = “the press.” They (and the deep state) are currently trying to convince the public that they’re the only ones standing between you and fascism. This is complete stupidity, and if we fall for it, we will get what we deserve.

    The billionaire-owned media is far more complicit in creating the imperial Presidency than Donald Trump, he merely figured out a way to get control of it. Now these same charlatans are pretending to put out a fire they themselves started, and want to be celebrated for being so courageous. This is eerily similar to the scam pulled off by the Federal Reserve during and after the financial crisis.

    With that introduction out of the way, let’s take a look at a few excerpts from the mind-bogglingly explicit piece in this past weekend’s New York Times, titled brazenly enough, How Can We Get Rid of Trump?

    Maybe things will settle down. But what is striking about Trump is not just the dysfunction of his administration but also the — vigorously denied — allegations that Trump’s team may have cooperated with Vladimir Putin to steal the election. What’s also different is the broad concern that Trump is both: A) unfit for office, and B) dangerously unstable. One pro-American leader in a foreign country called me up the other day and skipped the preliminaries, starting with: “What the [expletive] is wrong with your country?”

     

    So let’s investigate: Is there any way out?

     

    Trump still has significant political support, so the obstacles are gargantuan. But the cleanest and quickest way to remove a president involves Section 4 of the 25th Amendment and has never been attempted. It provides that the cabinet can, by a simple majority vote, strip the president of his powers and immediately hand power to the vice president. The catch is that the ousted president can object, and in that case Congress must approve the ouster by a two-thirds vote in each chamber, or the president regains office.

    It’s never been attempted in the history of the country, but let’s promote it anyway!

    The 25th Amendment route is to be used when a president is “unable” to carry out his duties. I asked Laurence Tribe, the Harvard professor of constitutional law, whether that could mean not just physical incapacity, but also mental instability. Or, say, the taint of having secretly colluded with Russia to steal an election?

     

    Tribe said that he believed Section 4 could be used in such a situation.

     

    “In the unlikely event that Pence and a majority of Trump’s bizarre cabinet were to grow the spine needed to do the right thing with the process set up by that provision, we would surely be in a situation where a very large majority of the public, including a very substantial percentage of Trump’s supporters, would back if not insist upon such a move,” Tribe said. “In that circumstance, I can’t imagine Trump and his lawyers succeeding in getting the federal courts to interfere.”

    As a reminder, here’s an example of the intellectual and ethical wasteland known as Laurene Tribe’s mind as of late:

    Now back to Kristof.

    The better known route is impeachment. But for now it’s hard to imagine a majority of the House voting to impeach, and even less conceivable that two-thirds of the Senate would vote to convict so that Trump would be removed. Moreover, impeachment and trial in the Senate would drag on for months, paralyzing America and leaving Trump in office with his finger on the nuclear trigger.

    In Kristof’s mind, a major downside to pursuing impeachment is that it won’t get rid of Trump fast enough. Is this really a paper the public can remotely trust to report on the country’s problems in a fair manner?

    Now here’s where it starts to get simply comical. Kristoff writes:

    Some people believe that the 2018 midterm elections will be so catastrophic for the G.O.P. that everyone will be ready to get rid of him. I’m skeptical. In the Senate, the map is disastrous for Democrats in 2018: The Republicans will be defending only eight Senate seats, while Democrats will in effect be defending 25.

     

    So while Democrats can gnash their teeth, it’ll be up to Republicans to decide whether to force Trump out. And that won’t happen unless they see him as ruining their party as well as the nation.

    Perhaps instead of “gnashing their teeth,” Democrats could come up with a coherent platform that doesn’t revolve around worshiping Wall Street.

    Finally, here’s how Kristoff ends his pathetic plea for overthrowing Trump.

    And what does it say about a presidency that, just one month into it, we’re already discussing whether it can be ended early?

    No Nicholas, “we” aren’t already discussing it. You are. You and your media peers. Which brings me to the most infuriating aspect of what is happening in American discourse today. What is someone like me, who dislikes Trump, but dislikes the corporate media even more, supposed to do?

    This is the uncomfortable position I find myself in today, and if I’m there, millions of others are there as well. Trump understands this, which is why he continues his unrelenting attacks on elements of the corporate press. Personally, my dislike of Trump would be far more acute if not for my total disdain for the billionaire-owned media. Journalists are supposed to be adversarial toward power generally, not pick and choose which powerful figures to challenge based on political ideology. The corporate media has clearly failed the country, thus Trump is being politically savvy by picking a fight with it. As I noted last week on Twitter:

    //platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    Once again, the corporate media is proving its worthlessness by making everything about a man, as opposed to the systemic disaster that is the oligarch-controlled society we live in. The current President isn’t charismatic enough, and doesn’t espouse the right platitudes when he bombs Muslim women and children. That’s the media’s red line apparently. If it sounds like I’m against everything, there’s a reason. Our culture is deranged and corporate media deserves a lot of the blame.

    Finally, here’s an article published by Forbes last year to get you up to speed on what we’re up against: These 15 Billionaires Own America’s News Media Companies.

    Billionaires don’t buy media outlets to make money, they already have that. They buy them to manipulate public opinion.

  • People Are Suddenly Worried About China (Again)

    Considering that in the past 3 months the only daily topic of relevance for the media has been “Donald Trump” both in the US and abroad, one would assume that when it comes to global policy uncertainty the primary source would be, record S&P 500 paradoxically notwithstanding, the United States. One would also be wrong, because while Trump seemingly remains the only topic worthy of discussion blanketing the airwaves, as the following chart from Goldman demonstrates, it has been China where policy uncertainty has stealthily exploded in the past three months according to policyuncertainty.com, while making virtually no new headlines.

    But how is it possible that China, which is seemingly far more “concerning” at this moment than it was a year ago when fears about Chinese financial conditions and devaluation led to global market selloff and pushed the S&P into correction, has had virtually no impact on risk assets so far in 2017: clearly either the chart above, or the market, is wrong.

    Conveneintly it is the same Goldman which has published an exhaustive report laying out the key risks to China’s growth, many of which have been discounted by the market which erroneously assumes that just because the world went though a China “scare” period one year ago, that the world’s second biggest economy remains contained. Far from it.

    For those pressed for time, below is the summary of Goldman’s “Risks To China’s growth In The Year of the rooster” report, from the team of MK Tan:

    • After meeting the 2016 growth target, Chinese policymakers are focused on stability ahead of the upcoming leadership reshuffling. This relative calm–we expect only a modest deceleration in growth in the Year of the Rooster—is coming at the cost of further increases in credit and other imbalances. Meanwhile, markets have tempered their acute bearishness on the Chinese economy and are focused on policy and politics in the US and Europe. Still, with growth arguably above potential and Chinese policy tightening, we think a review of China-related risks is timely. We separate risks into those emanating from the Chinese economy itself, and adverse shocks from abroad.
    • Domestically, our concerns center on the ongoing credit boom and the calibration of policy tightening. A fading “credit impulse” to growth seems likely, with cyclical sectors like housing apt to slow this year—even if low reliance on foreign funding and strong government influence on bank lending and bond purchases reduce the risk of an acute credit crunch. As for policy tightening, policymakers have tried to balance growth targets with financial stability, but inflation could become a new constraint as potential growth declines.
    • The biggest risks for China from abroad are an accelerated pace of Fed tightening and/or US protectionism. As for the former, with two Fed hikes already priced in for 2017, it would probably take a shift into more hawkish territory than our own forecast (three hikes) to cause a major shock. As for the latter, the most disruptive measures would be a large across-the-board tariff on China or the “border-adjusted cash flow tax” under consideration by the House of Representatives. Either could impose a meaningful hit to Chinese exports and growth, as well as exacerbating capital outflow and financial stability risks.
    • If one or more of these risks materializes, a Chinese slowdown would be transmitted to other countries through three main channels: slowing goods imports from the rest of the world, falling commodity prices, and tighter financial conditions (most likely via a stronger USD and weaker equity prices). Open Asian economies, particularly those with commodity exposure and/or dollar indebtedness, remain the most vulnerable to a “hard landing” in China.

    * * *

    Those interested in the details behind the report are encouraged to read on for the key select excerpts:

    Introduction

    A year ago, markets were abuzz over the possibility of a financial calamity in China and/or a “big deval” in the currency. Market pricing implied the likelihood of substantial equity price moves and CNY depreciation (Exhibit 1). Fears of a China crisis reverberated through global markets, tightening financial conditions around the world and pushing the US Federal Reserve to postpone its plans for further rate hikes.

    Exhbit 1: China’s equity and currency markets were both under stress a year ago

    Chinese policymakers wrestled with challenges throughout 2016, but large and sustained policy stimulus eventually fostered recovery. Fiscal and regulatory easing, alongside continued rapid credit growth, underpinned strong growth in infrastructure spending and a rebound in cyclical sectors like property and motor vehicles. Real GDP growth came in on target (6.7% versus a 6.5%-7.0% target range), and alternative measures of activity also improved (Exhibit 2). Our China Current Activity Indicator bottomed out at 4.3% (see dark line in Exhibit 2; this is measured on a three-month, three-month annualized basis) in early 2015, recovered to the mid-5% range last year, and is now running at 6.9%. Heavy industry, as proxied by our physical output measure (gray line in Exhibit 2), has seen an even more pronounced reacceleration.

    Exhibit 2: After a tough 2015, our measures of Chinese growth accelerated in 2016

    Now, while forecasters still expect a little slowing in growth and some further depreciation in the renminbi, the focus is much more on policy in the US and Europe. In the US, President Trump’s tweets have spawned a cottage industry of interpreters vying to understand where policy may head in the coming year. Across the Atlantic, the road map for “Brexit” as well as continued uncertainty about politics in the rest of the Eurozone occupies many market participants. While we subscribe to the view that Chinese policymakers will manage through the year with reasonably high growth, it is still prudent to review the risks ahead.

    After the roller coaster of the past year, most observers expect Chinese policymakers to make significant efforts to keep growth stable this year and try to reduce volatility in financial markets. Indeed, commentary following December’s Central Economic Work Conference suggested that “controlling financial risks” may even take precedence over the growth target—a sensible ordering of priorities, in our view. Still, even if the Communist Party of China (CPC)’s long-term commitment to double income in this decade—as promulgated by the previous administration and reiterated last year by many senior officials—is pushed out by a year or two, it continues to carry some weight. We therefore expect the growth target to be near 6.5% for 2017, and policymakers to accept only limited flexibility around this target (sub-6% GDP growth is unlikely to be acceptable). A special motivation for minimizing market and economic “noise” in 2017 is the upcoming 19th Party Congress and associated leadership reshuffling, which will involve the majority of members in the Politburo and Standing Committee of the CPC. 

    Global financial markets seem to have bought into the notion that China-related risks will be managed, shrugging off China’s significant bond and FX market volatility in recent months. Substantial capital outflows and CNY depreciation against the USD continued in late 2016 but have not (yet) resulted in substantial tightening in global financial conditions, unlike last year (Exhibit 3).

    Exhibit 3: Less spillover from China to US financial conditions recently

    The aforementioned improvement in growth, alongside clearer messages from policymakers (publicly rejecting a large devaluation and holding the trade-weighted renminbi stable since mid-2016) and friendlier global conditions (a more dovish Fed in particular) have all helped.

    What could bring China fears to the fore again, and cause the markets to change their assessment?

    We explore some possible paths to a “hard landing” in China. (For the purposes of this discussion we define a “hard landing” as a drop of at least 4pp in our China Current Activity Indicator within one year—on this basis we’ve had a few near misses in the last few years, most recently in early 2015, but no hard landing. From the current growth pace, this would imply a drop in CAI to the mid-2% range or below.) We divide our review into external shocks and then domestic vulnerabilities, although clearly the two interact with each other. We emphasize these risks are not part of our baseline scenario for China in 2017, though they are more than mere “tail risks”.

    Domestic vulnerabilities—credit and policy miscalibration

    We see two principal risks domestically. The first is an abrupt end to China’s credit boom.

    A widespread perception of a “policy put”, implicit guarantees to state enterprises and governments at all levels, and generally strong growth have underpinned the stability of the financial system. They have also encouraged rapid growth in leverage, including a reacceleration in 2015-16 (Exhibit 4).[5] China’s post-GFC credit boom has taken debt levels well beyond those of EM peers (Exhibit 5).

    Exhibit 4: Credit growth has reaccelerated since 2015 and is well in excess of nominal GDP growth

    Exhibit 5: China’s debt level well above EM peers 

    Sustained debt booms typically lead to slower growth, greater financial volatility, and heightened risk of a financial crisis. Looking at more than a century of historical data, we found that a “large domestic debt boom” lasting at least 7 years where the debt-to-GDP ratio increases by over 52pp—China’s easily qualifies—is typically followed by a 2pp slowdown in growth and a heightened risk of financial crisis (Exhibits 6 and 7).

    Exhibit 6: Real GDP growth decelerates after debt booms: Real GDP growth relative to average during debt boom period

    Exhibit 7: Financial crises common but not inevitable in large-country domestic debt booms

    Another way to look at the potential growth consequences is to estimate the negative “credit impulse” if credit growth were to slow to half its current pace. Using our past analysis of the relationship between credit and growth, and assuming a deceleration over one year, this would slow growth by 2-3pp or more (a more gradual deceleration would spread this growth hit over a longer period). 

    We have seen credit booms end because of intentional tightening (Japan, where policymakers raised interest rates and imposed credit controls), external shocks (capital outflows in the Asia Financial Crisis), or to some extent collapsing under their own weight (the United States, where rising defaults led to a vicious cycle of tighter credit, falling asset prices, and weaker growth). Similarly, a structural break in China’s credit expansion—a sharp tightening in credit availability—could occur because of a deliberate policy shift or because imbalances have simply grown too large to be sustained (more on both below). Regardless of the trigger, a supply-driven tightening in credit would have highly negative consequences for growth.

    Chinese policymakers are trying to avoid this sort of sharp pullback. Perhaps with the US experience in mind, they have been particularly attentive to “shadow banking” risks, recently taking steps to regulate off-balance sheet activities such as wealth management products, and to increase the cost of repo financing that is often used to fund shadow banking activity, even at the cost of prompting a significant bond market selloff in late 2016. In this context, our forecast remains for a “bumpy deceleration” in growth rather than a hard landing, though the longer the credit boom continues, the more difficult it will be to guide the economy to a soft landing.

    The second domestic risk is a major policy tightening. This could be intentional or unintentional, although we view the latter as much more plausible. 

    Chinese policymakers’ growth goals appear increasingly likely to conflict with supply-side constraints. Historically, the growth target was a “policy put” that was out of the money—a reassurance that growth would not be allowed to drop too far. However, in recent years the target appears to have become a binding constraint on policy. Actual growth is near the target instead of well above it (Exhibit 8), and our estimates suggest potential growth is slightly lower (near or below 6%).

    To meet the GDP growth targets, credit growth has boomed, as noted in the previous section, and a key driver of demand for that credit has been a large increase in the broadly-defined fiscal deficit (Exhibit 9). Indeed, a portion of the fiscal expansion has been underwritten by the central bank itself in the form of rising credit to the banking sector (e.g., “pledged supplementary lending” to policy banks such as CDB; see Exhibit 10). 

    Attempting to boost growth above its potential rate for a sustained period is likely to lead to rising inflation and/or unsustainable asset price appreciation. We have already seen a large run-up in housing prices, substantial capital outflow pressures, and a sharp turnaround in producer prices (although we would attribute the latter primarily to CNY depreciation and upstream supply-side constraints rather than demand stimulus). As yet, CPI inflation is modest (Exhibit 11), but inflation could eventually force more difficult tradeoffs—and possibly a harsh policy tightening–if growth targets are not tempered further.

    With growth in the target range for now, policymakers have begun tightening on a number of fronts to address these risks:

    • Housing restrictions in tier 1 and 2 cities, mostly on the demand side, to address surging home prices.
    • Regulation of “shadow banking” activities such as wealth management products to limit liquidity risks and overall credit growth.
    • Higher and more volatile repo rates to limit shadow credit growth (and perhaps also to discourage outflows and support the currency).
    • Stricter enforcement of controls on capital outflows.

    The steps thus far look like “targeted tightening” designed to limit risks without too much damage to economic growth. For policymakers to cut their growth aspirations significantly and tighten very aggressively, other economic challenges such as inflation or capital outflows would have to get much worse, in our view.

    Exhibit 8: Policymakers have kept real GDP growth on target…

    Exhibit 9: …but fiscal support has reached unprecedented levels

    Exhibit 10: PBOC and banking sector have helped finance stimulus

    Exhibit 11: PPI rebounded sharply, but CPI inflation still modest

    Even if policymakers do not intend to slow growth sharply, there is always a risk that they do so accidentally. The past few years have featured numerous occasions where policy tightening generated bigger effects (either in financial conditions or the real economy) than expected. Examples include the mid-2013 spike in repo rates (Exhibit 12), volatility in the equity markets around policy interventions (such as the introduction of the “circuit breaker” in early 2016), and of course the ructions in global currency and equity markets around the small renminbi devaluations in August 2015 and early 2016. Late last year, modest tightening by PBOC contributed to a significant backup in the bond market (Exhibit 13). In the real economy, efforts to reform local government finances slowed investment and heavy industry activity in late 2014 and early 2015, prompting a reversal in the spring of 2015 and substantial easing thereafter.

    Exhibit 12: Sharp repo spikes in earlier years; moderate increase in volatility recently

    Exhibit 13: Recent bond market backup ended a three-year rally

    The biggest vulnerabilities to unintended tightening are probably in the less formal areas of off-balance sheet spending (on the fiscal side) and non-bank credit extension (on the monetary side). On-budget fiscal policy is relatively transparent and controllable, but how local governments will respond to changing incentives—including anticorruption efforts, shifts in performance criteria, and changing availability of credit—is harder to predict. Likewise, policymakers have considerable influence on direct lending by large state banks, but less so on other bond market participants or “shadow banking” entities. This is especially true when multiple regulators/policymakers may be acting in a manner that is not completely coordinated. A particularly big challenge is how to unwind the perception of implicit guarantees on the debt of many SOEs and local governments’ financing vehicles without precipitating a credit crunch.

    In summary, we see a policy tightening “accident” as a key domestic risk. Credit expansions can buckle under their own weight as leveraged asset prices rise to unsustainable levels and rising defaults prompt a reversal in credit availability. But with policymakers attempting to manage both housing prices and defaults directly, we think the central issue in the year ahead is policy calibration. Policymakers clearly do not want the economy to slow sharply, particularly ahead of the leadership transition later this year. At the same time, they need to address some of the imbalances in the economy to limit future volatility. Getting the balance right is particularly challenging given the leverage already in the system. Warning signs of overtightening could come from a large pullback in fiscal activity (Exhibit 9), a sharper spike in short-term interest rates (Exhibit 12), a widening in credit spreads (Exhibit 13; this might occur for example because of a reassessment of the value of implicit guarantees), or any sign that polices were causing an abrupt seizure in broad credit availability (Exhibit 4).

    * * *

    Potential shocks from abroad—export slump or hawkish Fed

    We see two main potential shocks from abroad that could conceivably cause a “hard landing” in China:

    First is a sharp decline in export demand… Despite the rapid growth of domestic demand and services, exports remain an important pillar of China’s economy. In recent years, 15-20% of Chinese value-added was dependent on demand outside the country. Although this proportion has been declining, China remains sensitive both to global growth shocks and to any lurch towards protectionism in developed markets, particularly the US. 

    …either because of global growth… The single most important driver of Chinese exports is the pace of domestic demand growth in its trading partners. Our analysis suggests that Chinese real export growth moves slightly more than one-for-one with foreign demand growth,after accounting for exchange rate moves and commodity prices.[18] With an export-to-GDP ratio of slightly over 20%, it would clearly take a very large shock to directly cause a “hard landing” in China. It took the global financial crisis for an external shock to slow growth by 4pp on its own (Exhibit 14). Of course, weaker external demand could have indirect effects on domestic challenges also (e.g., by increasing non-performing loans and credit stresses, or by leading to greater FX outflows). However, weaker external demand isn’t our base-case scenario; on the contrary, global activity has been accelerating and we expect at least a modest improvement in domestic demand growth in developed markets in 2017.

    …or increased trade barriers. In the wake of the US election, the more likely risk to export demand comes from protectionist measures on the part of China’s trading partners. China benefited enormously from the reduction in trade barriers following its entry to the World Trade Organization in 2001 (Exhibit 15), and clearly would be adversely impacted from any backsliding in this area.

    Exhibit 14: Export shock would need to be GFC-sized to cause hard landing on its own


    Exhibit 15: Chinese export shares have leveled off since the GFC

    More substantial US actions would include across-the-board tariffs on Chinese imports (Trump advisor Peter Navarro has proposed 45%) or a “border-adjusted tax,” which would effectively be a tariff on imports from all countries. These could potentially have meaningful growth impacts, particularly when second-round effects of retaliatory tariffs are taken into consideration. Still, while our analysis suggests that tariffs in the single or low double-digits will certainly slow growth, our models do not suggest a magnitude approaching our 4pp “hard landing” threshold in most scenarios that we find plausible. This is particularly true in 2017, since we think the new US administration would be unlikely to apply large tariffs to China or implement a border-adjusted tax before lengthy negotiation and debate.

    2. Fed tightening. The pace of Fed hikes in 2017 will be an important determinant of external pressures. More rapid Fed hikes would raise interest differentials and likely result in a stronger USD.[23] Chinese policymakers would then face the choice of seeing their own currency appreciate on a trade-weighted basis (and thereby losing competitiveness), or depreciating against the USD (potentially exacerbating capital outflow pressures). A stronger dollar would also be unhelpful for regional growth.[24] We think Fed and dollar pressures are an important risk in 2017 and beyond, though the gap between market pricing of rate hikes (close to two hikes for the year) and our US team’s view of three rate hikes for the year has closed as markets have priced in better growth and inflation outlook post-election.

    However, it is important to note there is an automatic stabilizer of sorts. To the extent outflows or the CNY move are viewed by markets as disorderly, or having the potential to become so, we could revisit the experience of August 2015 and January 2016 where US financial conditions tightened (USD strength/equity weakness), causing the Fed to back off and reducing the pressure that created the concern in the first place. US policymakers certainly have no interest in seeing a “hard landing” in China’s economy, and have been responsive to financial conditions.[25] Clearly, however, this process would be damaging to risk assets initially, as it was in August 2015 and early 2016.

    Taken together, while external conditions could prove more difficult in some respects in 2017, we do not think that they will be the fundamental triggers of a “hard landing” in China in 2017. Global growth appears healthy at the moment, with our Global Leading Indicator recently marking an 6-year high.[26] And while we expect the Fed to tighten and trade policy to become less friendly to imports from China, we do not think the magnitude of these changes will do much damage to 2017 growth as a whole.

    A more challenging external shock would be a combination of a big protectionist move by the United States and a hawkish shift by the Fed (perhaps reacting to the growth and inflationary consequences of tighter US trade policy). This could result in a substantial blow to Chinese growth, perhaps magnified by interactions with China’s domestic imbalances. Still, as the new administration is still making key personnel appointments in trade-related areas, and we expect the Fed to wait until June for its next hike, this is probably a bigger risk for 2018 (or perhaps late 2017) than for most of this year.

    * * *

    Policy buffers large but eroding

    It’s important to point out that Chinese policymakers still have large—though shrinking—policy buffers relevant to both domestic and external shocks.

    External policy buffers include:

    1. A solid current account surplus. The current account surplus was $210bn in 2016, or 1.9% of GDP. Unlike many countries in the runup to the Asian Financial Crisis, China is not borrowing from abroad to fund imports.
    2. A strong net international investment position (15.7% of GDP as of Q3 16). As China has run large surpluses for years, it has accumulated a substantial net long position in foreign assets.
    3. Low external debt as a share of GDP. Looking at the liability side, FX debt is large on an absolute basis at ca $1.5trn, but quite modest relative to the scale of China’s economy ($11trn GDP). From a macro perspective, FX liabilities should not be a major constraint on depreciation, though some sectors that have borrowed significantly in dollars (e.g. property developers) are exposed to this risk.
    4. Still-substantial PBOC reserves. Official reserves stand at just under $3 trillion, within the IMF’s recommended range for a fixed currency regime. Even if one assumes some off-balance-sheet FX selling, the amount is still large and our tally of Chinese holdings of US/German/Japanese fixed income and equity assets (presumably an effective lower bound for liquid reserves, as it excludes holdings via financial centers like the UK, as well as holdings of other countries’ securities) is $1.7 trillion based on data as of mid-2016.

    On the domestic side, key resources available to policy makers are:

    1. Fiscal deposits. These currently total 5.4% of GDP, although they have come off their recent peak in early 2015.
    2. More generally, a high credit rating and still-substantial “fiscal space” for the central government. The government has recourse to large assets in the form of the SOEs, although to be sure there are also considerable contingent liabilities throughout the economy—for example the debt of local governments and central SOEs. There appears to be still-considerable scope for government-driven infrastructure investment, even if the ROI of such investment is declining in some areas.[28]
    3. Monetary policy space. Interest rates are still well above zero and there is the potential to loosen constraints on the banking sector (e.g. RRR cuts).

    As policymakers spend down this “ammunition”, the market and economic reactions to shocks could become more volatile.

    * * *

    Conclusion: Key risks and their transmission

    In conclusion, we see the biggest risks in China centering on the country’s rising credit imbalances, with mis-calibration of policy or a sharp external shock as possible triggers of a sharp tightening in credit conditions and “hard landing” in growth. To reiterate, this is not our base case for 2017 (and not yet for 2018 either, for that matter). But it deserves close monitoring, and we will be watching the fiscal stance, credit market conditions, and other metrics—as well as comments by policymakers—to update our assessments of these risks.

    Should China’s economy slow significantly, it would clearly have effects throughout the region, transmitted via three key channels:

    1. Trade. Just as China would be affected by a drop in export demand, so other countries in Asia would face a growth hit from a slowdown in China. Small open economies would be particularly hard-hit.[30]
    2. Commodities. A slowdown—to the extent it involved goods-producing and construction activities—would have implications for commodity prices, helping the terms of trade in much of the region but hurting it for commodity producers such as Malaysia, Indonesia, and Australia.
    3. Financial conditions. As we observed with renminbi volatility over the past 18 months, financial volatility and growth weakness in China has the potential to tighten global financial conditions, slowing growth and prompting further monetary easing abroad.

    Our past work has suggested that the biggest effects of weaker Chinese growth would come in Korea, Taiwan, and Southeast Asia, where most economies would feel the impact through two or all three of these channels.

  • Exposing The 9 Fakest Fake-News Checkers

    Submitted by Chelsea Schilling via WND.com,

    Since President Donald Trump won the presidential election in November, there’s been an explosion of “fake-news” checker sites, some cloaked behind a veil of anonymity.

    trust

    In some cases, Americans really have fallen for “fake news.” Just days ago, 20th Century Fox apologized for creating “fake news” sites – such as as the Houston Leader, the Salt Lake City Guardian, Sacramento Dispatch, the New York Morning Post and Indianapolis Gazette – as part of a promotional campaign for its psychological thriller, “A Cure for Wellness.”

    But on the heels of media hysteria over the trend, now it seems everyone claims to be a foremost expert on the topic of spotting “fake news.”

    “Trust us,” they say.

     

    “We’ll help you navigate Facebook and filter out the fake news stories,” they promise.

    But just who are these self-appointed gatekeepers who claim to be the ultimate arbiters of what is or is not “fake news”?

    WND found “fact-checker” sites run by:

    • A gamer.
    • A leftist, Trump-hating, feminist professor who specializes in “fat studies.”
    • A sex-and-fetish blogger.
    • A health-industry worker.
    • Organizations with billionaire Democratic Party activists and donors.
    • And another guy who went to extreme lengths to conceal his identity.

    But most of the self-appointed “fact-checker” sites had one thing in common: President Trump – and the news sites that dare to give him a fair shake – are overwhelmingly their favorite targets.

    The websites often show an obvious bias against conservative-leaning outlets. And many fail to include clear explanations of the criteria they use for determining whether a news site is legitimate. Other “experts” offer little or no biographical information establishing their qualifications for making judgments about journalism quality.

    WND has compiled the following list of the Top 9 “fakest ‘fake-news’ checkers.”

    1. Pigscast

    The website Pigscast, which stands for Politics, Internet Gaming and Sports, was founded by “gamer” Will Healy.

    In a Reddit forum discussing the chart, Healy explains in late January: “I tried to base as much of it off this site that someone posted in the thread yesterday mediabiasfactcheck.com.”

    On Jan. 25, Healy tweeted his chart of news organizations and the message, “Stop #FakeNews, check out this news guide @ThePigscast #Pigscast #alternative facts.”

    Healy-fake-news-TW

     

    Will Healy, founder of Pigscast

    Will Healy, founder of Pigscast

    He ranked the news organizations as “Garbage Left (not worth it),” “Hyper-Partisan Left (To Confirm Your Beliefs),” “Leans Left (Not Horrible),” “Neutral (What Journalism Should Be),” “Leans Right (Not Horrible),” “Hyper-Partisan Right (To Confirm Your Beliefs)” and “Garbage Right (Not Worth It).”

    Healy labeled WND, the Drudge Report, the Blaze, Accuracy in Media, the Family Research Council, Breitbart and other organizations as “Garbage Right (Not Worth It).”

    However, Healy considers the following to be “Neutral (What Journalism Should Be)”: Reuters, USA Today, the Texas Tribune, Financial Times, Associated Press, C-SPAN and the Economist. Even NPR is located partially in the “neutral” category on his chart.

    One Twitter user named Nigel Fenwick asked Healy: “Hi Will – is this your own graphic? What’s the basis of this analysis? What data was used? Is it objective or subjective?”

    Healy simply replied: “[M]ost of this was from mediabiasfactcheck.com but note this is just the first draft. I plan on a final version later.”

    WND’s request for comment from Healy concerning his news ranking methodology and expertise in evaluating news organizations hadn’t been returned at the time of this report.

    He appears to have some anti-Trump views. On Election Day, Healy tweeted: “Anyone who voted third party should hold their head high. They didn’t vote for a horrible candidate. That they voted their conscience.”

    Healy-TW2

    In May 2016, he tweeeted his support for former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson, who was the Libertarian Party nominee in the race for the White House: “I side 82% with @GovGaryJohnson. Just reaffirms my choice this November.”

    And on Jan. 22, he tweeted: “Aren’t #alternativefacts just bulls–t? #Trump administration already off to a poor start.”

    Healy also praised the Womens March on Washington, D.C., tweeting Jan. 21: “The fact that around this country we can have massive peaceful protests after a peaceful transition of power is awesome #WomansMarch.”

    Healy-TW

     

    2. Media Bias Fact Check

    MediaBIasFactCheck.com describes itself as “the most comprehensive media bias resource in the Internet.” The site is owned by Dave Van Zandt from North Carolina, who offers no biographical information about himself aside from the following: “Dave has been freelancing for 25+ years for a variety of print and web mediums (sic), with a focus on media bias and the role of media in politics. Dave is a registered Non-Affiliated voter who values evidence based reporting” and, “Dave Van Zandt obtained a Communications Degree before pursuing a higher degree in the sciences. Dave currently works full time in the health care industry. Dave has spent more than 20 years as an arm chair researcher on media bias and its role in political influence.”

    WND was unable to locate a single article with Van Zandt’s byline. Ironically, the “fact checker” fails to establish his own credibility by disclosing his qualifications and training in evaluating news sources.

    Asked for information concerning his expertise in the field of journalism and evaluating news sources, Van Zandt told WND: “I am not a journalist and just a person who is interested in how media bias impacts politics. You will find zero claims of expertise on the website.”

    Concerning his purported “25+ years” of experience writing for print and web media, he said: “I am not sure why the 25+ years is still on the website. That was removed a year ago when I first started the website. All of the writing I did was small print news zines from the ’90s. I felt that what I wrote in the ’90s is not related to what I am doing today so I removed it. Again, I am not a journalist. I simply have a background in communications and more importantly science where I learned to value evidence over all else. Through this I also became interested in research of all kinds, especially media bias, which is difficult to measure and is subjective to a degree.”

    WND asked: Were your evaluations reviewed by any experts in the industry?

    “I can’t say they have,” Van Zandt replied. “Though the right-of-center Atlantic Council is using our data for a project they are working on.”

    MBFC-banner

    Van Zandt says he uses “three volunteers” to “research and assist in fact checking.” However, he adds that he doesn’t pay them for their services.

    Van Zandt lists WND on his “Right Bias” page, alongside news organizations such as Fox News, the Drudge Report, the Washington Free Beacon, the Daily Wire, the Blaze, Breitbart, Red State, Project Veritas, PJ Media, National Review, Daily Caller and others.

    “These media sources are highly biased toward conservative causes,” Van Zandt writes. “They utilize strong loaded words (wording that attempts to influence an audience by using appeal to emotion or stereotypes), publish misleading reports and omit reporting of information that may damage conservative causes. Sources in this category may be untrustworthy.”

    His special notes concerning WND link to Snopes.com and PolitiFact.com, websites that have their own questionable reputations and formulas as so-called “fact checkers.” (See the “Snopes” and “PolitiFact” entries below.)

    Van Zandt says he uses a “strict methodology” in determining which news sources are credible, but his website offers vague and typo-ridden explanations of his criteria, such as the following:

    VanZandt-categories

    Asked if his own political leanings influence his evaluations, Van Zandt said: “Sure it is possible. However, our methodology is designed to eliminate most of that. We also have a team of 4 researchers with different political leanings so that we can further reduce researcher bias.”

    Bill Palmer of the website Daily News Bin accused Van Zandt of retaliating when the Daily News Bin contacted him about his rating. Palmer wrote:

    “[I]t turns out Van Zandt has a vindictive streak. After one hapless social media user tried to use his phony ‘Media Bias Fact Check’ site to dispute a thoroughly sourced article from this site, Daily News Bin, we made the mistake of contacting Van Zandt and asking him to take down his ridiculous ‘rating’ – which consisted of nothing more than hearsay such as ‘has been accused of being satire.’ Really? When? By whom? None of those facts seem to matter to the guy running this ‘Media Bias Fact Check’ scam.

     

    “But instead of acknowledging that he’d been caught in the act, Van Zandt retaliated against Daily News Bin by changing his rating to something more sinister. He also added a link to a similar phony security company called World of Trust, which generates its ratings by allowing random anonymous individuals to post whatever bizarre conspiracy theories they want, and then letting these loons vote on whether that news site is ‘real’ or not. These scam sites are now trying to use each other for cover, in order to back up the false and unsubstantiated ‘ratings’ they semi-randomly assign respected news outlets. …

     

    “‘Media Bias Fact Check’ is truly just one guy making misleading claims about news outlets while failing to back them up with anything, while maliciously changing the ratings to punish any news outlets that try to expose the invalidity of what he’s doing.”

    But Van Zandt accused Palmer of threatening him, and he said MediaBiasFactCheck welcomes criticism. If evidence is provided, he said, the site will correct its errors.

    “Bottom line is, we are not trying to be something we are not,” he said. “We have disclaimers on every page of the website indicating that our method is not scientifically proven and that there is [sic] subjective judgments being used as it is unavoidable with determining bias.”

     

    3. Fake News Checker

    FakeNewsChecker.com is another self-appointed “fact checker” run by anonymous individuals. The website offers no contact information.

    As WND reported, the site is publishing “fake news,” specifically “fake news” about WND. It claims that WND’s founder and CEO, Joseph Farah, “received donations from the Donald Trump superPAC “Great America “PAC” (sic) calling into further question the motives behind the ‘fake’ and conspiratorial nature of the content.”

    Fake-News-Checker-screenshot

    But there’s one major problem with the site’s purported “fact.”

    WND didn’t get any donations from any superPACs, “not this one or any other,” company officials confirmed.

    FakeNewsChecker.com effectively categorizes as “fake” virtually all news resources except those in the “mainstream media,” which surveys reveal are enjoying less and less consumer trust these days.

    The website states:

    Fake news has become a catchall term for news sources that lack journalistic integrity. These sites use sensational headlines, make false claims, exaggerate the editorial spin to reflect a bias, are misleading, are conspiratorial, are anti-science, promote propaganda, are written in satire or just plain hoaxes. Many of the sites are untrustworthy because they begin with a premise that is close to a truth and build a false story around it. Please check your sources and your emotions as you read the articles on these sites.

    fake-news-checker

     

    4. Trump-bashing prof’s ‘hit list’ of ‘fake’ news sites

    The mainstream media went wild circulating a viral list of so-called “fake news” websites in November 2016 – and the list included established news sites like WND, Breitbart, Red State, the Daily Wire and Project Veritas – but WND found a leftist, Trump-bashing assistant professor in Massachusetts who specialized in “fat studies” was behind the effort to target and discredit legitimate news organizations.

    Meet Merrimack College Assistant Professor Melissa Zimdars, a 30-something self-identified feminist and activist who has expressed great dislike for President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence.

    Merrimack College assistant professor Melissa Zimdars, author of the "fake news" list circulated online (Photo: Twitter)

    Merrimack College assistant professor Melissa Zimdars, author of the “fake news” list circulated online (Photo: Twitter)

    She had only actually held her teaching position at the private college in North Andover, Massachusetts, for 15 months when she published her “fake news” list.

    Zimdars published and circulated a list of “fake, false, or regularly misleading websites that are shared on Facebook and social media.” She said she began writing the list because she didn’t approve of the sources her students were citing.

    The problem?

    In addition to some satirical and bogus sites, her list attacks the credibility of well-established news organizations such as Breitbart, BizPac Review, Red State, the Blaze, the Independent Journal Review, Twitchy, the Daily Wire, WND and James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas. In many cases (such as with her WND listing), she offers no explanation for why the news organizations were included on the list.

    Melissa "Mish" Zimdars is an assistant professor of communication at Merrimack College in Massachusetts

    Melissa “Mish” Zimdars is an assistant professor of communication at Merrimack College in Massachusetts

    Mainstream media outlets such as the Los Angeles Times circulated Zimdars’ growing list. The Times headlined its story, “Want to keep fake news out of your newsfeed? College professor creates list of sites to avoid.” The Times offered no details concerning Zimdars’ qualifications or background. News organizations such as CNN, the Washington Post, Boston Globe, New York Magazine, USA Today, Business Insider, the Austin American-Statesman, the Dallas Morning News and others spread the list like gospel and cited it in their reports.

    But nearly none of them considered Zimdars’ political leanings or questioned her criteria or qualifications for determining which news sources should be included on her list.

    Zimdars teaches courses in radio, production, mass communication, feminist media studies, television criticism and new media and digital communication. She received her doctorate in communication and media studies just in 2015.

    In response to the list, PJ Media’s Stephen Kruiser wrote, “It’s no surprise that a college professor compiled this list; what’s galling is that the Los Angeles Times ‘reported’ on it without mentioning that it’s complete garbage.”

    Sean Hannity’s website warned that Zimdars’ list includes “mainstream conservative sources” and “is giving us insight into just what kind of websites the left plans on targeting for censorship.”

    In addition to her new job as an assistant professor, Zimdars is also a columnist and contributor for Little Village Magazine – a left-leaning magazine that says it’s focused on issues such as “racial justice,” “gender equity,” “critical culture,” “economic and labor justice” and “environmental sustainability.” Her Twitter profile describes her as a “feminist” and “activist.”

    Zimdars’ social-media accounts are protected from public view, leading tweeter Vanessa Beeley to note that Zimdars “can’t take the heat. Named ‘fake media’ & then protected all her own media sites.”

     

    5. International Fact-Checking Network

    In December, Facebook announced it would use the International Fact-Checking Network, or IFCN, to check on the legitimacy of news articles posted to the social media site.

    Alexios Mantzarlis runs the International Fact-Checking Network (Photo: Twitter)

    Alexios Mantzarlis runs the International Fact-Checking Network (Photo: Twitter)

    IFCN is hosted by the Poynter Institute for Media Studies and funded, in part, by Google and foundations of leftist billionaires George Soros and Bill Gates. Soros donated $25 million to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. The Daily Mail reported that Clinton super-donor and eBay founder Pierre Omidyar is also backing the project.

    In response to Facebook’s announcement, FrontPage said conservatives should consider ditching Facebook.

    “In essence, Facebook is giving the partisan left free space on conservative news links. It’s also allowing them to undermine a conservative link while promoting their own agenda,” FrontPage said.

    “It’s not quite censorship, but the partnership with left-wing partisan ‘checkers’ helps move it to the next step of barring sites outright. For the moment, Facebook has decided that you shouldn’t just be able to share links to what you’re interested in without the left getting a say.

    “This is yet another reason for conservatives to rethink being on Facebook.”

    The website reveals: “Poynter’s IFCN has received funding from the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation, the Duke Reporters’ Lab, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Google, the National Endowment for Democracy, the Omidyar Network, the Open Society Foundations and the Park Foundation.”

    IFCN-screenshot

    Alexios Mantzarlis runs IFCN, which does not appear to have published any “fact-checking” articles since 2015.

    However, a Feb. 16 Poynter “news” headline blasted “President Trump’s anti-media meltdown.”

    Poynter-Trump

    From the very beginning, the story trashed the president for unveiling “an alternate universe … in which virtually every problem of his is a creation of the press.”

    “In a rambling, angry and contradictory media meltdown, Trump bashed ‘the failing New York Times,’ The Wall Street Journal, CNN and the BBC, among others, following a fleeting announcement of a new nominee for Labor Secretary,” wrote Poynter’s James Warren. “It constituted what at minimum is a quadrupling down – or might it be quintupling down? – on a transparent strategy to portray the press as an opposition party.”

    In the same post, Warren continued: “Never has Trump’s personal obsession with coverage of himself been so vivid. It was only sidetracked, it seemed, by an odd array of declarations and claims. Those included his taking selective and self-serving use of polling to new depths, while also proffering a new species of political self-congratulation during his strikingly defensive performance: prospectively heralding the ‘massive’ crowd to attend a Saturday rally in Melbourne, Florida.”

     

    6. Washington Post Fact Checker

    WaPo-Pinocchios

    The Washington Post’s Fact Checker has come under fire repeatedly, as critics charge it has a left-leaning bias.

    Washington Post "Fact Checker" Glenn Kessler

    Washington Post “Fact Checker” Glenn Kessler

    As WND reported, Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos, who is also a Democratic Party donor and controls a personal investment firm that owns the Washington Post, had an army of 20 newspaper staffers to scour Donald Trump’s life for any dirt they could find on the presumptive GOP nominee. Bezos, a Seattle billionaire and the world’s 19th wealthiest man, purchased the Washington Post in 2013 for $250 million.

    The Washington Post’s Fact Checker uses Pinocchio ratings to rate the truthfulness of statements. Zero Pinocchios means a statement is true. Two makes the statement half true. Three means mostly false, and four indicates it is false.

    Red State reported that Washington Post “Fact Check” columnist Glenn Kessler fell for fake campaign ads claiming Donald Trump’s father, Fred Trump, campaigned to be mayor of New York City in the 1970s.

    Wapo-Fact-Checker

     

    Washington Post "Fact Checker" Michelle Ye Hee Lee

    Washington Post “Fact Checker” Michelle Ye Hee Lee

    In 2015, the Washington Free Beacon’s David Rutz published a list of “5 Times the Washington Post failed at fact-checking.”

    And in August 2016, the Washington Post’s Fact Checker came under fire from the New York Post after it “fact checked” Trump’s statements concerning Hillary Clinton lacking stamina to be president. The Fact Checker gave Trump its worst rating.

    “Trump has claimed twice, without proof, that Clinton lacks the physical and mental stamina to be president,” it said. “In the absence of any evidence, he earns Four Pinocchios.”

    But New York Post writer Eddie Scarry observed: “Curious that the Post, in earnest, would fact-check Trump’s opinion on his opponent’s energy level. The paper didn’t bother to investigate the veracity of Clinton’s claim in late May that Trump ‘lacks the temperament to lead our nation and the free world."

     

    7. Snopes

    Snopes-logo

    Snopes.com, a website that’s been around since 1995, is sometimes cited by other “fact-checking” sites to support their claims. Facebook has indicated it plans to use Snopes as one of its arbiters of “fake news.” But WND revealed the site has been criticized by conservatives for a left-leaning bias and admits it has no standard procedure for fact-checking.

    Kim LaCapria, principal fact checker at Snopes, has blogged as "Vice Vixen" and offered sex toy tips

    Kim LaCapria, principal fact checker at Snopes, has blogged as “Vice Vixen” and offered sex toy tips

    One of Snopes’ leading fact-checkers is a former sex-and-fetish blogger who described her routine as smoking pot and posting to Snopes.com, and the company now is embroiled in a legal dispute between its former married founders that includes accusations the CEO used company money for prostitutes.

    “This is Facebook’s high journalistic standard,” commented Pamela Geller, an author and blogger who focuses on the politically incorrect subject of Islam and terrorism.

    “What a joke,” she wrote on her blog. “Facebook’s fact checkers will be used to censor and ban conservative perspectives, not to distinguish truth from falsehood. Everyone knows that.”

    The Daily Mail of London reported one of Snopes.com’s main fact checkers, Kim LaCapria, is disclosed to be a former sex-blogger who called herself “Vice Vixen.”

    Investigative reporter Sharyl Attkisson told WND in December that she thinks the uproar over “fake news” is a “narrative-driven propaganda campaign.”

    “I think there’s an agenda to censor the news as opposed to actually trying to eliminate fake news,” she said.

    A DailyMail.com investigation found that Snopes.com’s founders, former husband and wife David and Barbara Mikkelson, are embroiled in a lengthy and bitter legal dispute in the wake of their divorce.

    He has since remarried to a former escort and porn actress who is one of the site’s staff members.

    Snopes Founder David Mikkelson with his new wife, Snopes staff member Elyssa Young

    Snopes Founder David Mikkelson with his new wife, Snopes staff member Elyssa Young

    Barbara Mikkelson accuses her ex-husband of embezzlement while David claims she took millions from their joint accounts and bought property in Las Vegas.

    One of Snopes.com’s lead fact-checkers is Kim LaCapria, the Daily Mail reported, who has also been a sex-and-fetish blogger who went by the pseudonym “Vice Vixen.” Her blog had “a specific focus on naughtiness, sin, carnal pursuits, and general hedonism and bonne vivante-ery.”

    Snopes Founder Barbara Mikkelson (Photo: Facebook)

    Snopes Founder Barbara Mikkelson (Photo: Facebook)

    Her day-off activities she said on another blog were: “played scrabble, smoked pot, and posted to Snopes.'”

    “That’s what I did on my day “on,” too,” she added.

    David Mikkelson told the the Daily Mail that Snopes does not have a “standardized procedure” for fact-checking “since the nature of this material can vary widely.”

    He said the process of fact-checking “‘involves multiple stages of editorial oversight, so no output is the result of a single person’s discretion.”

    Snopes has no formal requirements for fact-checkers, he told the London paper, because the variety of the work “would be difficult to encompass in any single blanket set of standards.”

    Mikkelson has denied that Snopes takes any political position, but the Daily Mail noted his new wife ran for U.S. congress in Hawaii as a Libertarian in 2004.

    During the campaign she handed out “Re-Defeat Bush” cards and condoms stamped with the slogan “Don’t get screwed again.”

    “Let’s face it, I am an unlikely candidate. I fully admit that I am a courtesan,” she wrote on her campaign website.

     

    8. PolitiFact

    politifact

    In December, PolitiFact.com was identified by Facebook as one of the sites the social media platform would use to label “fake news” stories. But Breitbart reported, “Facebook’s decision to tout PolitiFact as a credible and independent fact checker is awfully disturbing, given the organization’s repeated smear campaign against Donald Trump throughout the 2016 election.”

    “OH HELL NO,” was the response from the Weekly Standard’s Mark Hemingway to Facebook’s announcement that it would use PolitiFact.com to check news stories.

    “Facebook is bringing in Poynter/PolitiFact to police ‘fake news’? They’re INCREDIBLY biased,” he said.

    In December 2015, PolitiFact claimed 76 percent of all Donald Trump’s statements were “mostly false,” “false” or “pants on fire.”

    politifact-trump

    PolitiFact Editor Angie Drobnic Holan

    PolitiFact Editor Angie Drobnic Holan

    Breitbart noted that PolitiFact pushed “fact checks” to discredit Republicans while promoting stories that favored Democratic Party nominee Hillary Clinton.

    In fact, one of PolitiFact’s largest contributors is Clinton donor Alberto Ibarguen, president and CEO of the Knight Foundation. Ibarguen contributed $200,000 to the 8th annual Clinton Global Initiative University meeting in February 2015, Breitbart reported. The Knight Foundation also donated between $10,000 and $25,000 to the Clinton Foundation, Politico reported.

    PolitiFact’s editor is Angie Drobnic Holan, who helped launch the site in 2007.

    Breitbart’s Jerome Hudson published an analysis that included the following list of reasons PolitiFact is “unqualified to be an objective judge of what’s real and ‘fake’ news”:

    1. Last March, PolitiFact delivered a “mostly false” rating for a joke made by Republican Senator Ted Cruz.

    2. Last April, PolitiFact made phone calls and sent a reporter to investigate whether Governor Scott Walker actually “paid one dollar for” a sweater he bought at Kohl’s. PolitiFact later ruled Walker’s claim “true.”

    3. When Trump said Clinton wants “open borders,” PolitiFact deemed his statement “mostly false” — despite the fact that Clinton admitted as much in a private, paid speech to a Brazilian bank on May 16, 2013. “My dream is a hemispheric common market, with open trade and open borders,” she said at the time.

    4. PolitiFact cast doubts on comments Pat Smith made during her emotional speech at the Republican National Convention, where she said Hillary Clinton said “a video was responsible” for her son’s death during the terror attacks in Benghazi.

    Smith was referring to when she “saw Hillary Clinton at Sean’s coffin ceremony,” and then-Secretary of State Clinton “looked me squarely in the eye and told me a video was responsible.”

    But PolitiFact, taking an oddly defensive stance, said Smith’s memory could’ve been “fuzzy” and referred its readers, instead, to a “brief meeting behind closed doors” where Clinton addressed the families of the victims of the attack.

    5. Despite video evidence to the contrary, PolitiFact claimed Hillary Clinton didn’t laugh about Kathy Shelton’s rape as a child. Trump invited Shelton to the second presidential debate and called out Clinton’s embarrassing behavior.

    Again, moving to dismiss and downplay Clinton’s actions, PolitiFact wrote: “Trump is referring to an audio tape in which she does respond with amusement at her recollections of the oddities of the case, which involve the prosecution and the judge. At no point does she laugh at the victim.”

    6. In an attempt to explain Hillary Clinton’s role in the sale of 25 percent of the United States’ uranium stockpile, Politifact ignored numerous key facts, downplayed other key facts, and ultimately made 13 errors in its analysis.

    7. A few months later, PolitiFact was, again, attempting to whitewash Clinton’s role in the Russian uranium deal. Like PolitiFact’s first foray into the subject, the second report commits many factual errors and is full of glaring inaccuracies and omissions.

    8. During a televised campaign event, Clinton said Australia’s compulsory gun buyback program “would be worth considering” in the U.S.

    When the National Rifle Association included Clinton’s comments on one of its flyers, PolitiFact ruled the organization’s claim “mostly false.”

    9. While PolitiFact admitted that Trump’s claim that Russia’s arsenal of nuclear warheads has expanded and the U.S.’ has not, the left-wing outfit deemed Trump’s statement “half true.”

    In a June 2016 piece published at Investor’s Business Daily, Media Research Center President Brent Bozell wrote:

    “This is a pattern with PolitiFact. Overall, they’ve rated Trump “False”/”Mostly False”/”Pants on Fire” 77% of the time. But they’ve rated Clinton “False” and “Mostly False” only 26% of the time.

     

    “The PolitiFact political agenda jumps off the page. On the Republican side, Sen. Ted Cruz lands on the “False” side 65% of the time, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich 57% of the time and former Sen. Rick Santorum 55% of the time. For Democrats, President Obama is ruled false 25% of the time, and Sen. Bernie Sanders is false only 30% of the time. This is the guy who routinely says, ‘the business model of Wall Street is fraud.'”

    Also, in 2013, WND reported PolitiFact misled the public on Obamacare.

    A 2013 study from the George Mason University Center for Media and Public Affairs found that PolitiFact determines Republicans are dishonest nearly three times as often as it reaches the same conclusion for Democrats.

    “PolitiFact.com has rated Republican claims as false three times as often as Democratic claims during President Obama’s second term,” the center said, “despite controversies over Obama administration statements on Benghazi, the IRS and the AP.”

     

    9. FactCheck.org

    FactCheckorg

    FactCheck.org was launched by the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania, which was founded by the late philanthropists Walter and Lenore Annenberg, friends of former Presidents Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan. FactCheck’s current editor is Angie Drobnic Holan.

    The website is perhaps the least overtly partisan “fact checker” in this list. However, the organization came under fire after it published a July 21, 2015, piece called “Unspinning the Planned Parenthood Video,” an entry that defended the abortion provider during the baby-parts scandal. Several leftist groups linked to the article, tweeted it and shared it on Facebook.

    FactCheck.org Director Emeritus Brooks Jackson

    FactCheck.org Director Emeritus Brooks Jackson

    Breitbart’s John Sexton noted that FactCheck.org only addressed one video in a series of at least seven videos exposing the baby-parts trade. The site wrote about an interview with Deborah Nucatola of Planned Parenthood, who commented on crushing babies. Nucatola also suggested Planned Parenthood is satisfied with turning a profit in the body-parts trade, so long as doing so doesn’t make the nonprofit look bad.

    Sexton writes: Here is how FactCheck frames Nucatola’s admission: ‘Nucatola does make one statement in the unedited video that suggests to critics that some clinics would be comfortable with a payment that was slightly more than their expenses for providing the tissue.’ Is this really only suggestive to critics? Why isn’t it just a fact that she admitted it despite her obvious concern about getting caught? And is it possible Planned Parenthood has supporters as well? Might the supporters be eager to downplay this admission? FactCheck doesn’t have anything to say about that. It’s another instance of the real story being sidestepped by introducing a partisan narrative, i.e. ‘Republicans pounced.'”

    In yet another article concerning FactCheck.org, Breitbart reported the site was forced to “make an embarrassing correction” after it appeared to have made up a quote that never appeared in Peter Schweizer’s book, “Clinton Cash.” The site falsely claimed Schweizer wrote in his book that Hillary Clinton had “veto power” and “could have stopped” the sale of 20 percent of U.S. uranium to the Russian government.

    In 2016, FactCheck.org claimed TV host Bill Nye is “more of a scientist than [Sarah] Palin,” and the site listed his “six honorary doctorate degrees, including Ph.D.s in science from Goucher College and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute” as evidence for its assertion.

    FactCheck-Trump

    In 2015, FactCheck.org dubbed Donald Trump the “King of Whoppers.” 

    “In the 12 years of FactCheck.org’s existence, we’ve never seen his match,” the site wrote. “He stands out not only for the sheer number of his factually false claims, but also for his brazen refusals to admit error when proven wrong.”

    In a post titled, “Trump’s bogus voter fraud claims,” FactCheck.org stated, “Donald Trump is citing unsubstantiated urban myths and a contested academic study to paint a false narrative about rampant voter fraud in the U.S. and the likelihood of a ‘rigged’ election.”

    While Trump said the U.S. has a problem with ballots that are cast by illegal immigrants and on behalf of dead people – a 2014 study in the Electoral Studies Journal shows illegals may have cast as many as 2.8 million votes in 2008 and 2010 and investigations have found that ballots have been cast for dead people in multiple elections – FactCheck.org found, “his evidence is lacking,” and “researchers say voter fraud involving ballots cast on behalf of deceased voters is rare.”

    Any examination of a “fact-checking” website would not be complete without a look at the organization’s primary source of funding. FactCheck.org receives the largest amount of its funding from the Annenberg Foundation, which funds a number of nonprofits. The foundation funded the Chicago Annenberg Challenge to the tune of $49.2 million. In 1995, Barack Obama was a founding member of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. He remained on the board until 2001, when the challenge was phased out.

    According to CNN, the Chicago Annenberg Challenge was the brainchild of Weather Underground terrorist group co-founder Bill Ayers. “A review of board minutes and records by CNN show Obama crossed paths repeatedly with Ayers at board meetings of the Annenberg Challenge Project,” CNN reported. The Wall Street Journal reported, “The group poured more than $100 million into the hands of community organizers and radical education activists.”

     

  • Russian Ambassador To UN Vitaly Churkin Has "Died Suddenly" In New York; Putin "Deeply Upset"

    Update: according to Reuters, Vladimir Putin was deeply upset to learn of the death of Vitaly Churkin, Russian news agencies cited Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying on Monday.

    “The head of state highly valued Churkin’s professionalism and diplomatic talent,” Peskov said.

    * * *

    Vitaly Churkin, who served as Russia’s permanent representative to the United Nations since 2006, “died suddenly” in New York, the Russian Foreign Ministry announced. Churkin died one day before his 65th birthday. Russia’s deputy U.N. ambassador, Vladimir Safronkov, told AP that Churkin became ill and was taken to Columbia Presbyterian Hospital, where he died Monday.

    Churkin was at the Russian embassy on East 67th Street when he became sick with a “cardiac condition” around 9:30 am, sources told the New York Post. A Russian Embassy spokesperson told CBS News that they believe Churkin died of a heart attack but they do not yet have official word on the cause of death.

    As the AP adds, Churkin has been Russia’s envoy at the United Nations for a little over a decade and was considered Moscow’s great champion at the U.N. He had a reputation for an acute wit and sharp repartee especially with his American and Western counterparts. He was previously ambassador at large and earlier served as the foreign ministry spokesman.

    Colleagues took to social media to react to Churkin’s death, starting with Churkin’s old nemesis Samantha Power:

    //platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    //platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    //platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    The announcement “of Churkin’s passing this morning” was met with shock when it was delivered during a session at the UN headquarters. “He was a dear colleague of all of us, a deeply committed diplomat of his country and one of the finest people we have known,” a UN official who delivered the news to her colleagues said.

    //platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    The Russian foreign ministry gave no details on the circumstances of his death but offered condolences to his relatives and said the diplomat had died one day before his 65th birthday. Here is the statement issued moments ago from the Russian Foreign Ministry:

    A prominent Russian diplomat has passed away while at work. We’d like
    to express our sincere condolences to Vitaly Churkin’s family.

     

    The Russian Foreign Ministry deeply regrets to announce that Russia’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations Vitaly Ivanovich Churkin has died suddenly in New York on February 20, a day ahead of his 65th birthday.

    “He was an outstanding person. He was brilliant, bright, a great diplomat of our age,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said, adding that the news of Churkin’s death was “completely shocking.”

    //platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    According to Sputnik, Russia’s Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations Yevgeniy Zagaynov said about Churkin that he kept working “till the very end.” The representative of the UN Secretary-General said that the UN was shocked by the news, extending their condolences to Moscow.

    Perhaps the best known Russian diplomat alongside Sergey Lavrov, Vitaly Ivanovich Churkin was born in Moscow in 1952. He graduated from the Moscow State Institute of International Relations in 1974, beginning his decades-long career at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs shortly.

    Ambassador Churkin, who held a Ph.D in history, served as Russia’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations since 2006, where he has clashed on numerous occasions with opposing members of the Security Council whose decisions Russia has vetoed more than once. Prior to this appointment, he was Ambassador at Large at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation (2003-2006), Ambassador to Canada (1998-2003), Ambassador to Belgium and Liaison Ambassador to NATO and WEU (1994-1998), Deputy Foreign Minister and Special Representative of the President of the Russian Federation to the talks on Former Yugoslavia (1992-1994), Director of the Information Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the USSR/Russian Federation (1990-1992).

    Churkin is survived by his wife and two children.

  • Here's Why Your Auto Insurance Rates Have Soared Nearly 20% In The Past Several Years

    If you’re among the millions of Americans that have noticed your auto insurance premiums skyrocketing in recent years then you may want to thank the people in your life who habitually text and drive.  Since 2009, the average, annual U.S. car-insurance premium has risen over 17%, to $926 in 2016, according to trade group Insurance Information Institute. 

    And, just like Obamacare, that rising premium is simply the socialization of added risks created by people making bad life decisions…like driving their cars at 80 miles per hour on a crowded freeway while simultaneously looking down at their phones to text about the latest Kardashian rumor.

    Auto Insurance Rates

     

    Of course, auto insurance rates are rising despite all of the high-tech, anti-collision bells and whistles that have been added to vehicles (at a very hefty price, we might add) over the past decade as seemingly no amount of gadgetry can offset the benefits of actually keeping your eyes on the road…no matter what Tesla would have you believe.

    According to a note from the Wall Street Journal, 36% of drivers admitted to texting and driving in a State Farm survey in 2015, which we assume means that the real number is roughly double that.

    It’s “an epidemic issue for this country,” said Michael LaRocco, chief executive of State Auto Financial Corp., at an insurance-industry conference last month.

     

    State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co., the largest U.S. auto insurer by market share, said 36% of the people it surveyed in 2015 admitted to texting while driving, and 29% said they access the internet, compared with 31% and 13%, respectively, in 2009.

     

    State Farm’s survey found that 52% of respondents in 2011 owned a smartphone, and 88% owned one in 2015.

     

    “Distracted driving was always there, but it just intensified as more applications for the smartphones became available,” said Bill Caldwell, executive vice president of property and casualty at Horace Mann, in a recent interview. The insurer expects to raise rates 8% this year, on top of average 6.5% increases in 2016.

    Oddly enough, insurance payouts started to spike right about the same time the first iPhone hit the shelves in 2007.

    Auto Insurance Rates

     

    Meanwhile, as if texting and driving weren’t bad enough, roughly 20% of people admitted to State Farm that they regularly snap selfies from the driver’s seat and about 10% record videos….because why not?

    The alarms being sounded by the industry are based partly on internal investigations to determine causes of policyholders’ crashes. Many insurers collect police reports, witness statements and their own drivers’ accounts in costlier wrecks, executives said. In claims that involve litigation, they may obtain drivers’ phone records, they said.

     

    State Farm began surveying the public in 2009 to assess behind-the-wheel phone use. Drivers that participated in the survey acknowledge the distractions of their smartphones, according to State Farm, but many continue to use them. In the latest survey, about one-fifth of drivers admitted taking photos with their phones and a 10th recorded video. Both these activities were added to the 2015 survey.

     

    ”Those are big numbers, and they are going in the wrong direction,” said Chris Mullen, who heads State Farm’s technology research.

    Of course, life is just a little better when we spread the wealth around to pay for the bad decisions of others…just ask Obama.

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Feb 20

Today’s News 20th February 2017

  • Paul Craig Roberts Explains The Stakes For Trump And All Of Us

    Authored by Paul Craig Roberts,

    We need to understand, and so does President Trump, that the hoax “war on terror” was used to transform intelligence agencies, such as the NSA and CIA, and criminal investigative agencies, such as the FBI, into Gestapo secret police agencies. Trump is now threatened by these agencies, because he rejects the neoconservative’s agenda of US world hegemony that supports the gigantic military/security annual budget.

    Our secret police agencies are busy at work planting “intelligence” among the presstitute media that Trump is compromised by “Russian connections” and is a security threat to the United States. The plan is to make a case in the media, as was done against President Nixon, and to force Trump from office. To openly take on a newly elected president is an act of extraordinary audacity that implies enormous confidence, or else desperation, on the part of the police state agencies.

    Here you can see CNN openly cooperating with the CIA in treating wild and irresponsible speculation that Trump is under Russian influence as if it is an established fact.

    The “evidence” provided by CNN and the CIA is a “report” by the New York Times that, with little doubt, was planted in the NYT by the CIA.

    This is so obvious that it is clear that CNN and the CIA regard the American people as so gullible as to be completely stupid.

    Glenn Greenwald explains to Amy Goodman that the CIA is after Trump, because Trump’s announced policy of reducing the dangerous tensions with Russia conflicts with the military/security complex’s need for a major enemy.

    https://www.democracynow.org/embed/story/2017/2/16/greenwald_empowering_the_deep_state_to

    “The deep state, although there’s no precise or scientific definition, generally refers to the agencies in Washington that are permanent power factions. They stay and exercise power even as presidents who are elected come and go. They typically exercise their power in secret, in the dark, and so they’re barely subject to democratic accountability, if they’re subject to it at all. It’s agencies like the CIA, the NSA and the other intelligence agencies, that are essentially designed to disseminate disinformation and deceit and propaganda, and have a long history of doing not only that, but also have a long history of the world’s worst war crimes, atrocities and death squads. This is who not just people like Bill Kristol, but lots of Democrats are placing their faith in, are trying to empower, are cheering for as they exert power separate and apart from—in fact, in opposition to—the political officials to whom they’re supposed to be subordinate.

     

    “And you go—this is not just about Russia. You go all the way back to the campaign, and what you saw was that leading members of the intelligence community, including Mike Morell, who was the acting CIA chief under President Obama, and Michael Hayden, who ran both the CIA and the NSA under George W. Bush, were very outspoken supporters of Hillary Clinton. In fact, Michael Morell went to The New York Times, and Michael Hayden went to The Washington Post, during the campaign to praise Hillary Clinton and to say that Donald Trump had become a recruit of Russia. The CIA and the intelligence community were vehemently in support of Clinton and vehemently opposed to Trump, from the beginning. And the reason was, was because they liked Hillary Clinton’s policies better than they liked Donald Trump’s. One of the main priorities of the CIA for the last five years has been a proxy war in Syria, designed to achieve regime change with the Assad regime. Hillary Clinton was not only for that, she was critical of Obama for not allowing it to go further, and wanted to impose a no-fly zone in Syria and confront the Russians. Donald Trump took exactly the opposite view. He said we shouldn’t care who rules Syria; we should allow the Russians, and even help the Russians, kill ISIS and al-Qaeda and other people in Syria. So, Trump’s agenda that he ran on was completely antithetical to what the CIA wanted. Clinton’s was exactly what the CIA wanted, and so they were behind her. And so, they’ve been trying to undermine Trump for many months throughout the election. And now that he won, they are not just undermining him with leaks, but actively subverting him. There’s claims that they’re withholding information from him, on the grounds that they don’t think he should have it and can be trusted with it. They are empowering themselves to enact policy.

     

    “Now, I happen to think that the Trump presidency is extremely dangerous. You just listed off in your news—in your newscast that led the show, many reasons. They want to dismantle the environment. They want to eliminate the safety net. They want to empower billionaires. They want to enact bigoted policies against Muslims and immigrants and so many others. And it is important to resist them. And there are lots of really great ways to resist them, such as getting courts to restrain them, citizen activism and, most important of all, having the Democratic Party engage in self-critique to ask itself how it can be a more effective political force in the United States after it has collapsed on all levels. That isn’t what this resistance is now doing. What they’re doing instead is trying to take maybe the only faction worse than Donald Trump, which is the deep state, the CIA, with its histories of atrocities, and say they ought to almost engage in like a soft coup, where they take the elected president and prevent him from enacting his policies. And I think it is extremely dangerous to do that. Even if you’re somebody who believes that both the CIA and the deep state, on the one hand, and the Trump presidency, on the other, are extremely dangerous, as I do, there’s a huge difference between the two, which is that Trump was democratically elected and is subject to democratic controls, as these courts just demonstrated and as the media is showing, as citizens are proving. But on the other hand, the CIA was elected by nobody. They’re barely subject to democratic controls at all. And so, to urge that the CIA and the intelligence community empower itself to undermine the elected branches of government is insanity. That is a prescription for destroying democracy overnight in the name of saving it. And yet that’s what so many, not just neocons, but the neocons’ allies in the Democratic Party, are now urging and cheering. And it’s incredibly warped and dangerous to watch them do that.”

    The United States is now in the extraordinary situation that the liberal/progressive/left is allied with the deep state against democracy. The liberal/progressive/left are lobbying for the impeachment of a president who has committed no impeachable offense. The neoconservatives have stated their preference for a deep state coup against democracy. The media obliges with a constant barrage of lies, innuendos and disinformation. The insouciant American public sits there sucking its thumb.

    What can Trump do? He can clean out the intelligence agencies and terminate their license granted by Bush and Obama to conduct unconstitutional activities. He can use anti-trust to breakup the media conglomerates that Clinton allowed to form. If Bush and Obama can on their own authority subject US citizens to indefinite detention without due process and if Obama can murder suspect US citizens without due process of law, Trump can use anti-trust law to break up the media conglomerates that speak with one voice against him.

    At this point Trump has no alternative but to fight. He can take down the secret police agencies and the presstitute media conglomerates, or they will take him down. Dismissing Flynn was the worse thing to do. He should have kept Flynn and fired the “leakers” who are actively using disinformation against him. The NSA would have to know who the leakers are. Trump should clean out the corrupt NSA management and install officials who will identify the leakers. Then Trump should prosecute the leakers to the full extent of the law.

    No president can survive secret police agencies determined to destroy him. If Trump’s advisers don’t know this, Trump desperately needs new advisers.

  • North Korea's Regime In Jeopardy After China Bans All Coal Imports

    North Korea just lost a very big ally.

    On Saturday, China said that it was suspending all imports of coal from North Korea as part of its effort to implement United Nations Security Council sanctions aimed at stopping the country’s nuclear weapons and ballistic-missile program. The ban, according to a statement posted on the website of the Chinese Commerce Ministry, takes effect on today and will last until the end of the year. While China will hardly suffer material adverse impacts, Chinese trade – and aid – have long been a vital economic crutch for North Korea, and the decision strips North Korea of one of its most important sources of foreign currency.

    The ban comes six days after the North Korean test of a ballistic missile that the Security Council condemned as a violation of its resolutions that prohibited the country from developing and testing ballistic missile technology. In the test, – which took place during a dinner between Japan’s Prime Minister and Donald Trump – North Korea claimed that it had successfully launched a new type of nuclear-capable missile. It said its intermediate-range Pukguksong-2 missile used a solid-fuel technology that American experts say will make it harder to detect missile attacks from the North.

    According to the NYT, China’s decision has the potential to cripple North Korea’s already moribund economy: coal accounts for 34-40% of North Korean exports in the past several years, and almost all of it was shipped to China, according to South Korean government estimates. As Yang Moo-jin, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul confirms, coal sales accounted for more than 50 percent of North Korea’s exports to China last year, and about a fifth of its total trade. China had previously bought coal under exemptions that allowed trade for “livelihood” purposes. China’s Ministry of Commerce didn’t respond to faxed questions outside office hours. 

    “Of course they may have methods to replace the damage, but just by looking at the size of the loss, that’s a pretty big blow,” Yang said.

    China’s import ban follows a UN Security Council resolution adopted in November in response to the North’s fifth and most powerful nuclear test, according to which the country should not be allowed to export more than 7.5 million metric tons of coal a year or bring in more than $400 million in coal sales, whichever limit is met first. It was unclear whether that cap has already been reached for this year.

    Officials of the United States and its allies, including President Trump, have suggested that China, North Korea’s principal economic patron, should be more aggressive in enforcing sanctions. But while it does not approve of the North’s weapons program, China has also been seen as reluctant to inflict crippling pain on North Korea, for fear that it might destabilize its Communist neighbor.

    That, however, changed on Saturday and as Bloomberg says “China’s move to ban coal imports from North Korea, effectively slicing the country’s exports by about half, came with a message for the U.S. and its allies: It’s time to do a deal” even if it means risking political upheaval.

    While China has previously resisted calls by the U.S. to apply greater pressure on Kim’s regime, North Korea is increasingly becoming a strategic liability, according to Zhou Qi, director of the National Strategy Institute at Tsinghua University in Beijing. “What we’re seeing now is Beijing is showing a new willingness to bring the North to near the breaking point,” she said. “There is still some room to squeeze the regime. But of course, it’s a risky card to play.”

    “The Chinese are getting more frustrated with North Korea,” Eurasia Group President Ian Bremmer said in an interview at the same conference. “They clearly don’t feel that they have a lot of influence and they’re worried that the U.S. under Trump is going to blame China as opposed to continuing a multilateral process.”

    At the same time as China announce the coal import bank, Chinese officials said that pushing North Korea into a corner won’t work as Kim’s regime will keep developing its nuclear capability until it feels safe. Instead, it’s time to restart talks and “break the negative cycle on the nuclear issue,” Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said in a statement on Sunday after meeting South Korean counterpart Yun Byung-se at a security meeting in Munich.

    As Bloomberg adds, China’s call for a new initiative contrasts with a more hawkish tone out of Washington.

    President Donald Trump, who during his campaign said he could negotiate with Kim over a hamburger, this month promised to deal with North Korea “very strongly” after its latest missile test. He also called on China to get tougher. The U.S. is putting a defense system called Thaad in South Korea — a move that also potentially threatens Beijing’s military capabilities.

     

    China may soon have company in making the shift. South Korea’s President Park Geun-hye was impeached in December and the leading candidates to replace her all take a softer line on North Korea, with front-runner Moon Jae-in saying that the next administration should review the decision to deploy Thaad.

    Meanwhile, last week’s bizarre assassination of Kim’s estranged half-brother, who was protected by Chinese authorities, added to calls in Beijing’s foreign policy establishment to take stronger action, according to Shi Yongming, an associate research fellow at the Foreign Ministry-run China Institute of International Studies. “The case fully exposed the desperate irrationality of the Kim regime,” Shi said. “Beijing still wants to bring him to a negotiation table – and that’s where the U.S. role lies – because the collapse of the regime is right now outside China’s realistic capacity to handle.”

    Making the recent situation somewhat embarrassing for Beijing, China has backed the Kim dynasty since it took charge after the Korean War, in part to prevent having a U.S. ally on its border.

    With the international community enforcing sanctions on North Korea after a series of nuclear tests, China now accounts for more than 90 percent of its total trade, according to Bloomberg data.

    Whether the Chinese ban will bring Kim’s regime to the negotiating table is unclear. North Korea has accelerated its development of nuclear bombs and ballistic missiles since 2009, when it walked away from six-party talks involving the U.S., South Korea, China, Russia and Japan. However, losing perhaps the biggest source of outside funding will almost certainly lead to political chaos in the communist nation.

    The question on everyone’s lips, but which few dare to ask in public, is whether Kim Jong-Un, pressed into a corner, will – after years of posturing with his ballistic missile tests, finally launch a rocket into one of the neighboring nations. Trump’s administration has said it will deploy the missile defense system this year in South Korea and back Japan “100 percent” in moves to deter North Korea.

    Since it may have no choice but to test out this defense system in the very near future, one hopes that any North Korean “desperation” launches are safely brought down.

  • China Responds To Fed Jawboning March "Live" – Weakens Yuan, Spikes Money Market Rates

    After a week of jawboning markets into believing that the March FOMC meeting is now "live", it appears China has decided to send a little message.

     

    After weakening the fix by the most since Jan 9th, Chinese money market rates are soaring (1 week CNH HIBOR up 303bps) despite notable liquidity injections…

     

    Of course an unexpected rate hike in March is an implicit tightening of the world's financial conditions and thus liquidity withdrawal… reversing recent improvements in global dollar liquidity.

    As Mark St.Cyr asks (and answers), is China about to begin pre-emptively devaluing the yuan?

    Remember when any member of the Federal Reserve, regardless of the action be it a speech, interview, what they had for breakfast et cetera, was met with panting breaths by the financial media? You know, like it was back in the old days, say around 90 days ago more or less. My how time both flies and changes.

    Today? Like it or not (and I presume they disdain it) the President as opposed to a Fed. president, has reclaimed all the oxygen, print, airwaves, bandwidth, and more from not only the general news, but the business/financial news as well. I have a feeling that’s not sitting well within the confines of the Eccles Building. Remember: Elites don’t like sharing stages, especially with those they deem as “outsiders.”

    So what does the above have anything to do with March and the Yuan you may be asking? It’s this:

    You or I may be enjoying a respite from the media where the Fed. (or central bankers in general) aren’t dominating every topic of business/financial discussion. Yet, the one audience I’ll contend that’s still hanging on every syllable for meaning and intent is China. And China is the, and I mean just that – the – only audience that matters. The reasoning is simple:

    China, overnight, can bring the entire global markets crashing to its knees via one wrong move, exponentially faster than any Fed. misstep, intentional, or otherwise. Period.

    In other words, the Fed. more often than not will signal first (yet they can surprise) and the move would cause turmoil, but the move (and resulting chaos) itself would be more reaction to surprise than substance, where knee-jerk-selling is met with horns-over-hooves buying from Bulls just itching to buy the next dip. (i.e., 1/4% unannounced or unanticipated hike or something else in kind.)

    China on the other hand could intentionally devalue the Yuan in whole number, even double-digit percentages, unannounced overnight, and the chaos could quickly transform into unstoppable monetary bedlam. And there’s recent precedent for clues. e.g., August of 2015.

    So with the above for context the question that should be first and foremost in everyone’s mind is this:

    If China believes there’s a rate hike in March, regardless of what the rest of the world (and academia) might think. Will it force  China into delivering a monetary strike first, and deal with its aftermath later, rather, than simply waiting around to then deal with any potential monetary aftermath or chaos unleashed by the Fed. later?

    I believe not only will they move first – the move borders on inevitable.

    I base this on no other reasoning than watching the Fed. continuing to throw ever-the-more fuel onto this “monetary powder keg” that brings that response on quicker, rather than later. For the more they pile on, the more this “monetary powder keg” moves from in-need-of-a-match, into self-igniting.

    I am of the opinion China’s ever-growing capital flight problems, and more can not withstand another rate hike, let alone one so close after December. And the tell-tale signs for this to be more plausible than not have been occurring in plain sight with far more telling frequency (and I’ll imply: intent) than previously. And the ones who seem to not be reading the “tea leaves” is none other than the Fed. itself.

    Here’s some of my reasoning from the article, “Feb’s FOMC Meeting: A Powder keg In Search Of A Match” To wit:

    “If China feels that it is in a no-win situation (and it’s easily conceivable using the Fed’s latest words, speeches, shift in policy signaling and a whole lot more) They might decide after coming back from their New Year holiday and – act first – question later.”

    Guess what the politburo did when they returned? Hint: Everything and anything but (and it’s a very big but) the one thing they always did in unison – defend the Yuan.

    Everything in China went ballistic. Bonds, stocks, commodities, all up. The Yuan? Tumbled to one-month lows.

    I’ll contend this is an overt signaling action which screams warning signs everywhere. For why did China, this time, throw so much money everywhere else except for the one place it basically threw the “kitchen sink” at only a month or so prior? (e.g., The Yuan as to strengthen it away from the much dreaded psychological USD/CNH 7.00 cross.)

    Was this a test to see what reaction (both market and political) would take place doing something other than something solely Yuan centric? Or, was this a move of desperation as to subside further capital flight? After all: This is precisely the exact opposite of what one should/would do if the plan was to strengthen, rather than weaken one’s currency, correct?

    Again: Why would you throw enormous sums of money into actions which not only have a negative effect, but a canceling effect on what you just threw (again) enormous sums of money only a month prior? Does the old joke “Drilling holes in the bottom of the boat to let the water coming in out.” come to mind here? Which is why I’m siding on the side of desperation – first, as opposed to  a test. And here’s why, as stated by economist, and China watcher Andy Xie (one of the few economists I admire) to wit:

    “China’s domestic woes and international challenges are largely due to its inefficient system. The government is obsessed with concentrating economic resources in its own hands, and asset markets are like casinos, sucking people in and making them lose money. The government uses its vast resources inefficiently. Hence, China’s currency has a tendency to depreciate.”

    Using the above for a prism it’s easy to see how the politburo can do two things at the same time which seem diametrically opposed to what was professed (or signaled) only weeks prior. Why? Because when elites panic – they’ll throw money everywhere and anywhere first, because that’s all they know. And I believe this demonstrates China is beginning to panic.

    The real question (and problem) now is: How far, and how fast, from the “beginning” to “end game” they decide to proceed going forward from here? I believe all we have to do is look to our own Fed. for clues, for they appear utterly clueless to what is taking place right before their own eyes.

    So what kind of signaling (hence exacerbating China nervousness) is forthcoming from the Fed you ask? Fair question, to wit:

    From Reuters™ “Dollar Index Rises As Yellen Signals More Rate Hikes”

    “Waiting too long to remove accommodation would be unwise,” Yellen said in prepared remarks before the U.S. Senate Banking Committee, the first of her two-day testimony before Congress.

    That was just a few days ago from Fed. chair Janet Yellen’s televised two-day testimony before Congress.

    But what went along with the above was what went nearly unreported (as I implied when stating “the old days”) when none other than the Fed’s Dennis Lockhart (another Fed. president retiring at the end of the month) stated in an interview with Bloomberg™ “March meeting is live.”

    That’s a lot of confirmation that March is to be considered live, is it not?

    As I’ve iterated before, I believe the rest of the world (or “markets”) are still of the idea that the Fed. is once again “crying wolf” as they did all throughout 2016. For China? I think they’re back to an August 2015 frenzy caught between what to do next, never-mind, what not to do. And it’s getting more complicated for them by the day.

    Think I’m over exaggerating? Fair point, so here’s just a few “other” headlines China returned from holiday to read and think about, let alone, needing a response to:

    “…Trump Backs Japan Over Disputed East China Sea Islands”

     

    Or how about this from the WSJ™ implying further retaliation, “U.S. Eyes New Tactic To Press China”

    So where are we now? As I stated in my previous article, I believe it’s all about the Fed. minutes, to wit:

    During that time I believe China will wait for the minutes to be released, and if it is made apparent that there was indeed further discussion as to bolster the inferences that the Fed. may be actively considering a path as to embark on a march towards higher rates, along with the thinning of its balance sheet, which would inevitably send the $Dollar rocketing skywards?

    They’ll act first and ask (or maybe not) questions later. Sending everything that is now taken for granted in the “markets” (e.g., “It’s good to be long!) into total chaos. All before March 15th’s next meeting. Again, which just so happens to be the exact date originating the “Ides of March” warning.”

    If the actions by China after returning from their holiday break are any clue? Than the possibility for a “monetary first strike” is all the more plausible, if not probable, than these “markets” are signaling, let alone contemplating.

    China has thrown buckets of capital at not only the Yuan, but its credit markets in unison – and capital flight is accelerating still on all fronts. All while the $Dollar strengthens, and Yuan weakens seemingly against the will of both monetary bodies.

    So again, with all the above for context, as I said in the title…

    If March Is indeed “live?”  Then so too is the mother of all monetary shocks.

    We shall see our first clues for the minutes of the latest FOMC meeting are to be released this week. And if they are indeed “hawkish?” I believe it will force China’s hand before the next meeting. Whether anyone is prepared for it, or not.

    And if any clues are to be extrapolated by current “market” action? The answer is self-evident: nobody thinks such a thing is possible anymore, let alone – positioned for it, making things more problematic than they already are. If that’s even possible.

    *  *  *

    Finally we wonder if – just as was the case after the Shanghai Accord had fulfilled its Plunge Protection Team role in Q1 2016 – whether the same is about to occur…

    Notice that the Yuan has been strengthening against the USD for the last 2 months (despite all the gnashing or political teeth over its manipulation). A Fed rate hike is the perfect excuse to let that pretense slide again.

  • Maryland Considers Teaching Kids That Boys Are Presumed Guilty In Rape Accusations

    Submitted by Greg Piper via The College Fix,

    “Affirmative consent” is a fuzzy concept even for adults, which is why one of them taught 10th graders in California that they must say “yes” every 10 minutes during sex or it becomes rape.

    The concept was enshrined in state law in October 2015, and since then California has remained the only state to legally require “yes means yes” be taught in public schools.

    Maryland could soon be the second.

    The Washington Post reports that a House of Delegates committee is considering a bill today (HB 365) that would set up a pilot program in Montgomery County, just outside Washington, D.C.

    It would “provide instruction on affirmative consent as part of a specified curriculum in specified grades in public schools in the county beginning in the 2017-2018 school year.”

    But that’s just the start for the sponsors, Montgomery County Democratic Dels. Ariana Kelly and Marice Morales, according to the Post:

    The two lawmakers say they are drafting a companion piece of legislation that would extend the mandate statewide.

     

    Both measures would define consent as “clear, unambiguous, knowing, informed and voluntary agreement between all participants to engage in each act within the course of sexual activity.”

     

    Local education officials would be required to teach the concept in both seventh and 10th grades, but individual districts would be able to decide how to tailor the lessons in an age-appropriate way.

    The Post report fails to note that affirmative consent essentially shifts the burden of proof onto the accused student, which in the vast majority of cases is a male being accused by a female.

    It inexplicably cites the National Coalition for Men, whose president said affirmative consent is driven by “people who don’t like men that much,” as the face of the opposition.

    But the consent standard has better known and less polarizing critics who cite the lack of due process inherent in affirmative consent, including the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education and the Maryland-based female-led advocacy group Stop Abusive and Violent Environments.

    FIRE in particular has warned that affirmative-consent provisions do not put students on notice of what behavior can get them punished. Tracking the language of other bills and campus codes, the Maryland measure requires consent for “each act within the course of sexual activity” – which could mean anything from changing positions during intercourse to each kiss and touch preceding intercourse.

    The bill also does not define “sexual activity,” a problem it shares with a college-specific bill signed into law in Connecticut last summer.

    One Republican lawmaker on the committee hearing the bill, Del. Kevin B. Hornberger of Cecil County, makes a federalism argument rather than a due-process argument to keep the county-level pilot from going statewide, the Post says:

    “What works best for Montgomery County doesn’t necessarily work best for Cecil or any of the other jurisdictions in this state,” Hornberger said. “The positive from this experiment is that it puts the conversation out there and raises awareness of affirmative consent.”

    Hornberger was also a “peer educator” in college who taught affirmative consent. Chances are he was never accused of rape months after a sexual encounter because the consent did not consist of a continuous stream of “yes” statements.

  • Who's Really Behind The Soft-Coup? Obama-Founded Activist Group Offers Anti-Trump Protest "Guide"

    "The left is intentionally fighting to remain relevant," remarks Armstrong Economics' Martin Armstrong, adding that "the hatred spewing out of their mouths is really off the wall." Furthermore, Armstrong warns the Obama administration is behind the so-called 'soft coup' under way and as The Post reports, an Obama-tied activist group training tens of thousands of agitators to protest Trump's policies plans to hit Republican lawmakers even harder this week.

    Organizing for Action, a group founded by Obama and featured prominently on his new post-presidency website, is distributing a training manual to anti-Trump activists that advises them to bully GOP lawmakers into backing off support for repealing ObamaCare, curbing immigration from high-risk Islamic nations, and building a border wall. As The NY Post details,

    In a new Facebook post, OFA calls on activists to mobilize against Republicans from now until Feb. 26, when “representatives are going to be in their home districts.”

     

    The protesters disrupted town halls earlier this month, including one held in Utah by House Oversight Chairman Jason Chaffetz, who was confronted by hundreds of angry demonstrators claiming to be his constituents.

    The manual, published with OFA partner “Indivisible,” advises protesters to go into halls quietly so as not to raise alarms, and “grab seats at the front of the room but do not all sit together.” Rather, spread out in pairs to make it seem like the whole room opposes the Republican host’s positions. “This will help reinforce the impression of broad consensus.” It also urges them to ask “hostile” questions — while keeping “a firm hold on the mic” — and loudly boo the the GOP politician if he isn’t “giving you real answers.”

     

    “Express your concern [to the event’s hosts] they are giving a platform to pro-Trump authoritarianism, racism, and corruption,” it says.

     

    The goal is to make Republicans, even from safe districts, second-guess their support for the Trump agenda, and to prime “the ground for the 2018 midterms when Democrats retake power.”

     

    “Even the safest [Republican] will be deeply alarmed by signs of organized opposition,” the document states, “because these actions create the impression that they’re not connected to their district and not listening to their constituents.”

    After the event, protesters are advised to feed video footage to local and national media.

    “Unfavorable exchanges caught on video can be devastating” for Republican lawmakers, it says, when “shared through social media and picked up by local and national media.”

     

    After protesters gave MSNBC, CNN and the networks footage of their dust-up with Chaffetz, for example, the outlets ran them continuously, forcing Chaffetz to issue statements defending himself.

     

    The manual also advises protesters to flood “Trump-friendly” lawmakers’ Hill offices with angry phone calls and emails demanding the resignation of top White House adviser Steve Bannon.

     

    A script advises callers to complain: “I’m honestly scared that a known racist and anti-Semite will be working just feet from the Oval Office … It is everyone’s business if a man who promoted white supremacy is serving as an adviser to the president.”

    None other than Robert Reich is front and center in the "Townhall Disruption Guide"…

    https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Findivisibleguide%2Fvideos%2F1472749059404352%2F&show_text=0&width=560

    Additionally, as Axios notes, Progressive groups are circulating information about town hall meetings on a MoveOn.org-powered website, "Resistance Recess."

    More than a dozen major groups in the institutional left are involved, with groups like Planned Parenthood and unions like SEIU organizing protests. The former Hillary Clinton super PAC Priorities USA is running localized digital ads — its first paid ads since the election — to spotlight Republican town halls. Democratic leaders like Bernie Sanders and Chuck Schumer will lead events.

     

    What's in store:

    • "Resistance Events" will target everyone from Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton (Wednesday evening) to Indiana Rep. Jackie Walorski (Tuesday morning) to Utah Rep. Jason Chaffetz (Saturday morning). Protesters can find them by locale or zip code on resistancerecess.com.
    • Nobody is safe. Not even the members ducking town halls. Our Revolution, the group that spun off from Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign, will launch a map tomorrow showing every congressional district in the country that they intend to swarm next Saturday.
    • Shannon Jackson, Our Revolution's executive director, says they've already got close to 200 events planned around the country and will be rallying outside nearly every Republican congressional office.

     

    Resisting the resistance: House Republicans have been intensely prepping for these confrontations. At least 175 members attended Obamacare "listening sessions" — which were really detailed policy briefing sessions — convened by House Majority Whip Steve Scalise.

    Finally, Martin Armstrong concludes by remarking that the Obama administration intentionally set the stage knowing what they were doing was designed to undermine and cripple the Trump Administration. The sanctions on Putin were also intended to prevent Trump from reversing the tension created by Obama to create an international conflict. These leaks appear to be part of an intentional plot by Obama/Left to allow his supporters within the intelligence community to topple Trump if they can. Obama waited until he had just 17 days left in office to sign an executive order to expand the power of the National Security Agency (NSA) allowing it to share globally intercepted personal communications with the government’s 16 other intelligence agencies before any application of top secret or privacy protection would be attached. Obama never did this while he was in office. Whenever a politician does something like this, there is ALWAYS a hidden agenda. This Obama executive order changed everything with regard to national security that was put in place by an executive order dating back to Ronald Reagan. Obama opened the flood gates and this I personally believe was a treasonous act showing the Democrats adopted a strategy to under,mine Trump from the outset and to create massive civil unrest.

    Trump must reinstate the national security procedures that have been in place since Ronald Reagan and fire everyone in intelligence appointed by Obama. Clean the swamp must start right there and NOW! Obama knew he would set up a shadow government and refuse to leave Washington. He seems to be working harder now while as President he may have played golf more than any other president.

    Proof that Obama is behind the civil unrest is the fact he has taken to Twitter.

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    As he states boldly to believe in that the people can bring about change through their own action. He is implying to rise up and create civil unrest on a massive scale.

    Obama has been behind this entire affair of creating civil unrest and I believe is deliberately undermining national security with his moles strategically placed within the intelligence community to undermine the government. That is unquestionable TREASON and the press will only attack Trump and never defend the country. When Obama won, you did not see the other 46% set fires and try to bring down the government. The left always demands it is their way or no way. This is why we will move into civil war in the years ahead. Independents just say live and let live – don’t bother me and I will not bother you. Leftists say you can live only as they command – they cannot sleep at night worrying what independents are doing. It’s like the Hunger Games – suppress all freedom is their agenda.

  • Tulsi Gabbard Versus "Regime Change" Wars

    Rep. Tulsi Gabbard is a rare member of Congress willing to take heat for challenging U.S. “regime change” projects, in part, because as an Iraq War vet she saw the damage these schemes do, as retired Col. Ann Wright explains to ConsortiumNews.com.

    I support Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, going to Syria and meeting with President Bashar al-Assad because the congresswoman is a brave person willing to take criticism for challenging U.S. policies that she believes are wrong.

    It is important that we have representatives in our government who will go to countries where the United States is either killing citizens directly by U.S. intervention or indirectly by support of militia groups or by sanctions.

    We need representatives to sift through what the U.S. government says and what the media reports to find out for themselves the truth, the shades of truth and the untruths.

    We need representatives willing to take the heat from both their fellow members of Congress and from the media pundits who will not go to those areas and talk with those directly affected by U.S. actions. We need representatives who will be our eyes and ears to go to places where most citizens cannot go.

    Tulsi Gabbard, an Iraq War veteran who has seen first-hand the chaos that can come from misguided “regime change” projects, is not the first international observer to come back with an assessment about the tragic effects of U.S. support for lethal “regime change” in Syria.

    Nobel Peace Laureate Mairead Maguire began traveling to Syria three years ago and now having made three trips to Syria. She has come back hearing many of the same comments from Syrians that Rep. Gabbard heard — that U.S. support for “regime change” against the secular government of Syria is contributing to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Syrians and – if the “regime change” succeeded – might result in the takeover by armed religious-driven fanatics who would slaughter many more Syrians and cause a mass migration of millions fleeing the carnage.

    Since 2011, the Obama administration supported various rebel groups fighting for “regime change” in Syria while U.S. allies – Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey – backed jihadist groups including Islamic State and Al Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate, some of the same extremists whom the U.S. military is fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. If Assad were overthrown, these extremists might take power and create even worse conditions for Syrians.

    This possibility of jihadists imposing perverted extremist religious views on the secular state of Syria remains high due to international meddling in the internal affairs of Syria. This “regime change” project also drew in Russia to provide air support for the Syrian military.

    Critical of Obama’s ‘Regime Change’

    During the Obama administration, Rep. Gabbard spoke critically of the U.S. propensity to attempt “regime change” in countries and thus provoking chaos and loss of civilian life.

    On Dec. 8, 2016, she introduced a bill entitled the “Stop Arming Terrorists Act” which would prohibit the U.S. government from using U.S. funds to provide funding, weapons, training, and intelligence support to extremists groups, such as the ones fighting in Syria – or to countries that are providing direct or indirect support to those groups.

    In the first days of the Trump administration, Rep. Gabbard traveled to Syria to see the effects of the attempted “regime change” and to offer a solution to reduce the deaths of civilians and the end of the war in Syria. A national organization Veterans For Peace, to which I belong, has endorsed her trip as a step toward resolution to the Syrian conflict.

    Not surprisingly, back in Washington, Rep. Gabbard came under attack for the trip and for her meeting with President Assad, similar to criticism that I have faced because of visits that I have made to countries where the U.S. government did not want me to go — to Cuba, Iran, Gaza, Yemen, Pakistan, North Korea, Russia and back to Afghanistan, where I was assigned as a U.S. diplomat.

    I served my country for 29 years in the U.S. Army/ Army Reserves and retired as a colonel. I also served 16 years in the U.S. diplomatic corps in U.S. Embassies in Nicaragua, Grenada, Somalia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Sierra Leone, Micronesia, Afghanistan and Mongolia. I resigned from the U.S. government nearly 14 years ago in March 2003 in opposition to President George W. Bush’s “regime change” war on Iraq.

    In my travels since my resignation, I didn’t agree with many of the policies of the governments in power in those countries. But I wanted to see the effects of U.S. government policies and, in particular, the effects of attempts at “regime change.”

    I wanted to talk with citizens and government officials about the effects of U.S. sanctions and whether the sanctions “worked” to lessen their support for the government that the U.S. was attempting to change or overthrow.

    For making those trips, I have been criticized strongly. I have been called an apologist for the governments in power. Critics have said that my trips have given legitimacy to the abuses by those governments. And I have been called a traitor to the United States to dare question or challenge its policy of “regime change.”

    But I am not an apologist, nor am I a traitor … nor is Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard for her recent trip to Syria.

    *  *  *

    Ann Wright served 29 years in the US Army/Army Reserves and retired as a colonel. She also was a U.S. diplomat for 16 years and served in U.S. Embassies in Nicaragua, Grenada, Somalia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Sierra Leone, Micronesia, Afghanistan and Mongolia. She resigned in March 2003 in opposition to the war in Iraq. She has lived in Honolulu since 2003.

  • Visualizing The Stunning Truth About How Students Are Spending Loan Cash

    Over the last 15 years the starting salary for recent college grads has declined about $4000. Unfortunately, as ValueWalk.com details, the amount of student loan debt most students are graduating with has skyrocketed. You can now expect to graduate into a worse job market and with more debt than just a decade ago, which is leading to a serious financial crisis- the average debt load upon graduation is $37,000, and many people can’t even make their minimum payments.

    Nearly 60% of student borrowers have no idea when their student loans will be paid off. Over half of borrowers have no idea what their monthly payments will be when they graduate. When you combine these facts with declining wages and rising housing rates, many people will find they just can’t make ends meet.

    There are a few things students can do before graduation to ensure they aren’t set up for failure. Find out what your total costs will be and only take out the amount you need- financing a pizza every Friday night for four years can easily turn an expense of $1800 into $2291 when you have to pay interest over time. Try to seek out alternative ways to cover at least a portion of your expenses- a work-study program or part-time job can be a big help!

     

    Student loans can never be bankrupted, so it’s important to pay them off as quickly as possible. Make payments while you are still in school on order to minimize your debt load upon graduation, and once you graduate try to make additional principal payments whenever possible to help accelerate your payoff schedule. Stay on top of payments and set up automatic payments if necessary so you never miss a payment- penalties can keep you on the hook much longer than you need to be. Learn more about lightening the student loan burden from this infographic!

  • The Three Lives Of Alan Greenspan… And Why The Third Won't Redeem The Second

    Submitted by John Rubino via DollarCollapse.com,

    When the history of these times is written, former Fed Chair Alan Greenspan will be one of the major villains, but also one of the greatest mysteries. This is so because he has, in effect, been three different people.

    He began public life brilliantly, as a libertarian thinker who said some compelling and accurate things about gold and its role in the world. An example from 1966:

    An almost hysterical antagonism toward the gold standard is one issue which unites statists of all persuasions. They seem to sense – perhaps more clearly and subtly than many consistent defenders of laissez-faire – that gold and economic freedom are inseparable, that the gold standard is an instrument of laissez-faire and that each implies and requires the other…

     

    …In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation. There is no safe store of value. If there were, the government would have to make its holding illegal, as was done in the case of gold [in 1934 under FDR]. If everyone decided, for example, to convert all his bank deposits to silver or copper or any other good, and thereafter declined to accept checks as payment for goods, bank deposits would lose their purchasing power and government-created bank credit would be worthless as a claim on goods. The financial policy of the welfare state requires that there be no way for the owners of wealth to protect themselves.

     

    This is the shabby secret of the welfare statists’ tirades against gold. Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of property rights. If one grasps this, one has no difficulty in understanding the statists’ antagonism toward the gold standard.

    Awesome, right? But when put in charge of the Federal Reserve in the late 1980s, instead of applying the above wisdom — by for instance limiting the bank’s interference in the private sector and letting market forces determine winners and losers — he did a full 180, intervening in every crisis, creating new currency with abandon, and generally behaving like his old ideological enemies, the Keynesians. Not surprisingly, debt soared during his long tenure.

    Along the way he was instrumental in preventing regulation of credit default swaps and other derivatives that nearly blew up the system in 2008. His view of those instruments:

    The reason that growth has continued despite adversity, or perhaps because of it, is that these new financial instruments are an increasingly important vehicle for unbundling risks. These instruments enhance the ability to differentiate risk and allocate it to those investors most able and willing to take it. This unbundling improves the ability of the market to engender a set of product and asset prices far more calibrated to the value preferences of consumers than was possible before derivative markets were developed. The product and asset price signals enable entrepreneurs to finely allocate real capital facilities to produce those goods and services most valued by consumers, a process that has undoubtedly improved national productivity growth and standards of living.

    He cut interest rates to near-zero in the early 2000s, igniting the housing bubble – which he was unable to detect along the way. He even made it into the dictionary, as the “Greenspan put” became the term for government bailing out its Wall Street benefactors.

    From this the leveraged speculating community learned that no risk was too egregious and no profit too large, because government – that is, the Fed – had eliminated all the worst-case scenarios. Put another way, under Greenspan profit was privatized but loss was socialized.

    Greenspan retired from the Fed in 2006 and, miraculously, began morphing back into his old libertarian self. A cynic might detect a desire to avoid the consequences of his past actions, while a neurologist might suspect senility. But either way the transformation is breathtaking. Consider this from yesterday:

    Gold Standard Needed Now More Than Ever? – Alan Greenspan Comments

    (Kitco News) – It would be best not to be short-sighted when it comes to gold; at least that is what one former Fed chair says.

    “[T]he risk of inflation is beginning to rise…Significant increases in inflation will ultimately increase the price of gold,” noted Alan Greenspan, Federal Reserve chairman from 1987 to 2006, in an interview published in the World Gold Council’s Gold Investor February issue.

     

    “Investment in gold now is insurance. It’s not for short-term gain, but for long-term protection.”

     

    However, it is really the idea of returning to a gold standard that Greenspan focused on — a gold standard that he said would help mitigate risks of an “unstable fiscal system” like the one we have today.

     

    “Today, going back on to the gold standard would be perceived as an act of desperation. But if the gold standard were in place today, we would not have reached the situation in which we now find ourselves,” he said.

     

    “We would never have reached this position of extreme indebtedness were we on the gold standard, because the gold standard is a way of ensuring that fiscal policy never gets out of line.”

     

    To Greenspan, the reason why the gold standard hasn’t worked in the past actually has nothing to do with the metal itself.

     

    “[T]here is a widespread view that the 19th Century gold standard didn’t work. I think that’s like wearing the wrong size shoes and saying the shoes are uncomfortable!” he said. “It wasn’t the gold standard that failed; it was politics.”

    One of the nice things about the information age is that public figures leave long paper trails and can’t therefore easily escape their pasts. Greenspan’s past, being perhaps the best documented of any central banker in history, will haunt him forever.

    But hey, at least he’s going out a gold bug.

  • Trump Administration Toughens Asylum Rules, Speeds Deportation Process

    Amid judicial blockages, and rogue border agents, it appears the Trump administration is still trying its best to follow through on its campaign promises to crackdown on illegal immigration. As Reuters reports, The Department of Homeland Security has prepared new guidance for immigration agents aimed at speeding up deportations by denying asylum claims earlier in the process.

    Following last week's apparent crackdown on DREAMers, Reuters reports new guidelines, contained in a draft memo dated February 17 but not yet sent to field offices, directs agents to only pass applicants who have a good chance of ultimately getting asylum, but does not give specific criteria for establishing credible fear of persecution if sent home.

    The guidance instructs asylum officers to "elicit all relevant information" in determining whether an applicant has “credible fear” of persecution if returned home, the first obstacle faced by migrants on the U.S.-Mexico border requesting asylum.

    Three sources familiar with the drafting of the guidance said the goal of the new instructions is to raise the bar on initial screening.

    The administration's plan is to leave wide discretion to asylum officers by allowing them to determine which applications have a "significant possibility" of being approved by an immigration court, the sources said.

     

    Furthermore, as The Wall Street Journal reports, parents and others who help children travel illegally to the U.S. would be subject to deportation or prosecution under new Trump administration policies being completed, according to a second leaked memo prepared by the Department of Homeland Security.

    The draft memo also indicates people from countries other than Mexico trying to cross the southern U.S. border illegally could be returned to Mexico to await legal proceedings, while others would be held in detention centers.

     

    The memo directs that those apprehended at the border be detained, or jailed, until their cases are heard, unless they first establishes a “credible fear” of persecution, or meet other limited exceptions.

     

    Leon Fresco, who headed the Justice Department’s Office of Immigration Litigation under President Barack Obama, predicted many of these policies would meet resistance from courts, which are already reviewing smaller changes implemented under the previous administration.

     

     

    He said he was particularly struck by the change in how children would be handled.

     

    “It is a complete 180 to move from a policy that focused on unaccompanied minors being placed into safe locations while their removal proceedings were pending to placing the custodians of unaccompanied minors into removal proceedings,” he said. Even the smaller Obama version “is already the subject of pending litigation in Los Angeles federal court and is likely going to be viewed with great skepticism by that court.”

    *  *  *

    Of course, as a reminder, these immigrants are illegally entering the country and this is what the American people voted for.

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Feb 19

Today’s News 19th February 2017

  • Jay Sekulow: Obama Should Be "Held Accountable" For The "Soft Coup" Against Trump

    In light of the recent flurry of leaks by the so-called “deep state”, which includes such agencies as the NSA and FBI and which last week lead to the resignation of Mike Flynn after a phone recording of his  phone conversation with the Russian ambassador was leaked to the WaPo and other anti-Trump publications, an article published on January 12 by the NYT has generated renewed interest. One month ago, the NYT reported that “In its final days, the Obama administration expanded the power of the National Security Agency to share globally intercepted personal communications with the government’s 16 other intelligence agencies before applying privacy protections.”

    The new rules significantly relax longstanding limits on what the N.S.A. may do with the information gathered by its most powerful surveillance operations, which are largely unregulated by American wiretapping laws. These include collecting satellite transmissions, phone calls and emails that cross network switches abroad, and messages between people abroad that cross domestic network switches. The change means that far more officials will be searching through raw data. Essentially, the government is reducing the risk that the N.S.A. will fail to recognize that a piece of information would be valuable to another agency, but increasing the risk that officials will see private information about innocent people.

    While previously the N.S.A. filtered information before sharing intercepted communications with another agency, like the C.I.A. or the intelligence branches of the F.B.I. and the Drug Enforcement Administration, and furthermore N.S.A.’s analysts passed on only information they deemed pertinent, screening out the identities of innocent people and irrelevant personal information, following passage of Obama’s 11th hour rule, “other intelligence agencies will be able to search directly through raw repositories of communications intercepted by the N.S.A. and then apply such rules for “minimizing” privacy intrusions.“

    In other words, what until recently was a trickle of private data captured about US individuals by the NSA with only a handful of people having full, immersive access, suddenly became a firehose with thousands of potential witnesses across 16 other agencies, each of whom suddenly became a potential source of leaks about ideological political opponents. And with the universe of potential “leaking” culprits suddenly exploding exponentially, good luck finding the responsible party.

    However, the implications are far more serious than just loss of privacy rights.

    According to civil right expert and prominent First Amendement Supreme Court lawyer, Jay Sekulow, what the agencies did by leaking the Trump Administration information was not only illegal but “almost becomes a soft coup”, one which was spurred by the last minute rule-change by Obama, who intentionally made it far easier for leaks to propagate, and next to impossible to catch those responsible for the leaks.

    This is his explanation:

    There was a sea-change here at the NSA with an order that came from president Obama 17 days before he left office where he allowed the NSA who used to control the data, it now goes to 16 other agencies and that just festered this whole leaking situation, and that happened on the way out, as the president was leaving the office.

     

    Why did the Obama administration wait until it had 17 days left in their administration to put this order in place if they thought it was so important. They had 8 years, they didn’t do it, number one. Number two, it changed the exiting rule which was an executive order dating back to Ronald Reagan, that has been in place until 17 days before the Obama administration was going to end, that said the NSA gets the raw data, and they determine dissemination.

     

    Instead, this change that the president put in place, signed off by the way by James Clapper on December 15, 2016, signed off by Loretta Lynch the Attorney General January 3, 2017, they decide that now 16 agencies can get the raw data and what that does is almost creates a shadow government. You have all these people who are not agreeing with President Trump’s position, so it just festers more leaks.

     

    If they had a justification for this, wonderful, why didn’t they do it 8 years ago, 4 years ago, 3 years ago. Yet they wait until 17 days left.

    One potential answer: they knew they had a “smoking gun”, and were working to make it easier to enable the information to be “leaked” despite the clearly criminal consequences of such dissemination.

    As this point Hannity correctly points out, “it makes it that much more difficult by spreading out the information among 16 other agencies, if they want to target or take away the privacy rights, and illegally tap the phones, in this case General Flynn, it’s going to be much harder to find the perpetrator.”

    Sekulow confirms, noting that back when only the NSA had access to this kind of raw data, there would be a very small amount of people who have access to this kind of data. “But this change in the Obama Administration was so significant that they allowed dissemination to 16 other agencies, and we wonder why there’s leaks.”

    The lawyer’s conclusion: “President Obama, James Clapper, Loretta Lynch should be held accountable for this.”

    Full clip below:

  • Retired Green Beret Warns: Deep State's Utopia Of Oligarchs Is "Enslavement And Complete Control Of All Of Mankind"

    Submitted by Jeremiah Johnson (nom de plume of a retired Green Beret of the United States Army Special Forces (Airborne)) via SHTFPlan.com,

    In past articles the fact of a long struggle was mentioned and how it ties in with the current first year of the President’s administration.  The struggle is not merely to overcome the executive actions and orders of Obama.  The true battle is to remove the Marxists from bureaucratic fiefs established by Obama for carryover into the current administration and to deflect and negate their attacks and the attacks of others.

    The circuit court in San Francisco and the Department of Justice have been waging a seesaw-type of battle over the executive order signed by the President.  The order’s intent is to stem the illegal aliens and foreigners entering the U.S. from Middle Eastern nations either openly hostile to or providing the highest probability (intentionally or indirectly) for terrorists to enter the country.  This makes perfect sense, and because it does, one can easily see that only those hell-bent on weakening the U.S. and fostering infiltration would be against the order: those Marxists of the Left labeled as “Democrats” and calling themselves “Progressives.”

    They are not alone: they are aided by the Left-Right, which is even worse.  The Left-Right are those masquerading as Republican Conservatives, when they are Marxist-Leftists and proponents of Global Governance and the New World Order.  They are the Paul Ryans, the Mitch McConnells, and the Newt Gingriches.  They are the pseudo-Republican politico’s in office presently and in the past who have those CFR slots and are working toward their fantasy: The Utopia of Oligarchs.

    Even if they do not overtly act on behalf of the Marxists, they have been guilty…numerous times…of enabling the Marxists through the complacency of inactivity.

    They do not simply wish to derail the actions of President Trump: it is a much larger concept than that.  They see themselves as “partners” with the Left in the same game: to establish an elitist politico-oligarchic ruling class, broken down into divisions throughout the globe for ethno-cultural manipulation, yet with the same end-state.  That goal is the enslavement and complete control of all of mankind with the elitists ensconced as the ruling moneyed class.  They see themselves as the educated, sensible minority with tender sensibilities and true humanistic views…who must…must…take a stand in the globalist crusade against the barbaric Neanderthals of the proletariat and populist serfs.

    This new President has taken more action and more rapidly than even President Reagan did when he took office, and that is saying something.  Even those globalists playing the part of conservatives are knuckling under in lock step, shivering internally: A President is in the White House that can turn these bedbugs out of the mattress and burn them.  This new President quietly and without fanfare made it a point to be there for the SEAL who was killed in Yemen as his casket was brought back home.

    That should speak volumes on the caliber of the man who is in the White House.

    Everything that he does is attacked by the media and disparaged by the leftists.  Even the removal of Dodd-Frank (let’s remember…that was Christopher Dodd and Barney Frank…two troglodytes…who came up with that one) is sneered at.  The executive order to halt the illegals from potential hotbeds of Middle Eastern terrorism is challenged by states packed with liberals and also by the business and industry oligarchs who would rather the U.S. be vulnerable if they can continue to hire “tax-free” day-laborers for less than minimum wage with impunity.

    Senator John McCain (R- AZ) wants to go to war with Russia and he wants to reshape eastern Europe.  McCain and Lindsey Graham were instrumental in the Obama-ordered and sanctioned coup d’état that brought down Ukraine’s government and president and installed a U.S. puppet picked by Victoria Nuland.  McCain hasn’t stopped: he’s just been “on hold” to see where he can take footing when the dust settles from the initial Trump shakeup.

    In previous articles, it was mentioned how critical this first 6 months to one year-period in office is for the President, namely because of the midterm elections.  If the public does not see results, they could very well change the complexion and composition of Congress in 2018 and the Republicans could lose control of either one of or both houses of Congress.  The President realizes this, and he is moving swiftly.

    The public will also see that he is doing good things, and that it is the Democrats who are attempting to obstruct his efforts.  This will carry the Republicans through in the midterm elections, and thus all legislative efforts by the President will be able to be enacted.  It’s a tough fight and at times it’s uphill, but he started out well, and right…and the Democrats won’t be able to hold him off.

  • "It's Unfair" – Hispanic Workers Upset After Being Fired For Absence On "Day Without Immigrants"

    The manager of the ironically named "I Don't Care" Bar and Grill in Catoosa, Oklahoma is hiring…

    https://www.facebook.com/plugins/post.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2FIDCGrill%2Fposts%2F857546944386779&width=500

    After firing 12 staff last week for violating his “no call/no show” policy.

    http://foxbaltimore.com/embed/news/nation-world/catoosa-restaurant-fires-12-workers-for-not-showing-up-on-day-without-immigrants?external-id=3b2878151d334321b3471e359c95309e

    Fox Baltimore reports that the workers are without a job after getting fired for skipping work as a show of support for “A Day Without Immigrants.”

    The restaurant workers are all Hispanic and say it was important to them to participate in the national protest.

     

    But they didn’t think it would cost them their jobs.

     

    “They feel like they’ve been unfairly terminated," said a friend, translating for the employees.

    The owner fired them by text message.

    A message to one of the employees reads: "You and your family are fired. I hope you enjoyed your day off, and you can enjoy many more. Love you.”

     

    //platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    The group willingly chose to stay home with others across the country, supporting “A Day Without Immigrants.”

    “(They’re) upset they stood for something they felt was necessary so the community would stand together, and they got terminated for that," said the friend.

    Restaurant owner Bill McNally gave us a written statement, saying he has a "zero tolerance policy for no show/no call incidents and the 12 employees violated that policy."

     

  • "There's Something Weird Going On": Jeff Snider On The Global Dollar Shortage

    The first time we explained that one of the biggest risks facing a world in which the dollar is the reserve currency is a global USD shortage, was in mid-2009, when we wrote “How The Federal Reserve Bailed Out The World.”

    At the time, the IMF calculated that just ahead of the financial crisis, “major European banks’ US dollar funding gap had reached $1.0–1.2 trillion by mid-2007. Until the onset of the crisis, European banks had met this need by tapping the interbank market ($432 billion) and by borrowing from central banks ($386 billion), and used FX swaps ($315 billion) to convert (primarily) domestic currency funding into dollars.” The IMF then extrapolated that “were all liabilities to non-banks treated as short-term funding, the upper-bound estimate would be $6.5 trillion.”

    Since then the shortage, which some have dubbed a potential multi-trillion dollar margin call, has only grown and became a prominent issue back in March of 2015, when this phenomenon was used to explain why the cross-currency swap had plunged to multi-year lows. As JPM explained at the time, “the fx basis reflects the relative supply and demand for dollar vs. foreign currency funds and a very negative basis currently points to relative shortage of USD funding or relative abundance of funding in other currencies. Such supply and demand imbalances can create big shifts in the fx basis away from its actuarial value of zero.”

    Fast forward a year and a half later, when none other than the Bank of International Settlements, or the “Central canks’ central bank”, warned last November that it was no longer the VIX that was the widely accepted barometer of market “fear”, it was now the dollar’s turn to become the global fear gauge: “just as the VIX index was a good summary measure of the price of balance sheet before the crisis, so the dollar has become a good measure of the price of balance sheet after the crisis. The mantle of the barometer of risk appetite and leverage has slipped from the VIX, and has passed to the dollar.”

    Shortly thereafter we once recapped the main risks emerging from this increasingly more prominent threat to global financial stability, and wondered at what point would the Fed finally address this risk pointed out not only by this website for nearly 8 years, but also by the BIS, in a post which piggybacked on the recent work by ADM ISI’s Paul Mylchreest, who has made tracking the global dollar shortage one of his primary objectives.

    * * *

    Now, in an exhaustive, 70 minute interview, submitted by Patrick Ceresna at MacroVoices.com, another prominent analyst who has been closely tracking the global dollar shortage, Alhambra Partners’ Jeffrey Snider sat down with Erik Townsend to explain – once again – why this is such a critical topic, even if it comes at a time of unprecedented global complacency (it’s amazing what record high stock prices will do to concerns – or lack thereof – about the future).

    As Snider puts it, while most other risk indicators imply smooth sailing, “there is ‘something’ weird going on” when it comes to dollar funding and global imbalances of the world’s reserve currency, i.e., dollar shortage.

    • In the interview, among the many topics covered, are
    • Understanding the Eurodollar Money Market
    • Swap Spreads and Interbank Hierarchy
    • Dimensions in the Eurodollar Futures and Eurodollar Money Supply
    • Why does the World Need So Many Dollars?
    • How the Eurodollar market supplanted the Bretton Woods System
    • U.S. Dollar and the Dollar Funding Gap
    • Reflation Trade Debunked
    • Interest Rates Trapped
    • Failing Global Currency System

    While we urge readers to listen to the full interview below, here are some of the highlights, starting with “why the Dollar shortage a symptom of an inherently unstable system.”

    As Snider explains, “the dollar shortage isn’t so much the shortage per se, it’s the fact that it’s a symptom of what is an inherently unstable system.” He notes that “the reason banks are withdrawing from the system is that it’s just is no longer tenable” and “so there has to be some kind of – whether you want to look at it like another Bretton Woods – conference, a global monetary system, a global monetary get together where people start to analyze solutions to the problem as they are rather than keep trying to apply band aids that are not going to work. “

    But, he concludes, “step one of that task is to actually recognize the problem as it is and so doing more stimulus or doing more QE isn’t going to solve anything it isn’t do anything just like prior QEs and prior stimulus haven’t done anything either because the problem is an unstable system.”

    * * *

    Snider focuses on the Eurodollar system, which he defines as a problem of “decay and dysfunction” and explains that “nothing ever happens in a straight line even the Eurodollar problem has not been a singular event. It’s not been a decade long straight line of decay and dysfunction.” 

    He goes on to say that the fact that after enough time these markets have adjusted to the fact that the economy’s going to be bad for a very long time until something actually changes and so true reflation is predicated on something actually changing rather than the hope that something might change.

    Looking at history, Snider observes that “what happened in July 2008 obviously was the fact that everyone decided almost all at once that wasn’t the right interpretation of what the Fed was doing nor was it the right interpretation of the dollar system overall. So, that reflation ended in reality which was the dollar system was eroding and it was eroding in a very dangerous way and that’s why oil prices essentially crashed from July till I think January 2009.”

    An implication of the ongoing reserve currency funding shortage is that, according to Snider, despite the occasional blip (arguably funded by massive Chinese credit creation), “reflation is going to fail and there’s nothing the Fed can do about it.” He goes on to state that “until they fix the global dollar problem we’re not going to fix the global economy and so we’re kind of stuck gyrating between various levels of really bad. We go from the lack of recovery to what looks like a global recession to the lack of recovery and back again” as a result he thinks that “reflation is going to fail.”

    Snider also said that “because of how they’ve defined the last ten years” even the Fed “no longer believes that it’s in its interest to do anything.” He agrees and sais that “there’s nothing that the Fed can do about it.”

    “In other words, we want them to start considering the global currency system and how it actually is operating and failing rather than their stylized academic approach which doesn’t apply. And until they’re actually convinced that there is a role for the central bank in that condition output gap or not, we’re kind of stuck.”

    The failure to stimulate benign inflation is captured on the next two charts which show “why this version of ‘reflation’ is so far less than even 2013’s version.“

    His troubling assessment: “I hate to think of what the next decade might look like because history is not very kind in these kinds of situations where you have prolonged periods of stagnation.“

    * * *

    Putting it all together, Snider goes on to say that the Eurodollar futures market in particular is saying is that “if the Fed is going to raise rates it’s not to raise rates for a long or it’s not going to be able to raise rates for long.” Echoing a warning we – and many others have made on many occasions – Snider says that if the yield curve happens to invert again “if they ever get that far” then it will “immediately be like in 2005 or 2006 all over again it won’t stay that way for very long either the market will force the Feds’ hand or the Fed will realize the error and correct it. What’s important about this is that “in each of these reflation episodes you can clearly see the market’s faith in that reflation diminishes each time for these very reasons that we’re talking about because these markets have become attuned to the fact the Fed isn’t exactly what everybody thought it was, monetary policy isn’t what everybody thought it was.”

    Snider summarizes by saying that “the fact that these markets realize that there’s a problem in Eurodollar system, there’s no banking to be had, no additional marginal banking capacity being added and without it none of these stuff really matters, none of these other stuff really matters. That’s the only thing that truly matters” and concludes gloomily that “the probability scenarios for economic and financial future are much darker now than they were three years ago.“

    * * *

    Snider’s full interview can be heard below (Here is a link to the entire podcast transcript):

    https://player.podtrac.com/player/embed.js?w=500&h=0&feed=https%3a%2f%2fwww.macrovoices.com%2fcomponent%2fpodcastmanager%2f%3fformat%3draw%26feedname%3d2

    The embed code for this episode can be found here.


    We also urge listeners to follow along using Snider’s prepared slides presented below.
    https://www.scribd.com/embeds/339694812/content?start_page=1&view_mode=scroll&access_key=key-KRsfrHVI6trsjrwvEKyd&show_recommendations=true

  • The FBI Is Pursuing Three Separate Probes Into "Russian Hacking" Of The Elections

    While it has been previously documented that the FBI has launched an investigation into Russian “hacking” of the elections, today Reuters provided more details on the ongoing effort to scapegoat Hillary Clinton’s loss on the Kremlin, when it reported that the FBI is pursuing at least three separate probes relating to alleged Russian hacking.

    The details according to Reuters, which cites unnamed officials, are as follows:

    • the FBI’s Pittsburgh field office, which runs many cyber security investigations, is trying to identify the people behind breaches of the Democratic National Committee’s computer systems. Those breaches, in 2015 and the first half of 2016, exposed the internal communications of party officials as the Democratic nominating convention got underway and helped undermine support for Hillary Clinton. The Pittsburgh case has progressed furthest, but Justice Department officials in Washington believe there is not enough clear evidence yet for an indictment, two of the sources said.
    • the FBI’s San Francisco office is trying to identify the people who called themselves “Guccifer 2” and posted emails stolen from Clinton campaign manager John Podesta’s account, the sources said. Those emails contained details about fundraising by the Clinton Foundation and other topics.
    • FBI counterintelligence agents based in Washington are pursuing leads from informants and foreign communications intercepts, two of the people said. “This counterintelligence inquiry includes but is not limited to examination of financial transactions by Russian individuals and companies who are believed to have links to Trump associates. The transactions under scrutiny involve investments by Russians in overseas entities that appear to have been undertaken through middlemen and front companies”

    Among the topics pursued by the counterintelligence investigations are the alleged contacts between members of the Trump campaign and current and former Russian intelligence officers prior to the November election, as previously reported by the New York Times.

    When reached by Reuters, Scott Smith, the FBI’s new assistant director for cyber crime, declined to comment this week on which FBI offices were doing what or how far they had progressed. The White House likewise had no comment on Friday on the Russian hacking investigations. A spokesman pointed to a comment Trump made during the campaign, in which he said: “As far as hacking, I think it was Russia, but I think we also get hacked by other countries and other people.”

    It was unclear if any FBI bureaus were investigating the leaks emanating from the US government which Donald Trump repeatedly slammed in the past week, and which led not only to the resignation of Michael Flynn but to constant disclosures into the inner workings of the Trump cabinet. While many of the opponents of the Clinton, Podesta and Democratic leaks – broadly grouped under the “Russians hacked the election” umbrella – have slammed “Russian interference” in the US electoral process, they have been far less troubled by similar leaks impacting Trump, and – of course – vice versa.

  • Trump Supporters Rally In Downtown Atlanta With Semi-Automatic Weapons

    As Trump was preparing to address an audience in Florida on Saturday afternoon, in a speech which Reuters summarized as “returning to the campaign trail to attack the media again and tout his accomplishments in the friendly atmosphere of a rally with supporters”, a group of supporters gathered for a pro-President Trump rally in downtown Atlanta armed with semi-automatic weapons.

    The crowd met at Centennial Olympic Park. Those there told Channel 2 Action News that they are part of an area militia group, III% Security Force, which was also serving as security for the event.

    As WSB-TV reports, members of the militia group said they were there to protect President Trump supporters. 

    “We’re using our second amendment rights to protect the first amendment rights,” Chris Hill said.

    “Throughout the day we’re going to have more people, more Trump supporters come to this corner, showing their support for President Trump. We are going to make sure that these people are safe and have the right to have their voices heard without fear of violence or intimidation from any opposing groups.” 

    Hill said he has seen counter-protesters circling the block, but he and his group want to make sure things stay peaceful. 

    “We want to make it known that this is a peaceful event and we’re going to do everything in our power to make sure that remains the case,” he said. Hill said he expected 20 to 30 people to show up for the rally. He said a permit is required if there are more than 35 people, but he did not think that would be the case.

    There were no reports of any confrontations or violence during the rally.

    In an interview on its website with one of its founding members, the “Three Percenter” militia explains that it is “is comprised of men and women as citizens in esch state which come together to form a chapter.  Each chapter is classified as being part of the “Unorganized Militia,” we are officially a civilian volunteer organization.

    We will come to the defense of public and private property, lives, and liberty to exercise God-given rights, seen plainly in the laws of Nature, and codified in the Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights.

     

    All local laws (not in violation of the U.S. Constitution and/or State Constitutions) shall be observed by members of III%SF. Each and every member and personnel within III%SF shall always conduct himself/herself with professional aptitude, integrity, and respect of others at all times. III%SF and its members shall not and will not ever cause or create any attempt to attack or overthrow any local, state, or federal department. We will never advocate or promote violence towards any organizations, groups, or persons.

     

    GSF III% has a zero tolerance policy regarding racial discrimination.  The Constitution says a militia is necessary for the security of the free state.  The State of Georgia says  the militia is comprised of all males between 17 and 45 and physically capable of acting in our common defense.

    A video showcasing the group is shown below.

  • The Shadow Government's Destruction Of Democracy

    The 'Deep State' has one simple rule – "do it my way… or else!"

    Source: Ben Garrison

    And on the heels of Dennis Kucinich's warnings, The Intercept's Glenn Greenwald, who opposes Trump for a variety of reasons, warns that siding with the evidently powerful Deep State in the hopes of undermining Trump is dangerous. As TheAntiMedia's Carey Wedler notes, Greenwald asserted in an interview with Democracy Now, published on Thursday, that this boils down to a fight between the Deep State and the Trump administration.

    https://www.democracynow.org/embed/story/2017/2/16/greenwald_empowering_the_deep_state_to

    Though Greenwald has argued the leaks were “wholly justified” in spite of the fact they violated criminal law, he also questioned the motives behind them.

    “It’s very possible — I’d say likely — that the motive here was vindictive rather than noble,” he wrote. “Whatever else is true, this is a case where the intelligence community, through strategic (and illegal) leaks, destroyed one of its primary adversaries in the Trump White House.”

    According to an in-depth report by journalist Mike Lofgren:

    “The Deep State does not consist of the entire government. It is a hybrid of national security and law enforcement agencies: the Department of Defense, the Department of State, the Department of Homeland Security, the Central Intelligence Agency and the Justice Department. I also include the Department of the Treasury because of its jurisdiction over financial flows, its enforcement of international sanctions and its organic symbiosis with Wall Street.”

    As Greenwald explained during his interview:

    “It’s agencies like the CIA, the NSA and the other intelligence agencies, that are essentially designed to disseminate disinformation and deceit and propaganda, and have a long history of doing not only that, but also have a long history of the world’s worst war crimes, atrocities and death squads.”

    Greenwald believes this division is a result of the Deep State’s disapproval of Trump’s foreign policy and the fact that the intelligence community overwhelmingly supported Hillary Clinton over Trump because of her hawkish views. Greenwald noted that Mike Morell, acting CIA chief under Obama, and Michael Hayden, who ran both the CIA and NSA under George W. Bush, openly spoke out against Trump during the presidential campaign.

    Greenwald asserts the the CIA preferred Clinton because, like the clandestine agency, she supported regime change in Syria. In contrast, Trump dismissed America’s practice of nation-building and declined to tow the line on ousting foreign leaders, instead advocating working with Russia to defeat ISIS and other extremist groups.

    “So, Trump’s agenda that he ran on was completely antithetical to what the CIA wanted,” Greenwald argued. “Clinton’s was exactly what the CIA wanted, and so they were behind her. And so, they’ve been trying to undermine Trump for many months throughout the election. And now that he won, they are not just undermining him with leaks, but actively subverting him.”

     

    “[In] the closing months of the Obama administration, they put together a deal with Russia to create peace in Syria. A few days later, a military strike in Syria killed a hundred Syrian soldiers and that ended the agreement. What happened is inside the intelligence and the Pentagon there was a deliberate effort to sabotage an agreement the White House made.”

    Greenwald, who opposes Trump for a variety of reasons, warns that siding with the evidently powerful Deep State in the hopes of undermining Trump is dangerous. “Trump was democratically elected and is subject to democratic controls, as these courts just demonstrated and as the media is showing, as citizens are proving,” he said, likely alluding to a recent court ruling that nullified Trump’s travel ban.

    He continued:

    “But on the other hand, the CIA was elected by nobody. They’re barely subject to democratic controls at all. And so, to urge that the CIA and the intelligence community empower itself to undermine the elected branches of government is insanity.”

    He argues that mentality is “a prescription for destroying democracy overnight in the name of saving it,” highlighting that members of both prevailing political parties are praising the Deep State’s audacity in leaking details of Flynn’s conversations.

    As he wrote in his article, “…it’s hard to put into words how strange it is to watch the very same people — from both parties, across the ideological spectrum — who called for the heads of Edward Snowden, Chelsea Manning, Tom Drake, and so many other Obama-era leakers today heap praise on those who leaked the highly sensitive, classified SIGINT information that brought down Gen. Flynn.”

    He also points out the left’s hypocrisy in condemning Flynn for lying when James Clapper, Director of National Intelligence during the Obama administration, perpetuated lies without ever being held accountable.

  • Goldman: Investors Will Soon Realize They Were Too Optimistic

    Goldman Sachs really wants the market lower.

    After several increasingly more comprehensive critiques of Trump’s fiscal policies (most recently this past weekend), on Friday, just as the S&P closed at fresh all time highs propelled by a late day ramp, Goldman’s chief equity strategist who has a 2,300 year end target on the index, cautioned that “cognitive dissonance exists in the US stock market” as “investors must reconcile S&P 500’s performance with negative EPS revisions from sell-side analysts.” Specifically, Kostin notes that the “S&P 500 has returned 10% since Election Day while consensus 2017E adjusted earnings have been lowered by 1%“, and predicts that “investors will soon de-rate their expectations of potential 2017 EPS growth as they face the reality that the accretive impact from tax reform will not occur until 2018.“

    In short, “Financial market reconciliation lies ahead: We are approaching the point of maximum optimism and S&P 500 will give back recent gains as investors embrace the reality that tax reform is likely to provide a smaller, later tailwind to corporate earnings than originally expected.“

    First, Goldman points out that the underlying current of optimism unleashed with the Trump election is no longer warranted:

    Cognitive dissonance exists in the US stock market. S&P 500 is up 10% since the election despite negative EPS revisions from sell-side analysts (see Exhibit 1). Investors, S&P 500 management teams, and sell-side analysts do not agree on the most likely path forward. On the one hand, investors, corporate managers, and macroeconomic survey data suggest an increase in optimism about future economic growth. In contrast, sell-side analysts have cut consensus 2017E adjusted EPS forecasts by 1% since the election and “hard” macroeconomic data show only modest improvement.

     

     

    Some of the optimism has to do with a jump in Q4 earnings, however much of that has to do with a slowdown in energy company writedowns.

    On an operating basis, EPS grew by 24% aided by a recovery in Energy profits. Energy operating EPS recovered from -$2.43 in 4Q 2015 – the lowest level on record since 1967 – to $0.29 in 4Q 2016 as asset write-downs slowed. Energy contributed 13 pp of 24 pp to 4Q S&P 500 EPS growth. Index-level operating EPS grew by roughly 6% in 2016; we expect 10% growth in 2017.

    While there has certainly been an earnings rebound, the future is far less exciting than the recent rally will make it appear.

    Investors are optimistic about an improvement in economic growth and the prospect of increased corporate EPS.
    All 11 sectors contributed to the 10% rise in the S&P 500 index,
    with Financials and Information Technology contributing 30% and 22% of
    the 208 point gain. Decomposing the strong performance shows reduced EPS
    growth has been more than offset by P/E expansion which accounts for
    all the index gain (Exhibit 2).

     

    Goldman then notes that while corporate management team commentary from Q4 earnings calls substantiates some of this optimism, forward EPS do not justify it, and indeed “analyst EPS estimates paint a different picture. Consensus 2017E adjusted EPS has been revised downward by 1% over the last 3 months. Sell-side analysts appear hesitant to incorporate potential tax reform and deregulation into their estimates given elevated policy uncertainty. Positive revisions to aggregate S&P 500 EPS estimates are rare – during the last 33 years, consensus EPS estimates have been revised upward from their starting point just six times.”

    Kostin then points out something we have shown on various occasions in the past month: the recent “recovery” has been all in soft economic indicators such as sentiment and outlook. Hard data has for the most part, faded the entire bounce since the election:

     

    “Hard” macroeconomic data has shown only modest improvement. Housing indicators have flashed mixed signals with a notable decline in the latest reading of new home sales. Industrial Production was weaker-than-expected in January (-0.3% vs. median forecast of flat) and the December reading was revised down.

    Just as Congressional Republicans are likely to use the reconciliation process to pass fiscal policy legislation this year, so must investors reconcile S&P 500 performance with corporate earnings. We are approaching the point of maximum optimism regarding policy initiatives. Our US Economics team expects a tax reform package may not pass until late 2017 or early 2018. Even so, the tailwind to corporate earnings from tax reform will be constrained by the unwillingness of certain Congressional Republicans to significantly expand the federal budget deficit.

    Kostin’s conclusion: “We expect investors will soon de-rate their expectations of potential 2017 EPS growth as they face the reality that the accretive impact from tax reform will not occur until 2018. Many investors have incorporated lower taxes in a 2017 S&P 500 earnings estimate of roughly $130, reflecting 11% growth. In contrast, our S&P 500 adjusted EPS estimate for this year remains $123, just 5% above the flat earnings of 2014, 2015, and 2016. We forecast S&P 500 will peak in 1Q at 2400 before slipping to 2300 by year-end.”

    It’s perhaps worth noting once again, that every time Goldman has warned that a market turnaround is imminent, the S&P has proceeded to surge to new highs. For those expecting Trump’s first market correction, or worse, they may have to hold their breath until the bank that spawned most of Trump’s economic advisors finally throws in the towel and says to buy at any price.

  • Trump Left Saudi Arabia Off His Immigration Ban… Here's Why

    Submitted by Nick Giambruno via InternationalMan.com,

    On August 15, 1971, President Nixon killed the last remnants of the gold standard.

    It was one of the most significant events in US history—on par with the 1929 stock market crash, JFK’s assassination, or the 9/11 attacks. Yet most people know nothing about it.

    Here’s what happened…

    After World War 2, the US had the largest gold reserves in the world, by far. Along with winning the war, this let the US reconstruct the global monetary system around the dollar.

    The new system, created at the Bretton Woods Conference in 1944, tied the currencies of virtually every country in the world to the US dollar through a fixed exchange rate. It also tied the US dollar to gold at a fixed rate of $35 an ounce.

    The Bretton Woods system made the US dollar the world’s premier reserve currency. It effectively forced other countries to store dollars for international trade, or to exchange with the US government for gold.

    By the late 1960s, the number of dollars circulating had drastically increased relative to the amount of gold backing them. This encouraged foreign countries to exchange their dollars for gold, draining the US gold supply. It dropped from 574 million troy ounces at the end of World War 2 to around 261 million troy ounces in 1971.

    To plug the drain, President Nixon “suspended” the dollar’s convertibility into gold on August 15, 1971. This ended the Bretton Woods system and severed the dollar’s last tie to gold.

    Since then, the dollar has been a pure fiat currency, allowing the Fed to print as many dollars as it pleases.

    Of course, Nixon said the suspension was only temporary. That was lie No. 1. It’s still in place over 40 years later.

    And he claimed the move was necessary to protect Americans from international speculators. That was lie No. 2. Money printing to finance out-of-control government spending was the real threat.

    Nixon also said the suspension would stabilize the dollar. That was lie No. 3. Even by the government’s own rigged statistics, the US dollar has lost over 80% of its purchasing power since 1971.

    The death of the Bretton Woods system—which was really the US government defaulting on its promise to back the dollar with gold—had profound geopolitical consequences.

    Most critically, it eliminated the main motivation for foreign countries to store large US dollar reserves and to use the US dollar for international trade.

    At this point, demand for dollars was set to fall… along with the dollar’s purchasing power. So the US government concocted a new arrangement to give foreign countries another compelling reason to hold and use the dollar.

    The new arrangement, called the petrodollar system, preserved the dollar’s special status as the world’s reserve currency. For President Nixon and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, it was a geopolitical and financial masterstroke.

    From Bretton Woods to the Petrodollar

    From 1972 to 1974, the US government made a series of agreements with Saudi Arabia, which created the petrodollar system.

    The US handpicked Saudi Arabia because of the kingdom’s vast petroleum reserves and its dominant position in OPEC—and because the Saudi royal family was (and is) easily corruptible.

    The US also picked Saudi Arabia for geopolitical reasons. During the Yom Kippur War of 1973, OPEC’s Arab members started an oil embargo to punish the US for supporting Israel. Oil prices quadrupled, inflation soared, and the stock market crashed.

    The US was in a vulnerable position. It needed to neutralize the Arabs’ potent Oil Weapon. Turning a hostile Saudi Arabia into an ally was the key. The alliance would also help check Soviet influence in the region.

    In essence, the petrodollar system was an agreement that the US would guarantee the House of Saud’s survival. In exchange, Saudi Arabia would:

    1. Take the Oil Weapon off the table.

    2. Use its dominant position in OPEC to ensure that all oil transactions would only happen in US dollars.

    3. Invest billions of US dollars from oil revenue in US Treasuries. This let the US issue more debt and finance previously unimaginable budget deficits.

    Oil is the world’s most traded and strategic commodity. If foreign countries need US dollars to trade oil, it creates a very compelling reason to hold large dollar reserves.

    For example, if Italy wants to buy oil from Kuwait, it has to purchase US dollars on the foreign exchange market to pay for the oil first.

    This creates an artificial market for US dollars. The dollar is just a middleman in countless transactions that have nothing to do with US products or services.

    Ultimately, the arrangement boosts the US dollar’s purchasing power. It also creates a deeper, more liquid market for the dollar and US Treasuries.

    Plus, the US has the unique privilege of buying imports, including oil, with its own currency… which it can print.

    It’s hard to overstate how much the petrodollar system benefits the US dollar. It’s allowed the US government and many Americans to live beyond their means for decades. And it’s the reason the media and political elite give the Saudis special treatment.

    It’s the reason why President Trump left the Saudis off of his recent immigration ban.

    It was a glaring omission that Saudi Arabia—the country that provided 15 of the 19 hijackers for the 9/11 attacks—was absent from the list.

    In short, the petrodollar is the glue that holds the US–Saudi relationship together. But its bind is not permanent.

    Bretton Woods lasted 27 years. So far, the petrodollar has lasted over 40 years. However, the glue is already starting to lose its stick.

    I think we’re on the cusp of another paradigm shift in the international financial system, a change at least as fundamental as the end of Bretton Woods in 1971.

    The relationship between Saudi Arabia and the US is near historic lows. I only expect it to get worse.

    The US government has released 28 previously classified pages of the 9/11 Commission Report, which show Saudi government involvement in the attacks. And Congress passed a law allowing 9/11 victims to sue the Saudi government.

    These are major, unprecedented, irreparable blows to the petrodollar arrangement.

    Even without these radical changes, the petrodollar could still bite the dust…

    The Saudis could decide to sell their oil in Chinese renminbi, euros, IMF SDRs, gold, or many other non-dollar currencies. And they could influence most of OPEC to follow suit.

    Or the House of Saud could implode. I think that’s inevitable anyway, given the colossal economic and military mistakes it’s made recently.

    The geopolitical sands of the Middle East are rapidly shifting.

    Saudi Arabia’s regional position is weakening. Iran, which is notably not part of the petrodollar system, is on the rise. US military interventions are failing. And the emerging BRICS countries are creating potential alternatives to US-dominated economic/security arrangements. This all affects the stability of the petrodollar system.

    Right now, the stars are aligning against the Saudi kingdom. This is its most vulnerable moment since its 1932 founding.

    That’s why I think the death of the petrodollar system is the No. 1 black swan event for 2017.

    I expect the dollar price of gold to soar when the petrodollar system crumbles in the not-so-distant future. You don’t want to find yourself on the wrong side of history when that happens.

    When Nixon took the dollar off gold in 1971, it skyrocketed over 2,300%, from $35 an ounce to a high of $850 an ounce in 1980. Gold mining stocks did orders of magnitude better.

    I expect the returns to be at least this great after the end of the petrodollar.

    But that brings up another crucial point. There’s also likely to be severe inflation.

    The petrodollar system has allowed the US government and many Americans to live way beyond their means for decades.

    The US takes this unique position for granted. But it will disappear once the dollar loses its premier status.

    This will likely be the tipping point…

    Afterward, the US government will be desperate enough to implement capital controls, people controls, nationalization of retirement savings, and other forms of wealth confiscation.

    I urge you to prepare for the economic and sociopolitical fallout while you still can. Expect bigger government, less freedom, shrinking prosperity… and possibly worse.

    It’s probably not going to happen tomorrow. But it’s clear where the trend is headed.

    It is very possible that one day soon, Americans will wake up to a new reality, just as they did when Nixon severed the dollar’s last link to gold.

    Once the petrodollar system kicks the bucket and the dollar loses its status as the world’s premier reserve currency, you will have few, if any, options.

    The sad truth is, most people have no idea how bad things could get, let alone how to prepare…

    Yet there are straightforward steps you can start taking today to protect your savings and yourself from the financial and sociopolitical effects of the collapse of the petrodollar. This recently released video will show you where to begin. Click here to watch it now.

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Feb 18

Today’s News 18th February 2017

  • Who Really Rules The United States?

    Submitted by Matthew Continetti via FreeBeacon.com,

    How bureaucrats are fighting the voters for control of our country

    Donald Trump was elected president last November by winning 306 electoral votes. He pledged to "drain the swamp" in Washington, D.C., to overturn the system of politics that had left the nation's capital and major financial and tech centers flourishing but large swaths of the country mired in stagnation and decay. "What truly matters," he said in his Inaugural Address, "is not which party controls our government, but whether our government is controlled by the people."

    Is it? By any historical and constitutional standard, "the people" elected Donald Trump and endorsed his program of nation-state populist reform. Yet over the last few weeks America has been in the throes of an unprecedented revolt. Not of the people against the government—that happened last year—but of the government against the people. What this says about the state of American democracy, and what it portends for the future, is incredibly disturbing.

    There is, of course, the case of Michael Flynn. He made a lot of enemies inside the government during his career, suffice it to say. And when he exposed himself as vulnerable those enemies pounced. But consider the means: anonymous and possibly illegal leaks of private conversations. Yes, the conversation in question was with a foreign national. And no one doubts we spy on ambassadors. But we aren't supposed to spy on Americans without probable cause. And we most certainly are not supposed to disclose the results of our spying in the pages of the Washington Post because it suits a partisan or personal agenda.

    Here was a case of current and former national security officials using their position, their sources, and their methods to crush a political enemy. And no one but supporters of the president seems to be disturbed. Why? Because we are meant to believe that the mysterious, elusive, nefarious, and to date unproven connection between Donald Trump and the Kremlin is more important than the norms of intelligence and the decisions of the voters.

    But why should we believe that? And who elected these officials to make this judgment for us?

    Nor is Flynn the only example of nameless bureaucrats working to undermine and ultimately overturn the results of last year's election. According to the New York Times, civil servants at the EPA are lobbying Congress to reject Donald Trump's nominee to run the agency. Is it because Scott Pruitt lacks qualifications? No. Is it because he is ethically compromised? Sorry. The reason for the opposition is that Pruitt is a critic of the way the EPA was run during the presidency of Barack Obama. He has a policy difference with the men and women who are soon to be his employees. Up until, oh, this month, the normal course of action was for civil servants to follow the direction of the political appointees who serve as proxies for the elected president.

    How quaint. These days an architect of the overreaching and antidemocratic Waters of the U.S. regulation worries that her work will be overturned so she undertakes extraordinary means to defeat her potential boss. But a change in policy is a risk of democratic politics. Nowhere does it say in the Constitution that the decisions of government employees are to be unquestioned and preserved forever. Yet that is precisely the implication of this unprecedented protest. "I can't think of any other time when people in the bureaucracy have done this," a professor of government tells the paper. That sentence does not leave me feeling reassured.

    Opposition to this president takes many forms. Senate Democrats have slowed confirmations to the most sluggish pace since George Washington. Much of the New York and Beltway media does really function as a sort of opposition party, to the degree that reporters celebrated the sacking of Flynn as a partisan victory for journalism. Discontent manifests itself in direct actions such as the Women's March.

    But here's the difference. Legislative roadblocks, adversarial journalists, and public marches are typical of a constitutional democracy. They are spelled out in our founding documents: the Senate and its rules, and the rights to speech, a free press, and assembly. Where in those documents is it written that regulators have the right not to be questioned, opposed, overturned, or indeed fired, that intelligence analysts can just call up David Ignatius and spill the beans whenever they feel like it?

    The last few weeks have confirmed that there are two systems of government in the United States.

    The first is the system of government outlined in the U.S. Constitution—its checks, its balances, its dispersion of power, its protection of individual rights. Donald Trump was elected to serve four years as the chief executive of this system. Whether you like it or not.

     

    The second system is comprised of those elements not expressly addressed by the Founders. This is the permanent government, the so-called administrative state of bureaucracies, agencies, quasi-public organizations, and regulatory bodies and commissions, of rule-writers and the byzantine network of administrative law courts. This is the government of unelected judges with lifetime appointments who, far from comprising the "least dangerous branch," now presume to think they know more about America's national security interests than the man elected as commander in chief.

    For some time, especially during Democratic presidencies, the second system of government was able to live with the first one. But that time has ended. The two systems are now in competition. And the contest is all the more vicious and frightening because more than offices are at stake. This fight is not about policy. It is about wealth, status, the privileges of an exclusive class.

    "In our time, as in [Andrew] Jackson's, the ruling classes claim a monopoly not just on the economy and society but also on the legitimate authority to regulate and restrain it, and even on the language in which such matters are discussed," writes Christopher Caldwell in a brilliant essay in the Winter 2016/17 Claremont Review of Books.

    Elites have full-spectrum dominance of a whole semiotic system. What has just happened in American politics is outside the system of meanings elites usually rely upon. Mike Pence's neighbors on Tennyson street not only cannot accept their election loss; they cannot fathom it. They are reaching for their old prerogatives in much the way that recent amputees are said to feel an urge to scratch itches on limbs that are no longer there. Their instincts tell them to disbelieve what they rationally know. Their arguments have focused not on the new administration's policies or its competence but on its very legitimacy.

    Donald Trump did not cause the divergence between government of, by, and for the people and government, of, by, and for the residents of Cleveland Park and Arlington and Montgomery and Fairfax counties. But he did exacerbate it. He forced the winners of the global economy and the members of the D.C. establishment to reckon with the fact that they are resented, envied, opposed, and despised by about half the country. But this recognition did not humble the entrenched incumbents of the administrative state. It radicalized them to the point where they are readily accepting, even cheering on, the existence of a "deep state" beyond the control of the people and elected officials.

    Who rules the United States? The simple and terrible answer is we do not know. But we are about to find out.

  • Visualizing Gold's Value And Rarity

    Since Ancient times, Visual Capitalist's Jeff Desjardins explains, gold has served a very unique function in society.

    Gold is extremely rare, impossible to create out of “thin air”, easily identifiable, malleable, and it does not tarnish. By nature of these properties, gold has been highly valued throughout history for every tiny ounce of weight. That’s why it’s been used by people for centuries as a monetary metal, a symbol of wealth, and a store of value.

    Visualizing Gold’s Value and Rarity

    With all that value coming from such a small package, sometimes it is hard to put gold’s immense worth into context.

    The following 11 images help to capture this about gold, putting things into better perspective.

    1. The U.S. median income, as a gold cube, easily fits in the palm of your hand.

    U.S. Median Income as a Gold Cube

    2. A gold cube worth $1 million, has sides that are 2/3 the length of a typical banknote.

    One Million Dollars as a Gold Cube

    3. All gold used for electrical connections in the Columbia Space Shuttle would be worth $1.6 million today.

    All the Gold in the Columbia Space Shuttle in a Cube

    4. Trump’s entire fortune of $3.7 billion as a gold cube would be shorter than Trump himself.

    Donald Trump's fortune in a Gold Cube

    5. As a gold cube, the entire value of the Bitcoin market would fit in a hallway.

    The Bitcoin Market's Value as a Gold Cube

    6. The fortune of the richest man on Earth, Bill Gates, would take up a single traffic lane.

    Bill Gates' Wealth as a Gold Cube

    7. The world’s entire annual production of gold is just a 5.5m sided (18 ft) cube.

    Annual Gold Production a Gold Cube

    8. Take the 147.3 million oz of gold out of Fort Knox, and it’s only slightly bigger.

    All the Gold in Fort Knox Visualized as a Cube

    9. All gold held by the Central Banks pales in comparison to the Brandenburg Gate.

    The World's Central Banks Holdings as a Gold Cube

    10. All gold mined in human history is dwarfed by the Statue of Liberty.

    All Gold Mined in Human History Visualized as a Cube

    11. To pay off $63 trillion of global sovereign debt, you’d need a gold cube the size of a building.

    All Global Debt Visualized as a Gold Cube data-recalc-dims=

    Liked our visualizations of gold cubes? Check out this motion graphic video that shows how much money has been created by humans.

    The Money Project is an ongoing collaboration between Visual Capitalist and Texas Precious Metals that seeks to use intuitive visualizations to explore the origins, nature, and use of money.

  • The Great Wailing

    Authored by Bonner & Partners' Bill Bonner, annotated by Acting-Man's Pater Tenebrarum,

    Regret and Suffering

    BALTIMORE – Victoribus spolia…

    So far, the most satisfying thing about the Trump win has been the howls and whines coming from the establishment. Each appointment – some good, some bad from our perspective – has brought forth such heavy lamentations.

     

    Oh no! Alaric the Visigoth is here! Hide the women and children! And don’t forget the vestal virgins, if you can find any…

     

    You’d think Washington had been invaded by Goths, now raping the vestal virgins (if there are any within the Beltway) on the White House lawns while the Capitol burns to the ground.

    Trump is happening, of course. And the very people who made it happen are now in various stages of regret…  suffering… or hysteria. What a delight it is to see them in such pain!

    All along I-95 – from the Holland Tunnel to Route 295 into the heart of D.C., at a distance of a football field between one and another – you see their fabled leaders, lieutenants, and water carriers crucified, with a small crowd gathered around each, weeping.

    There is Hillary, of course. And Senator Elizabeth Warren (secretly happy to see HRC brought to grief). Then there’s Nobel Prize-winning economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman. If there is another 9/11 crisis with Trump in charge, he warns: “America as we know it will soon be gone.”

    There are the Republican traitors, too – Colin Powell, Henry Paulson, Michael Chertoff – now hanging from their crosses. And there are the neo-con turncoats, too – Max Boot, Robert Kagan… Crucifixion is probably too good for them.

    They are not only traitors to the Republican cause, whatever that may be, but warmongers, too, ready to switch allegiances just to keep the money flowing to their crony friends in the security industry. Now they all keen away – but what did they expect?

     

    A random collection of establishment figures, shills, chicken hawks & frauds from the entire officially approved political spectrum. Whatever one thinks of Trump, the fact that he makes this seemingly diverse collection of welfare-warfare etatistes squirm in agony is deeply satisfying…

     

    Had they not been lustily ripping off the working stiffs for decades? With their fake money and fake wars, they had transferred trillions of dollars from the Main Street economy into their own pockets. And then, after the grandest larceny in all of history, didn’t they lecture the poor victims on global warming, racism, and cisgender issues?

    Had they not been so rapacious and sanctimonious, they might have their own egregious gal in the White House now! Instead, the country is run by a man they consider an outrageous jackass. Sniff… sniff… We feel so sorry for them.

     

    “Great Disruptor”

    But where does that leave us? It leaves us with the hero of 2016, too – the man who routed all those hopeless whiners. And it leaves us with the same swamp…  the same swamp critters pulling strings and hatching plans and the same fake wars – on the real economy, on terror, on poverty, and on drugs.

    So far, the losers are crying – all the way to the bank. Donald Trump is a “great disruptor,” says the press. What exactly will he disrupt? If Mr. Trump is to “make America great again,” he must do more than make the insiders mad. He must make them pay.

    We saw what destroyed the Soviet Union’s empire: win-lose deals. The nomenklatura, the insiders, the Communist Party hacks all made out well – for a time. Meanwhile, the average person suffered. His income fell in line with his liberty. Naturally, a lot of people didn’t like it.

    Stalin had to use drastic measures to keep the losers in check. Between 1936 and 1937, his secret police, the NKVD, arrested 1.5 million people. They shot 600,000 – a rate of about 1,000 a day.

     

    Unfortunately only this one grainy photograph (and variants thereof) of the event depicted above exists, but it captured a historic moment. It was taken in Moscow in 1934, at the 17th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Steelworkers from Tula had given Stalin a Mosin-Nagant rifle as a gift. He immediately began aiming it at assorted party colleagues attending the Congress, to much laughter, hooting and applause. If only they had known – he wasn’t joking, he was simply giving them a none too subtle hint as to what was coming next. Of the 1225 voting delegates at the Congress, less than half were still alive five years later – and as a rule, they didn’t die of old age. Of the 139 comrades voted into the party’s Central Committee on the day this picture was taken, less than one quarter died of natural causes. At least 98 of them were killed on Stalin’s direct orders. In short, 1934 was an exceptionally bad year for Communist apparatchiks in the Soviet Union to advance in their political career…

    Photo via pikabu.ru

     

    By 1953, there were 5 million people in Gulags, or “internal exile,” in Siberia. Whole groups were exterminated, including poets, writers, scientists, and 85% of the Russian Orthodox clergy.

    Meanwhile, win-win deals – voluntary exchanges – were practically outlawed. And without them, the system became so pathetic and unproductive, even the elite gave up trying to get anything out of it.

     

    Moneymen and Gunmen

    Now we know why America’s middle class suffers, too – not on the same scale, but for the same basic reason. Too many win-lose deals were imposed on them by the Parasitocrats, the insiders – the same people who now loathe the president they so richly deserve.

    Household income in the U.S. is now lower than it was at the end of the last century. In the year 2000, the typical household had an income of $58,574. Today, it is only $57,827.

    So now we know what Mr. Trump must do: reduce the number of win-lose deals to make room for more win-win deals. It is that simple. But doing so isn’t simple. The swamp critters – the insiders and Parasitocrats who control and profit from government regulations and legislation – are behind the win-lose deals. They’ll fight to protect them.

     

    Republican U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at the Treasure Island Hotel Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada June 18, 2016.

    Is swamp drainage achievable and will the man with the plan be up to it? It is usually best to keep one’s expectations modest – as long as the Donald keeps delivering in the entertainment department and doesn’t start any useless wars, we will be by and large content…

    Photo credit: David Becker / Reuters

     

    We’ve seen, too, that the deals fit into three main categories: entitlements, the military-industrial-security complex, and Wall Street. As for the first, the Republicans have promised to overhaul Obamacare. But the president has sent mixed messages.

    He also pledged to not cut entitlements. And when asked how he would pay for them, he answered that he knows “where to get the money from” and “nobody else knows.”

    More than likely, the new president will be unable or unwilling to make any substantial dent in spending on pensions, pills, or schools. There are simply too many crony swamp critters and zombie voters on the receiving end. Besides, they are not completely lose-lose programs. Overpriced and inefficient they may be. Still, ordinary people do get some real benefits from them.

    That leaves the two biggies: the military-industrial-security complex and Wall Street. Thus do the clouds lift and the picture clarifies. Trump and his team must try to rein in the gunmen and the moneymen, or they are nothing but conmen.

     

  • Norway Central Banker Warns Of Massive 50% Drop In Wealth Fund Assets To Cover Budget Deficits

    Back in August, we noted that, for the first time since it’s creation in 1996, the Norwegian government had started raiding its sovereign wealth fund in 2016 to cover government deficits.  Then in October the Nordic country revealed plans to massively increase withdrawals by over 25% in 2017, to $15 billion, to cover a budget hole that was expected to be roughly 8% of GDP. 

    That said, Norway’s ultimate GDP potential, and therefore budget deficits, are heavily dependent on oil prices so any further weakening of crude could result in even more withdrawals.  Moreover, given the substantial YoY increase, it’s important to recall that there are fiscal limits imposed on fund withdrawals equal to 4% of assets, or roughly $36 billion, which could come into play at some point in the future if oil prices remain “lower for longer.”

    Norway

     

    Of course the withdrawals accelerated just as the heavily oil-dependent economy of Norway started to absorb the impact of lower oil prices.

    Norway

     

    And what do you do when you depend on portfolio returns to fund everyday living expenses but are faced with extremely low returns courtesy of artificially depressed international bond yields?  Well, you just buy more equities, of course.  Which, as we noted back in December, was exactly the motivation behind a decision to increase the fund’s equity allocation from 60%, to a staggering 75%, all while funneling another $130 billion to the global equity bubble.

    The central bank’s board, which oversees the fund, on Thursday recommended an increase in the equity share to 75 percent from 60 percent. That will raise the expected average annual real return to 2.5 percent over 10 years and to 3.5 percent over 30 years, compared with 2.1 percent and 2.6 percent, respectively, under the current setup.

     

    The world’s largest sovereign wealth fund said that it expects an annual return of only 0.25 percent on bonds over the next decade and that the expected “equity risk premium,” or return on stocks over government bonds, will be just 3 percentage points in a cautious estimate.

     

    “In our analyses, this is clearly evident in global data: internationally, growth in firms’ cash flows and equity returns are correlated with growth in the global economy,” Deputy Governor Egil Matsen said in a speech Thursday in Oslo. “Global economic growth in the coming years is expected to be below its historical level. This ‘pessimism’ is partly related to the driving forces behind the low level of the real interest rate.”

    But despite their best efforts to protect the principle balance of Norway’s sovereign wealth fund through statutory spending caps and buying more and more equities, Norway’s central bank governor Oystein Olsen warned earlier today that increasing reliance on the fund to cover budget deficits could result in a “sharp reduction” in the fund’s capital over the next 10 years.  Per Bloomberg:

    Governor Oystein Olsen said that the continued rise in oil cash spending, which now accounts for about 20 percent of the budget and 8 percent of gross domestic product, must now be halted to protect the $900 billion fund, the world’s largest sovereign pool of cash.

     

    “With a high level of oil revenue spending, there’s a risk of a sharp reduction in the fund’s capital,” Olsen said in the traditional Annual Address in Oslo Thursday. “This could, for example, happen if a global recession triggers both a decline in oil revenue and low or negative returns on the fund’s capital.”

    In fact, in some of the more dire scenarios, Olsen warned that 50% of the fund’s $900 billion in assets could be wiped out over the next 10 years in the event of a global recession that kept oil prices low while also driving equity valuations down.

    While the fund, which is overseen by the central bank, so far has said it’s more than able to handle outflows without selling assets, Olsen’s speech did lift the lid to reveal some of the worst case scenarios being calculated by the investor.

     

    For example, it sees a 1 percent chance of a 50 percent decline over 10 years if spending is kept at the current level of about 3 percent of the fund. If spending is raised to 4 percent that probability rises to about 5 percent. If the fund’s allocation to stocks is boosted to 75 percent from 60 percent, which is currently being discussed, the probabilities rise even further to about 2 percent and 6 percent, respectively.

     

    “This shows what you may risk if you increase oil spending from today’s level,” Olsen said in a separate interview. “This helps us to strengthen the message.”

     

    “It must be recognized, however, that the longer-term challenges facing the the Norwegian economy can’t be resolved by spending more oil revenue and keeping interest rates low,” he said in the speech, arguing the Norwegian economy needs more legs to stand on.

    That said, we wouldn’t be too worried because equity prices never go down, right?  Silly Central Banker…

  • The Washington Post Actually Takes Russian Government Money (Unlike The Websites It Helped Slander)

    Submitted by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,

    Earlier this week, Tucker Carlson interviewed the Washington Post’s Erik Wemple and brought up the fact that the paper regularly receives money from the Russian government to publish propaganda known as “native advertising” within the contents of the newspaper. This was news to me.

    Here’s the clip.

    As you heard, the paid Russian propaganda sections are known as “Russia: Beyond the Headlines.” The earliest article I found about it was published in Slate back in 2007 in the piece, Hail to the Return of Motherland-Protecting Propaganda! 

    Here are a few excerpts:

    Soviet propaganda hit the skids during the Gorbachev era, and as the empire broke up, its propaganda essentially vanished. But the heavy-handed purveyors of party-line orthodoxy and nationalist cant have returned with the rise of President Vladimir Putin, and a demonstration of this lost art’s resurgence can be found in a 10-page advertising supplement to today’s (Aug. 30) Washington Post, titled “Russia: Beyond the Headlines.” (It can also be viewed on the newspaper’s Web site.)

     

    Produced by Rossiyskaya Gazeta, the official Russian government newspaper, the section mimics the look and feel of a hometown paper, with news, an op-edsection, a sports feature (Maria Sharapova), two business pages, an entertainment page, and even a recipe for “Salad Oliver.” But beneath the shattered syntax of these laughable pieces beats the bloody red heart of the tone-deaf Soviet propagandist.

     

    On the opinion page, we learn in “Dog-Walking – a Gateway to Wisdom” that Vladimir Putin likes Labradors and takes Connie, his Lab, with him to televised events. “Russia’s citizens like Putin, and that’s probably why there are a fair number of Labradors on my neighborhood streets,” the writer states. All glory to Labrador-loving Comrade Putin and his patriotic walking-dog, Connie!

    Now check out the following excerpts from a 2015 article on the topic from The Daily Caller titled, China, Russia Pay Washington Post To Publish Their Propaganda:

    Chinese and Russian propaganda supplements are regularly included in The Washington Post, but the widely read newspaper won’t say how much money it gets on the deals.

     

    China Watch – a China Daily publication – and Russia Beyond The Headlines – a Rossiyskaya Gazeta publication – have both appeared in the Post for years as paid advertising supplements. Both foreign periodicals are owned and operated by their respective governments.

     

    The Russia Beyond The Headlines material has appeared in other major news papers, including The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times.

    I find all of this extremely interesting, as well as disturbingly dishonest and hypocritical, considering that The Washington Post itself played a major role in falsely claiming that 200 websites (including this one), were somehow doing the bidding of Vladimir Putin.

    As I discussed in last year’s post, Liberty Blitzkrieg Included on Washington Post Highlighted Hit List of “Russian Propaganda” Websites:

    What’s particularly interesting about this list, isn’t the fact that a bunch of anonymous whiners decided to demonize successful critics of insane, inhumane and ethically indefensible U.S. government policy, but rather the fact that the Washington Post decided to craft an entire article around such a laughably ridiculous list. This just further proves a point that is rapidly becoming common knowledge amongst U.S. citizens with more than a couple of brain cells to rub together. The mainstream media is the real “fake news.”

     

    Let’s take Liberty Blitzkrieg for example. Despite the fact that my site is mentioned on “the list,” nobody from PropOrNot bothered to contact me while doing their “research.” They could’ve asked very simple questions about how the site is run, who owns it, and who makes decisions about editorial content. Furthermore, I doubt they did any such research with regard to any of the mentioned sites before slandering them.

     

    Since they failed to do any real work, let me answer several of these questions. I, Michael Krieger, am the 100% owner of Liberty Blitzkrieg. I am the only person who makes decisions on what to publish and when. I have absolutely no connections, financial or otherwise, to the Russian government, Russian interests, or the interests of any other government or government related group. Moreover, there is simply nobody on planet earth who has any influence on what I write or what I publish. I left a very successful and financially lucrative job to do what I do now because my passions and ethical grounding pushed me in this direction. If I was interested in making enormous sums of money, I could’ve easily stayed on Wall Street.

     

    Moreover, I rarely write about Russia, with the exception of trying to prevent insane neocons and neoliberals in our government from actively seeking a military confrontation, because I — like most normal human beings — would prefer not to contribute to the manifestation of World War 3. Likewise, I try to prevent war breaking out in all circumstances where I think it can and should be avoided. I intentionally almost never use RT as a source, and I’ve never quoted anything from Sputnik. Unlike The Washington Post, I try to be extremely diligent about not publishing fake news, but I am a very strong critic of U.S. government policy, because much of U.S. government policy is certifiably insane and unethical. You can disagree with my opinion on that all you’d like, but I challenge anyone to find anything that could reasonably be considered pro-Russia propaganda on my website. If Liberty Blitzkrieg really is a Russian propaganda site, this should be easy to do since I’ve published thousands of articles over the years.

    The fact that The Washington Post would give credibility to a obviously ridiculous organization with an entirely invented list of “Russian propaganda websites,” knowing all the while that they themselves were the ones taking Russian government money is the height of hypocrisy, dishonesty and deceitful journalism. Once again proving the obvious point: The mainstream media is the real fake news. 

    Finally, if you want to help us in the struggle between real, independent media and fake, billionaire-owned mainstream propaganda press, consider visiting our Support Page.

  • Kyrgyzstan's Central Bank Urges Citizens To Own Gold

    "Gold can be stored for a long time and, despite the price fluctuations on international markets, it doesn’t lose its value for the population as a means of savings," Kyrgyzstan’s Central Bank Governor Tolkunbek Abdygulov said, "I’ll try to turn the dream into reality faster."

    A landlocked nation perched between China and Kazakhstan is embarking on an experiment with little parallel worldwide: shifting savings from cattle to gold. As Bloomberg reports,

    One of the first post-Soviet republics to adopt a new currency and let it trade freely, Kyrgyzstan’s central bank wants every citizen to diversify into gold. Governor Tolkunbek Abdygulov says his “dream” is for every one of the 6 million citizens to own at least 100 grams (3.5 ounces) of the precious metal, the Central Asian country’s biggest export.

     

    In the two years that the central bank has offered bars directly to the population, about 140 kilograms of bullion have been sold, Abdygulov, 40, said by phone from the capital, Bishkek.

     

    “We are hopeful that our country’s population will learn to diversify its savings into assets that are more liquid and — more importantly — capable of retaining their value,” he said. In rural areas, cattle is still the asset of choice for investors and savers, according to Abdygulov.

     

    What makes Kyrgyzstan unique is the central bank’s effort to win converts by providing infrastructure for safe-keeping and investment. The central bank produces bars of different sizes, varying in weight from 1 to 100 grams.

     

    The central bank governor believes his plan is realistic, even though it means the population would own about 600 tons of gold, equivalent to 30 times the nation’s current annual output. Abdygulov declined to specify the timeframe for when his goal of 100 grams per person can be met.

     

     

    “For Kyrgyzstan, gold is an alternative instrument of investment,” Abdygulov said. “The National Bank has ensured liquidity for gold — we aren’t only selling, but also buying back gold bars that we produced and sold.”

    These somewhat blasphemous words from a central banker echo the thoughts of no lesser elite than Alan Greenspan…

    TETT: Do you think that gold is currently a good investment?

    GREENSPAN: Yes… Remember what we're looking at. Gold is a currency. It is still, by all evidence, a premier currency. No fiat currency, including the dollar, can macth it.

    GREENSPAN: …remember, we had that first tapering discussion, we got a very strong market response. And then we reassured everybody to have no — remember, tapering is still (audio gap) of an agreement that the central banks have made — European central banks, I believe — about allocating their gold sales which occurred when gold prices were falling down (audio gap) has been renewed this year with a statement that gold serves a very important place in monetary reserves.

    And the question is, why do central banks put money into an asset which has no rate of return, but cost of storage and insurance and everything else like that, why are they doing that? If you look at the data with a very few exceptions, all of the developed countries have gold reserves. Why?

    TETT: I imagine right now, it's because of a question mark hanging over the value of fiat currency, the credibility going forward.

    GREENSPAN: Well, that's what I'm getting at. Every time you get some really serious questions, the 50 percent of the gold price determination begins to move.

    TETT: Right.

    GREENSPAN: And I think it is fascinating and — I don't know, is Benn Steil in the audience?

    TETT: Yes.

    GREENSPAN: There he is, OK. Before you read my book, go read Benn's book. The reason is, you'll find it fascinating on exactly this issue, because here you have the ultimate test at the Mount Washington Hotel in 1944 of the real intellectual debate between the — those who wanted to an international fiat currency which was embodied in John Maynard Keynes' construct of a banker, and he was there in 1944, holding forth with all of his prestige, but couldn't counter the fact that the United States dollar was convertible into gold and that was the major draw. Everyone wanted America's gold. And I think that Benn really described that in extraordinarily useful terms, as far as I can see. Anyway, thank you.

    TETT: Right. Well, I'm sure with comments like that, that will be turning you into a rock star amongst the gold bug community.

    *  *  *

    Of course, as a reminder, here is Ben Bernanke putting people straight on Gold…

  • Why President Trump Does Not Tweet About Automation

    Via 13D Research (13D.com),

    "Fully automated trucks could put half of America’s truckers out of a job within a decade…"

    A widely circulated NPR graphic shows “truck driver” was the most common job in more than half of the U.S. states in 2014?—?in part because how the Bureau of Labor Statistics sorts common jobs, such as educators, into small groups. Indeed, truck driving is one of the last jobs standing that affords good pay (median salary for tractor-trailer drivers, $40,206) and does not require a college degree. According to the American Trucking Association, there are 3.5 million professional truck drivers in the U.S. Entire businesses (think restaurants and motels) and hundreds of small communities, supporting an additional 5.2 million people, have been built around serving truckers crisscrossing the nation. That’s 8.7 million trucking-related jobs. It also represents one of Trump’s most important voting blocs?—?working-class men.

    But like many of the blue-collar jobs the President promised to save during his campaign, the future of these 3.5 million trucking jobs is less than certain. Fully automated trucks could put half of America’s truckers out of a job within a decade, The Los Angeles Times reported last year. This isn’t an imagined future. It’s already happening. Otto, an automated trucking company acquired by Uber, made a delivery of beer last year and has been approved to travel two routes in Ohio.

    Last year, Noel Perry, an analyst at industry research firm FTR Transportation Intelligence, told The International Business Times: “Despite a shortage in high-quality drivers, pay hasn’t gone up in five years. Trucks are easier to drive.” So-called “soft-automation” features, like automatic braking and lane assist, mean the trucks can already be driven by less experienced operators commanding smaller salaries. Even ahead of automation, the profession is losing traction. Perry’s final remark to IBT strikes to the heart of the matter?—?“The free market produces jobs, the government doesn’t.”

    Drivers reportedly account for about one third of the cost in the trucking industry. Ostensibly, there isn’t much a president?—?even one as untraditional as Trump?—?can do to stop a company from making more money. Or is there? Which begs the question: How will automation, employment, productivity and Trump co-exist?

    A few days after Trump “saved” 750 jobs at Carrier, Greg Hayes, CEO of Carrier’s parent firm, United Technologies, admitted that automation would eventually win out. During a CNBC interview with Jim Cramer, Hayes revealed: “We’re going to make a $16 million investment in the factory in Indianapolis to automate to drive down costs so that we can continue to be competitive. . .But what that ultimately means is there will be fewer jobs.

    Thomas H. Davenport, professor in management and information technology at Babson College, opined recently for The Harvard Business Review:

    “Trump knows virtually nothing about technology?—?other than a smartphone, he doesn’t use it much. And the industries he’s worked in?—?construction, real estate, hotels, and resorts?—?are among the least sophisticated in their use of information technology. So he’s not well equipped to understand the dynamics of automation-driven job loss.

     

    “. . .The Art of the Deal’s author clearly has a penchant for sparring with opponents in highly visible negotiations. But automation-related job loss is difficult to negotiate about. It’s the silent killer of human labor, eliminating job after job over a period of time. Jobs often disappear through attrition. There are no visible plant closings to respond to, no press releases by foreign rivals to counter. It’s a complex subject that doesn’t lend itself to TV sound bites or tweets.

     

    To be fair, it’s not just Trump who finds this a difficult enemy to battle; other politicians don’t engage with that much either. And there are several good reasons. . . One is that automation usually comes with corporate investment rather than cutbacks. Note that United Technologies announced a $16 million investment in the Indiana Carrier plant. Who wants to criticize that?”

    As we have written, Trump’s number one priority is to get re-elected. To do so, he will have to keep the 8.7 million men and women in the trucking sector employed. At the same time, he has pledged to encourage foreign investment in the U.S. and to attract U.S. companies back to American soil, all with an eye to creating more jobs for Americans. To remain competitive, these companies will have to improve productivity, and the shortest path to increased productivity, is automation. But, even with vigorous training, the vast majority of America’s working middle-class, like the 3.5 million truckers who voted largely for Trump, cannot transition easily into the types of job created by automation?—?engineering, integration, IT.

    Therein lies the dilemma facing America, and much of the developed and the developing world. The economy needs more productivity growth, not less. But it also needs to create jobs. Any politician who wants to appeal to the business community will be reluctant to provoke a war against automation. But, he cannot afford to see his key voter bloc displaced.

    All of which begs the question: How can Trump insulate the status quo from the disruptive forces of automation and technology? Will he tweet to the perception or the underlying reality?

  • Democrats Question Trump's Sanity, Blasted For "Weaponizing Mental Health"

    The desperation is becoming grotesque as the left's inability to move through the stages of grief is ever more evident.

    In the latest farcical attempt to create a narrative, as The Hill reports, a growing number of Democrats are openly questioning President Trump’s mental health.

    Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) in a floor speech this week called for a review of the Constitution's procedures for removing a president. He warned the 25th Amendment of the Constitution falls short when it comes to mental or emotional fitness for office.

     

    Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) during a weekend interview with CNN’s “State of the Union” said that “a few” Republican colleagues have expressed concern to him about Trump's mental health.

     

     

    And Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) plans to introduce legislation that would require the presence of a psychiatrist or psychologist in the White House.

    The Democrats justify their questions by pointing to Trump’s habit of making demonstrably false claims.

    “It’s not normal behavior. I don’t know anybody in a position of responsibility that doesn’t know if they’re being rained on. And nobody I work with serially offers up verifiably false statements on an ongoing basis,”

    So not hapy with dividing the nation by sex (all of them), race, wealth, and clothing manufacturer, The Democrats have decided to pray on mental health, which has invited criticism that they have gone too far…

    “It’s divisive. The bottom line is, if Trump doesn’t succeed, we all fail. It’s time to give the guy a chance,” said Rep. Scott DesJarlais (R-Tenn.).

    Reps. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) and Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) both burst out laughing when told some Democratic colleagues were questioning Trump’s mental health.

    “Are you serious?” Hunter asked. “Yeah, I don’t care what they say.”

    “I think that’s a stretch,” Simpson said.

    Furthermore, mental health professionals say the politicization comes at a cost. Political actors suggesting an opponent has psychological problems risks stigmatizing people with actual mental illnesses, they say.

    “I think the politicization is troubling,” said Joshua Miller, a psychologist at the University of Georgia whose research focuses on pathological personality traits and personality disorders.

     

    “We certainly wouldn’t want individuals to use mental illness as a weapon to harm others.”

    Still when all you have an identity-politics hammer, every feeling-hurting problem is a nail.

    Perhaps the Democrats should remember that, as Judge Jeanine notes, "the American people voted for Trump because he made sense to them…"

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  • California City Erects 'Prison Camp' To Deal With Homeless

    There are two major problems that come to mind, explains SHTFPlan.com's Mac Slavo; first, the level of homelessness, poverty and idle populations in California and across the country, and second, the divided world between the 1% and the struggling 99% is coming to a head.

    Economically, things are very close to the brink, and there are far too many people who’ve given up at the individual level. This crisis has given the impetus for cities like Santa Ana to take drastic action.

     

    The other side of the coin, is that if they can do this to homeless vagrants, and out of work families, they can do it to anyone. If civil unrest comes, perhaps in combination with mass unemployment, a crashed stock market and monetary system and great misery, those keeping society in check will feel compelled to come down with a heavy hand. People will be rounded up, some of them unfairly. Entire communities can be disrupted, or forced under an emergency to evacuate and take shelter in FEMA centers while the cities become off limits. There are a lot of things that can happen – including to hard working, employment, head-above-water American families.

     

    When this thing starts to unravel, making do in the current atmosphere won’t cut it; in the aftermath of what is coming, many people will be desperate. Tent cities and migrating Americans looking for temporary work will return; millions more will flock to government welfare programs, and be dragged into the dregs of collectivist measure to ride out bad times. They are moving to sweep up the disarray of a society that is crumbling, and a financial landscape that is no longer survivable for a wide sector of the general population.

    City Erects Prison Camp To Deal With Homeless – Cutting Off Food And Water

    Authored by The Free Thought Project's Matt Agorist,

    The City of Santa Ana has come up with an innovative and despotic way of keeping their homeless population in check — imprison them. The city is now party to a federal lawsuit over unreasonable seizure, false imprisonment, and due process violations.

    Heading up the lawsuit on behalf of Michael Diehl, who has lived at the encampment for three years, is the ACLU of Southern California. The lawsuit demands the immediate removal of the 6-foot-tall chain-link fences penning in 75-100 people and their belongings.

    “Defendants’ actions have not only illegally restricted the liberty of the homeless people living in the encampment, but it has also cut them off from access to food, water, and medical care thus threatening their health and well-being,” the lawsuit states.

    According to Courthouse News:

    Diehl was shot in the head at a Tustin convenience store in 2009. He lost his right eye and doctors were unable to remove the bullet from his head. He takes medication every day to control seizures that have become more frequent with the increased presence of authorities at the encampment, he says in the complaint.

     

    When a woman suffered a seizure at the encampment after the fence was erected, Diehl says, paramedics had difficulty reaching her because the barriers have blocked parts of the sidewalks at Chapman Avenue and Orangewood Avenue where people used to come and go.

     

    If people living at the encampment cut holes in the fences with bolt cutters, Orange County Public Works employees repair it. For the elderly and disabled it is neither safe nor realistic to scale the fence or navigate the river to get to a steep, rocky embankment on the river’s west side, Diehl says.

    “Children, people with severe disabilities, the elderly and others are deprived of food, water and access to restrooms,” said ACLU homelessness policy analyst Eve Garrow. “The county should take action to rectify this egregious violation of basic human rights.”

    Naturally, the county is claiming that they are not doing anything wrong and that the fence, put in place after the homeless community began growing there, is for ‘flood control.’

    “The county is aware that there are homeless encampments in the project area. Flood control channels are not a safe place to live. Sign postings and in-person notifications about the project have been provided to those encamped along the county maintenance road,” the county said in a statement.

    However, according to Diehl and the others who are imprisoned in the camp, police told them that they should move there to avoid citations for sleeping in public in the other parts of town.

    What this case in Santa Ana illustrates is the state’s continued war on the right of people to exist. Every time a group homeless community finds a safe spot, located out of the way, they are targeted for removal, or, in this barbaric case — imprisonment.

    Earlier this month, the Free Thought Project reported on another war being waged against the homeless population in California. Known as ‘The Promised Land,’ a group of homeless people in Oakland sought to improve their situation by creating a camp that would foster sobriety and help people to get jobs. It was located out of the way, under a series of overpasses. They had running water, were growing their own food, and did not allow drug or alcohol use within the camp.

    As cops and officials allowed the other heroin riddled encampments to continue, they targeted The Promised Land for destruction. 

    Diehl now seeks an injunction ordering the county to provide him with “reasonable means of leaving the riverbed and being able to retrieve his property.”

Digest powered by RSS Digest

Feb 17

Today’s News 17th February 2017

  • The Swamp Strikes Back

    Authored by Pepe Escobar, originally posted at SputnikNews.com,

    The tawdry Michael Flynn soap opera boils down to the CIA hemorrhaging leaks to the company town newspaper, leading to the desired endgame: a resounding victory for hardcore neocon/neoliberalcon US Deep State factions in one particular battle. But the war is not over; in fact it’s just beginning.

    Even before Flynn’s fall, Russian analysts had been avidly discussing whether President Trump is the new Victor Yanukovich – who failed to stop a color revolution at his doorstep. The Made in USA color revolution by the axis of Deep State neocons, Democratic neoliberalcons and corporate media will be pursued, relentlessly, 24/7. But more than Yanukovich, Trump might actually be remixing Little Helmsman Deng Xiaoping: “crossing the river while feeling the stones”. Rather, crossing the swamp while feeling the crocs.

    Flynn out may be interpreted as a Trump tactical retreat. After all Flynn may be back – in the shade, much as Roger Stone. If current deputy national security advisor K T McFarland gets the top job – which is what powerful Trump backers are aiming at – the shadowplay Kissinger balance of power, in its 21st century remix, is even strengthened; after all McFarland is a Kissinger asset.

    This call won’t self-destruct in five seconds

    Flynn worked with Special Forces; was head of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA); handled highly classified top secret information 24/7. He obviously knew all his conversations on an open, unsecure line were monitored. So he had to have morphed into a compound incarnation of the Three Stooges had he positioned himself to be blackmailed by Moscow.

    What Flynn and Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak certainly discussed was cooperation in the fight against ISIS/ISIL/Daesh, and what Moscow might expect in return: the lifting of sanctions. US corporate media didn’t even flinch when US intel admitted they have a transcript of the multiple phone calls between Flynn and Kislyak. So why not release them? Imagine the inter-galactic scandal if these calls were about Russian intel monitoring the US ambassador in Moscow.

    No one paid attention to the two key passages conveniently buried in the middle of this US corporate media story. 1) “The intelligence official said there had been no finding inside the government that Flynn did anything illegal.” 2) “…the situation became unsustainable – not because of any issue of being compromised by Russia – but because he [Flynn] has lied to the president and the vice president.”

    Recap: nothing illegal; and Flynn not compromised by Russia. The “crime” – according to Deep State factions: talking to a Russian diplomat.

    Vice-President Mike Pence is a key piece in the puzzle; after all his major role is as insider guarantor – at the heart of the Trump administration – of neocon Deep State interests. The CIA did leak. The CIA most certainly has been spying on all Trump operatives. Flynn though fell on his own sword. Classic hubris; his fatal mistake was to strategize by himself – even before he became national security advisor. “Mad Dog” Mattis, T. Rex Tillerson – both, by the way, very close to Kissinger – and most of all Pence did not like it one bit once they were informed.

    A “man of very limited abilities”

    Flynn was already compromised by his embarrassingly misinformed book co-written with neocon Michael Ledeen, as well as his juvenile Iranophobia. At the same time, Flynn was the point man to what would have been a real game-changer; to place the CIA and the Joint Chiefs of Staff under White House control.

    A highly informed US source I previously called “X”, who detailed to Sputnik how the Trump presidency will play out, is adamant “this decision makes Trump look independent. It is all going according to script.”

    “X” stresses how “the NSA can penetrate any telephone system in the world that is not secure. Flynn was a man of very limited abilities who talked too much. You never hear from the real powers in intelligence nor do you know their names. You can see that in Flynn’s approach to Iran. He was disrupting a peace deal in the Middle East relating to Russia, Iran and Turkey in Syria. So he had to go.”

    “X” adds, “the Russians are not stupid to talk among themselves on unsecured lines, they assumed that Flynn controlled his own lines. Flynn was removed not because of his Russian calls but for other reasons, some of which have to do with Iran and the Middle East. He was a loose cannon even from the intelligence perspective. This is a case of misdirection away from the true cause.”

    In direct opposition to “X”, an analytical strand now rules there’s blood on the tracks; the hyenas are circling; a vulnerable Trump has lost his mojo; and he also lost his foreign policy. Not yet.

    In the Grand Chessboard, what Flynn’s fall spells out is just a pawn out of the game because the King would not protect him. We will only know for sure “draining the swamp” – the foreign policy section – is doomed if neocons and neoliberalcons continue to run riot; if neoliberalcons are not fully exposed in their complicity in the rise of ISIS/ISIL/Daesh; and if the much vaunted possibility of a détente with Russia flounders for good.

    What’s certain is that the fratricide war between the Trump administration and the most powerful Deep State factions will be beyond vicious. Team Trump only stands a chance if they are able to weaponize allies from within the Deep State. As it stands, concerning the Kissinger grand design of trying to break the Eurasian “threat” to the unipolar moment, Iran is momentarily relieved; Russia harbors no illusions; and China knows for sure that the China-Russia strategic partnership will become even stronger. Advantage swamp.

  • In Fiery, "Surreal" Press Conference, Trump Launches War On The Media

    President Trump blasted the "out of control" dishonesty of the mainstream media during a Thursday press conference, accusing reporters of distorting facts to help special interests.

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    At the start of a nearly two-hour announcement, which was meant to introduce the new pick for Secretary of Labor, Alexander Acosta and promptly turned into a fiery, at times rambling back and forth with members of the press more reminiscent of his campaign speeches, which covered leaks to the media, Russian relations, immigration policy, the final fate of ObamaCare and a multitude of other subjects, President Trump rejected portrayals of chaos in his administration and claimed "incredible" progress in his first four weeks in office, lashing out at media organizations he said "will not tell you the truth."

     "I'm not ranting and raving, I'm just telling you you're dishonest people," Trump told the press. 

    Trump opened the speech with what Bloomberg dubbed a 25-minute tirade in which he pointed to the stock market’s performance as evidence of his early accomplishments and said news organizations work "for the special interests and for those profiting off a very, very broken system." He mentioned that a Rasmussen poll found that he had 55 percent approval – Gallup’s most recent tracking poll found he had 40 percent support — and said "the stock market has hit record numbers, as you know."

    "I’m here today to update the American people on the incredible progress that’s been made the last four weeks since my inauguration," Trump said. "I see stories of chaos. It’s the exact opposite. This administration is running like a fine-tuned machine."  "There’s zero chaos" he claimed, and pivoted to Obama: "To be honest I inherited a mess," Trump said. "It’s a mess. At home and abroad."

    The president then launched into a laundry list of issues on which he has claimed victories and progress, including border security, combating the Islamic State, job creation and a reduction of government regulation.

    “In each of these actions I'm keeping my promises to the American people. These are campaign promises,” Trump said. He said the steps he’s taken in the four weeks since he was sworn in should surprise nobody, especially in the media.

    But the highlight was his all out attack on the press :

    “I'm making this presentation directly to the American people with the media present, which is an honor to have you, this morning, because many of our nation's reporters and folks will not tell you the truth. And will not treat the wonderful people of our country with the respect that they deserve."

     

    "Many of our nation's reporters and folks will not tell you the truth and will not treat you with the respect you deserve"

     

    "Much of the media in Washington, D.C., along with New York, Los Angeles in particular, speaks for the special interests and for those profiting off the obviously very, very broken system.

     

    “The press has become so dishonest that if we don't talk about it we are doing a tremendous disservice to the American people. Tremendous disservice. We have to talk about it. We have to find out what's going on because the press honestly is out of control."

     

    “In other words, the media is trying to attack our administration because they know we are following through on pledges that we made, and they are not happy about it, for whatever reason. But a lot of people are happy about it.”

    There was much more, including some of the key exchanges with the members of the press corps:

    • He warned that bad relations with Russia could result in nuclear war, as a way of explaining his attempt to remake relations with President Vladimir Putin. “Nuclear holocaust would be like no other,” he said.
    • He signaled that he was softening on immigration policy, saying that he’d deal with President Obama’s executive action unilaterally easing immigration law “with heart.”
    • He said he did not “know of” any official on his presidential campaign having contact with Russian officials during the election, though he had to be asked three times before giving an answer.
    • He said he’s instructed the Department of Justice to look into the leaks coming out of his administration.
    • He conceded that the leaks reported on by the press were correct, despite claiming news organizations continually get things wrong. “The leaks are absolutely real. The news is fake, because so much of the news is fake,” he said.
    • He scolded an Orthodox Jewish reporter for asking about rising anti-Semitism in America.
    • He asked a black reporter whether members of the Congressional Black Caucus are friends of hers.
    • He predicted that the press would claim that he was “ranting” and “raving.” “Tomorrow the headlines are going to be Donald Trump rants — I’m not ranting and raving,” he said.

    And some further details:

    Trump discussed his popularity and how well the administration is doing…

    Trump lauded a new poll from the conservative-leaning Rasmussen that found he holds a 55 percent approval rating, significantly higher than other recent polls.

    Additionally noting that Mike Flynn "did nothing wrong"…

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    Clarifying that the economy has problems and they are Obama's fault…

     

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    “I’m here again to take my message straight to the people,” POTUS stated. “As you know, our administration inherited many problems across government, and across the economy.”

     

    “To be honest, I inherited a mess. It’s a mess,” he added. “At home, and abroad, a mess.”

     

    “Jobs are pouring out of the country — you see what’s going on with all of the companies leaving our country, going to Mexico and other places — low pay, low wages, mass instability over seas, no matter where you look, the Middle East, a disaster. North Korea.”

     

    “We’ll take care of it, folks,” he reassured his audience. “We are going to take care of it all. i just wanted to let you know, I inherited a mess.”

    Trump then slammed reports of his advisers and associates being in contact with Russians during campaign:

    "it's all fake news."

     

    *TRUMP: I OWN NOTHING IN RUSSIA, HAVE NO DEALS OR LOANS THERE

    Some additional excerpts include:

    “Drugs are becoming cheaper than candy bars”

    "My administration is running like a fine-tuned machine"

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    "US 9th Circuit Court is in turmoil and chaos"

    • *TRUMP ON TRAVEL BAN SAYS WAS SMOOTH ROLLOUT BUT BAD COURT
    • *TRUMP: DID TRAVEL BAN QUICKLY TO AVOID PEOPLE RUSHING IN
    • *TRUMP TO REVISE TRAVEL ORDER IN NEAR FUTURE, DOJ SAYS: REUTERS
    • *TRUMP ON IMMIGRATION ACTION: TAILORED TO 9TH CIRCUIT DECISION
    • *TRUMP: WE'LL SHOW `GREAT HEART' ON DACA PROGRAM
    • *TRUMP SAYS WILL HAVE TO CONVINCE PEOPLE ON DACA SOLUTION

    "The tone of media coverage is full of such hatred"

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    "I'm really not a bad person"

    "I didn't divide this country, it was divided when I got here"

    "There are two Chicagos – one is posh, safe; one is crime-ridden"

    "Rep. Cummings said meeting Trump would be bad for him"

    "I'm the least racist person, least anti-semitic person around"

    "The whole Russian thing is a ruse"

    • *TRUMP: SAYS PEOPLE WOULD CHEER HIM BLOWING UP RUSSIA SHIP
    • *TRUMP: BLOWING UP RUSSIAN SUB OFF U.S. WOULDN'T BE GOOD MOVE
    • *TRUMP: PUTIN MAY ASSUME HE CAN'T MAKE DEAL W/ ME
    • *TRUMP: EASIER TO BE TOUGH ON RUSSIA, BUT WE WOULDN'T MAKE DEAL
    • *TRUMP: I UNDERSTAND WHAT RUSSIA'S DOING MILITARILY
    • *TRUMP: I MAY NOT BE ABLE TO DO RUSSIA DEAL; AT LEAST I TRIED

    "Nuclear holocaust would be like no other"

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    Trump then touched on the topic of a Russian reset, which he explained as follows:

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    "I watch CNN. It's so much anger and hatred and just the hatred. I don't watch it anymore"

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    "The leaks are real, the news is fake"

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    Finally, President Trump was called out on his 'alternative fact' about the electoral college votes.. "why should Americans trust you?"

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    * * *

    Summing it all up…

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    The full "unorthodox" press conference below:

    https://static01.nyt.com/video/players/offsite/index.html?videoId=100000004937194

  • Munger's Musings: Trump's "Not Wrong On Everything"; "Young People Should Shop Less, Learn More"

    Charlier Munger, the 93 year old billionaire vice chairman of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway who once said Trump was not “morally qualified” to be President, seems to be warming up to the new administration.  Well, at least he doesn’t think Trump is quite as bad as Hitler anyway, which is a start. 

    In speaking with a group of investors and students for nearly two hours yesterday at the Daily Journal’s annual meeting, on a wide range of topics, Munger said that he’s “gotten more mellow” when it comes to Trump and is now convinced that “he’s not wrong on everything.”  Per Yahoo Finance:

    “Well, I’ve gotten more mellow,” Munger said at the Daily Journal’s 2017 meeting on Wednesday, adding, “I always try to think about the good as long as it’s not good.”

     

    “He’s not wrong on everything. And just because he isn’t like us, roll with it. If there’s a little danger, what the hell, you’re not going to live forever anyway.”

     

    “And when Donald Trump says he wouldn’t touch Social Security and Republicans have all kinds of schemes for revising Social Security — I’m with Donald Trump. If I were running the world … I wouldn’t touch [Social Security].”

    When asked about the disaffected, millennial protesters around the country, Munger blasted the “agitators” saying that short of Trump turning into “Hitler” he’s not in favor of “young people agitating and trying to change the whole world because they know so much.”  He also encouraged America’s entitled, know-it-all youth to “learn more and shop less.”

    “I don’t like all that. Basically, I’m not in favor of young people agitating and trying to change the whole world because they know so much. I think young people should learn more and shop less, so I’m not sympathetic to anybody. Young people are out in the streets agitating—that’s not my system. I think if you’ve got Hitler or something you can agitate. But short of that, young people should learn more and shop less.”

    Munger

     

    Meanwhile, in addressing Berkshire’s recent investments in Technology (AAPL) and Airlines (DAL, AAL, LUV and UAL), Munger sought to assure the crowd that he didn’t think the so-called ‘Oracle of Omaha’ had “gone crazy” but was “adapting” to changing markets.

    On Tuesday, Berkshire revealed multi-billion-dollar stakes in all five companies, marking a reversal of its longstanding aversion to the technology sector and antipathy to the “joke” that Munger said airlines once were.

     

    “The nice thing about the game we’re in is that we can keep learning,” Munger said.

     

    “He’s changed when he’s buying airlines, and he’s changed when he’s buying Apple,” he said of Buffett.

     

    “I don’t think we’ve gone crazy,” Munger added. “I think we’re adapting.”

    And here is the full 2-hour meeting for your viewing pleasure:

  • The Road To Hell Was Paved With College Safe Spaces

    Submitted by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,

    That isn’t what this resistance is now doing. What they’re doing instead is trying to take maybe the only faction worse than Donald Trump, which is the deep state, like the CIA with its history of atrocities, and say they ought to almost engage in like a soft coup where they take the elected President and prevent him from enacting his policy. And I think it is extremely dangerous to do that.

     

    – From Glenn Greenwald’s recent interview with Democracy Now

    Earlier today, I posted the following tweet:

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    This observation was merely my latest twist on a theme I’ve been hammering home ever since Trump won the election. Namely, given there are so many obvious things to be concerned about when it comes to Trump (his love affair with Goldman Sachs, support of civil asset forfeiture and a statist mentality overall), why are we being manipulated into focusing all our outrage on a largely invented conspiracy theory that he is some sort of Putin stooge?

    The reason is both extremely simple and extraordinarily clever. The main reason Russia is such an obsession within the fake “resistance,” is because it’s a way to demonize Trump while defending the police state apparatus. In other words, it prevents well-meaning people from taking Trump to task on issues that really matter. This way, they can simply distract with Russia noise and continue to loot and pillage society at large. It’s genius really. You create a fake yet salacious narrative and rally the gullible public around it in order to distract from real domestic problems. This way you can be “anti-Trump,” while at the same time being pro-Wall Street fraud, corporatism, war, unconstitutional spying, and the national security state. This is your “resistance” as it stands today.

    For example, nobody should cheer the following, which was reported yesterday by The Daily Caller:

    The talk within the tight-knit community of retired intelligence officers was that Flynn’s sacking was a result of intelligence insiders at the CIA, NSA and National Security Council using a sophisticated “disinformation campaign” to create a crisis atmosphere. The former intel officers say the tactics hurled against Flynn over the last few months were the type of high profile hard-ball accusations previously reserved for top figures in enemy states, not for White House officials.

     

    “This was a hit job,” charged retired Col. James Williamson, a 32-year Special Forces veteran who coordinated his operations with the intelligence community.

     

    “I’ve never seen anything like this before,” Retired Col. James Waurishuk, who spent three decades in top military intelligence posts and served at the National Security Council, said in an interview with TheDCNF. “We’ve never seen to the extent that those in the intelligence community are using intelligence apparatus and tools to be used politically against an administration official,” he said.

     

    “The knives are out,” said Frederick Rustman, who retired after 24 years from the CIA’s Clandestine Service and was a member of its elite Senior Intelligence Service.

     

    The intelligence community’s sprawling bureaucracy is organizing to topple the Trump presidency, Rustman charged in an interview with TheDCNF.

    This is a very dangerous game to play. You open this box and there’s no closing it up again. As someone named David Hines so wisely noted on Twitter earlier today:

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    Which brings me to the next question. How are so many of our fellow citizens being so easily herded into obsessing about Russia conspiracy theories, when we face so many dire, existential problems?

    The useless mainstream media is obviously a key part of the problem, but there’s more. Specifically, I think what’s been going on at U.S. universities is equally destructive. Indeed, it seems the minds of our children have been stunted in a very damaging way by the people in charge of “higher education.”

    To explain the extent of the problem, I want to highlight a few passages from an excellent article by social psychologist at NYU’s Stern Business School, Jonathan Haidt.

    The term microaggression has swept through the academy in English speaking countries in the last two or three years. Lilienfeld (2017, this issue) has done the academy a great service in analyzing the concept and showing why it is not ready to serve as the scientific basis for new policies and programs being rolled out at many universities. In this commentary, I will extend Lilienfeld’s analysis and show why the “microaggression program” (as I’ll call the combination of theory and on-campus applications) is more damaging and less salvageable than Lilienfeld suggests. In fact, it may be the least wise idea one can find on a college campus today.

     

    To write my first book, The Happiness Hypothesis (Haidt, 2006), I read a large number of ancient texts and extracted every psychological claim I could find. I organized ancient wisdom into 10 “great truths.” It’s hard to identify the one greatest truth of all time, but surely one of the top three most important, most generative, and most life-improving psychological insights, discovered thinkers in all major civilizations, is the importance appraisal:

     

    The whole universe is change and life itself is but what you deem it. (Marcus Aurelius, 1964; Meditations, 4:3)

     

    What we are today comes from our thoughts of yesterday, and our present thoughts build our life of tomorrow: our life is the creation of our mind. (Buddha, The Dhammapada, in Mascaro, 1973)

     

    The ancients knew that we don’t react to the world it is; we react to the world as we construct it in our own minds. They also knew that in the process of construction we are overly judgmental and outrageously hypocritical; we urgently need to reduce our moral certainty and cultivate generosity of spirit:

     

    Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? . . . You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye. (Matthew 7:3–5)

     

    It is easy to see the faults of others, but difficult to see one’s own faults. One shows the faults of others like chaff winnowed in the wind, but one conceals one’s own faults as a cunning gambler conceals his dice. (Buddha, The Dhammapada)

     

    The microaggression program teaches students the exact opposite of ancient wisdom. Microaggression training is—by definition—instruction in how to detect ever smaller specks in your neighbor’s eye. Microaggression training tells students that “life itself is exactly what you think it is—you have a direct pipeline to reality, and the person who offended you does not, so go with your feelings.” Of course, the ancients could be wrong on these points, but the empirical evidence for the importance of appraisal and the ubiquity of bias and hypocrisy is overwhelming (I review it in chapters 2 and 4 of The Happiness Hypothesis). As Lilienfeld shows, the empirical evidence supporting the utility and validity of the micro- aggression concept is minimal at best.

     

    I think the section of Lilienfeld’s article that should most make us recoil from the microaggression program is the section on personality traits, particularly negative emotionality and the tendency to perceive oneself as a victim. These are traits—correlated with depression and anxiety disorders—that some students bring with them from high school to college. Students who score high on these traits perceive more microaggressions in ambiguous circumstances. These traits therefore bring misery and anger to the students themselves, and these negative emotions and the conflicts they engender are likely to radiate outward through the students’ social networks (Christakis & Fowler, 2009). How should colleges (and other institutions) respond to the presence of high scorers in their midst? Should they offer them cognitive behavioral therapy or moral validation? Should they hand them a copy of The Dhammapada or a microaggression training manual.

     

    It’s bad enough to make the most fragile and anxious students quicker to take offense and more self-certain and self-righteous. But what would happen if you took a whole campus of diverse students, who arrive from all over the world with very different values and habits, and you train all of them to react with pain and anger to ever-smaller specks that they learn to see in each other’s eyes? 

    Indeed, it’s become clear to me that we have more or less raised at least one generation of zombies in this country, and it appears the guardians of higher education are hellbent on creating more. Zombies don’t lead, they follow — mindlessly and destructively. We can see them everywhere, on both the right and the left, as the level of dialogue descends into the gutter and we appear entirely incapable of addressing any of our real problems, let alone solving them.

    Meanwhile, if you want to get a sense of where the victim mentally obsession eventually gets you, take a look at what’s currently happening at the University of California San Diego.

    Quartz reports:

    Chinese students are joining their peers on American campuses in getting woke. Their cause? Defending the official line of the Communist Party.

     

    On Feb. 2, the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) formally announced that the Dalai Lama would make a keynote speech at the June commencement ceremony.

     

    The announcement triggered outrage among Chinese students who view the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader as an oppressive figure threatening to divide a unified China. A group of them now plans to meet with the university chancellor to discuss the content of the upcoming speech.

     

    The awkwardness doesn’t end there. As the aggrieved students have trumpeted their opposition, their rhetoric has borrowed elements from larger campus activist movements across the United States. The upshot: What Westerners might perceive as Communist Party orthodoxy is mingling weirdly with academia’s commitment to diversity, political correctness, and other championed ideals.

     

    Opposition to the Dalai Lama among Chinese authorities is nothing new, of course. Less recognized in the West is that many Chinese citizens feel the same way as the government. At UCSD, the Chinese-student opposition to the invitation came instantly. Just hours after the announcement, the Chinese Students and Scholars Association (CSSA) issued a lengthy, Chinese-language note on WeChat saying it had communicated with the Chinese consulate about the matter.

     

    UCSD is a place for students to cultivate their minds and enrich their knowledge. Currently, the various actions undertaken by the university have contravened the spirit of respect, tolerance, equality, and earnestness—the ethos upon which the university is built. These actions have also dampened the academic enthusiasm of Chinese students and scholars. If the university insists on acting unilaterally and inviting the Dalai Lama to give a speech at the graduation ceremony, our association vows to take further measures to firmly resist the university’s unreasonable behavior. Specific details of these measures will be outlined in our future statements.

     

    This is not the first time that overseas Chinese students at US colleges have voiced opposition to certain campus events perceived as disrespectful to China. In 2008, hundreds gathered at the University of Washington to rally against the Dalai Lama’s acceptance of an honorary degree. But typically, criticism is couched in familiar tropes like “hurting the feelings of the Chinese people,” rather than failing to account for diversity.

     

    “If there were an objection to the Dalai Lama speaking on campus 10 years ago, you would not have seen the objection from Chinese students being framed within the rhetoric of diversity and inclusion,” says professor Jeffrey Wasserstrom, who researches modern Chinese history at the University of California, Irvine. “There is a borrowing of rhetorical strategies.”

     

    John Li, a UCSD student and principal member of the CSSA who requested Quartz not use his real name, says the chancellor invited a group of overseas Chinese students for a meeting on Feb. 15. According to him, the group won’t ask the chancellor to disinvite the Dalai Lama. But it will request that he “send out statements that clarify the content of Dalai Lama’s speech,” “make sure his speech has nothing to do with politics,” and “stop using words like ‘spiritual leader’ or ‘exile’” to describe the Dalai Lama.

     

    Li, the CSSA member, says that he hasn’t engaged with any non-Chinese student in person regarding Tibetan history and the nature of the Dalai Lama’s politics. But he’s nevertheless frustrated by a lack of consideration toward the arguments his Chinese peers share on Facebook.

     

    Yet several factors could cause Chinese overseas students to grow more vocal in expressing their opinions in matters of politics, which at times may or may not conform with views held by most Westerners.

     

    For one thing, more overseas Chinese students are studying in the US than ever before. According to the Institute of International Education, more than 304,000 international students were attending university in the US during the 2014-2015 academic year, marking a nearly fivefold increase from a decade prior.

     

    UCSD, along with other public universities in California and in the Midwest, has seen some of the highest uptake in admissions from Chinese international students. Data published in the fall of 2015 placed the school’s total overseas Chinese student population at 3,569—marking 10.6% of the total student population, and 55.7% of the international student population.

    These students also tend to pay full tuition. Indeed, some of the complaints among Chinese students on Facebook center around how they find it unfair that that their monetary contributions to the school aren’t reflected in the choice of the speaker.

     

    There’s also suspicion among some academics that CSSA, which represents students at UCSD and dozens of other US universities, sometimes serves as a conduit for Chinese consulates to promulgate Communist Party orthodoxy on overseas campuses. Last week, an official at the Chinese embassy in London reportedly phoned Durham University’s debate society, urging it to cancel an appearance by Anastasia Lin, a Chinese-Canadian beauty queen and vocal human rights activist. The school’s CSSA issued a statement also condemning Lin’s appearance.

     

    In its initial statement opposing the Dalai Lama’s appearance, UCSD’s CSSA wrote that it had “been in contact with the People’s Republic of China Consulate General in Los Angeles at the earliest opportunity since the matter arose,” and “was waiting for the advice of the Consulate General.”

     

    Li tells Quartz that this part of the letter is “a mistake.”

    When the Dalai Lama receives more protest from America’s college kids than Lloyd Blankfein, you know something’s very wrong.

    Still waiting on the resistance.

  • BNP Risk Indicator Flashes "Love" Warning Signal For US Stocks

    While the market itself has exhibited the exuberance we have all seen before (and never seem capable of learning from), BNP has quantified this love-panic relationship (and the news is not great for the bulls). When in 'love' mode, the average drop in stocks has been 12% in the next six months. The biggest drivers of this "love" have been investor confidence, CoT positioning, short-interest, relative trading volumes, and sectoral outperformance with fund-flows shifting away from "love" suggesting the short-term top is in. The index itself peaked last week at the highest level of "love" in two years…

    h/t @Not_Jim_Cramer

    BNP explains their framework:

    In our Love Panic model, we try to identify distress and euphoria in an attempt to predict forward market returns. In order to successfully predict the market we have chosen parameters with good predictive capabilities during different market cycles but also those that make qualitative sense. Investment should be dispassionate but not automatic. Some investors solve this problem by hiring a mechanic (or quant) to build a machine to invest on their behalf. This indicator is not for them. Instead, this indicator highlights when market sentiment is either overly depressed or excessively optimistic. This helps one at least adjust for ones mood. So we suggest that when the market has reached a level of distress, it’s a good time to buy. Meanwhile, when investors are euphoric,we advocate a sell. As a result we have developed a contrarian indicator model. When our signal is in panic (negative), it indicates a buy. While when the signal reads positive it’s a sell signal. In our Love Panic model, we try to identify distress and euphoria in an attempt to predict forward market returns. In order to successfully predict the market we have chosen parameters with good predictive capabilities during different market cycles but also those that make qualitative sense.

    And the market has not done well once investors fall in 'love'…

  • Media Silent As Mystery Illness Plagues Residents One Year After Historic US Gas Leak

    Submitted by Carey Wedler via TheAntiMedia.org,

    A year after the largest methane leak in U.S. history was sealed in Porter Ranch, California, residents are continuing to experience significant adverse health consequences. As SoCalGas – the company responsible for the blowout – uses fabricated gas shortages to justify reopening the Aliso Canyon gas storage facility, which has been shut down indefinitely since the leak occurred, a local doctor is now speaking out.

    Dr. Jeffrey Nordella has been treating Porter Ranch residents since the blowout of an underground methane storage well caused tons of methane gas to spewing the atmosphere in October 2015. A total of 5 billion cubic feet of methane was released into the atmosphere from October 23 to February 18, “or enough pollution to match the annual output of nearly 600,000 cars,” The Guardian noted shortly after it was sealed.

    Though the leak was sealed last February, residents have continued to complain of symptoms. Though some local news outlets have provided consistent coverage of the disaster’s aftermath, most national outlets stopped covering the story after the blown-out well was closed and, consequently, the immediate drama of the story subsided.

    But Nordella says that since the gas leak began, he has been inundated with patients of all ages.

    https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Falexandra.nagy1%2Fvideos%2F10154279564957011%2F&show_text=0&width=560

    “Those symptoms were broad but yet had a common denominator. Eye and nasal irritation, headache, nosebleed, sore throat, loss of voice, cough, shortness of breath, palpitations, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, fatigue, and skin rashes were among the most common,” he said during a press conference at his urgent care facility last Wednesday.

    According to the local Daily News:

    “He’s seeing abnormal pulmonary functions among some of those patients, and low red blood cell counts in others. He’s reviewed the files of residents whose family members died and said he’s seen a rare case of anemia that can be connected to toxic exposure.”

    Nordella says the symptoms he’s seen in patients are “clearly different from those with a common upper respiratory tract infection, seasonal allergies, sinus infections, and viral bronchitis.” He also said multiple contaminants could be causing the variety of health issues.

    https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2FSavePorterRanch%2Fvideos%2F563455567183456%2F&show_text=0&width=560

    According to Nordella, patients who evacuated Porter Ranch experienced relief from their symptoms only to endure them again upon moving back into their homes. He also said one family, who moved away permanently, experienced continued skin rashes when they came into contact with belongings from their Porter Ranch home. He believes this indicates contaminants from the blowout may still be coating the interiors of residencies in the area.

    Porter Ranch locals have feared the effects not only of methane, but also mercaptans — odorants added to natural gas to alert those nearby to its presence — and benzene, a carcinogenic substance found in the atmosphere during the leak (officials have asserted that though benzene levels were elevated during the leak, they were similar to what the rest of the city of Los Angeles is normally exposed to). Other substances released included toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylenes, which are known to cause a range of symptoms.

    Residents have referred to the decades-old facility as a “dinosaur,” and many in the area have continued to smell mercaptans in the air as they experience ongoing symptoms  — over a year after the leak was sealed.

    Because of these factors and the gas company’s ongoing attempts to re-open Aliso Canyon, Nordella felt compelled to speak out. As he told Anti-Media:

    “I will admit… that it was a little bit concerning that they were moving at such a rapid pace, wanting to re-pressurize these rock beds, so I figured that we would move forward prior to that.”

    During his press conference, he clarified that he has not been contacted by “anyone from the gas company or Sempra,” has “not been retained by any law firm,” and has had “no communications with politicians.” He is also not affiliated with Save Porter Ranch, the community activist group created out of safety concerns before the massive leak even occurred. That group is fighting for a total shutdown of the facility.

    Nordella initiated a health screening for patients presenting symptoms, and though he admits his sample size is small — about 50 patients — he is calling for independent research into the effects of the leak, saying he cares about “the people, the patients, and the science.”

    “I will not deviate from the people. We all know about the potential politics here. I want to make sure that this is neutral, clean, and it’s done properly,” he said, suggesting a study be conducted by researchers outside of California to achieve these goals.

    Some California lawmakers are working to pass S.B. 57 within the state, which would shut down the facility “until [a] comprehensive review of the safety of the gas storage wells at the facility is completed” and the cause of the blowout can be determined. But politics-as-usual has riddled efforts to mitigate the effects of the catastrophe, which could be seen from space at its peak. Governor Jerry Brown, who often claims to champion environmental issues, waited two-and-a-half months to declare a state of emergency over the blowout, which forced thousands of evacuations and doubled Los Angeles’ greenhouse gas emissions by releasing nearly 100,000 metric tons of methane. His sister sits on the board of directors for SoCalGas’ parent company, Sempra Energy.

    The Southern California Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD) has also been accused of failing to sufficiently serve Porter Ranch residents. The agency recently settled a lawsuit filed by state regulators over its handling of the gas leak. In that agreement, they agreed to pay $1 million for a health study to determine the effects.

    But residents are dissatisfied with that outcome. “What should have been a $40 million long-term health study is only a $1 million health risk assessment,” asserts Save Porter Ranch.

    “It’s a study, but not a health study,” said Angelo Bellomo, the Los Angeles County deputy director for health protection at the Department of Public Health. “It is not responsive to addressing the health needs and concerns to this community. More importantly, it’s inconsistent with advice given to AQMD by health officials.”

    The Department of Public Health (DPH) has disappointed residents over its lack of attentiveness and apparent incompetence throughout the ordeal. As Nordella said:

    “I anticipated our politicians, Department of Public Health, and community leaders would act and recruit the appropriate parties to investigate so that the short- and long-term health effects could be revealed, but to no avail. Instead, what I received from DPH was, in my opinion, misguided information.”

    Even DPH has acknowledged the study SCAQMD is funding was supposed to have cost up to $40 million, admitting its limitations.

    Nordella says he has managed to schedule a meeting with DPH and has informed them the community’s trust in authorities is waning.

    He has vowed to remain independent as he continues to advocate for patients.

    In the meantime, SoCalGas is still fighting to reopen the facility, going so far as faking a gas shortage ahead of a public hearing on Aliso Canyon’s status. As a result, they withdrew gas from the facility for the first time since January 2016. The company has been caught deceiving residents and regulators on multiple occasions, including denying the blowout when concerned citizens called their hotline in the early days of the crisis.

    For now, those seeking to keep the facility closed are gaining ground. S.B. 57 was approved late last week by the state’s Senate Natural Resources and Water Committee, and according to Save Porter Ranch, Democrats now officially support it.

    As Nordella said during his press conference:

    “Until a study is completed … it is nothing short of an act of negligence to reopen the Aliso Canyon facility. The people of the community deserve better. I’m extremely concerned that I’ve just scratched the surface and that there are other significant medical cases within the community.”

    In contrast, SoCalGas claims “There is no dependency on or need to wait for the results of the Root Cause Analysis. SoCalGas has demonstrated that the field is safe to resume injection operations,” according to its website.

    Nordella, however, is adamantly opposed to reopening Aliso Canyon because of the health risks it poses.

    “As a doctor, my interest is very high on making sure that this did not make the residents of the community sick,” he told Anti-Media. “If it did, they should shut it all down and abort these fields. They should not move forward — should not move forward — and repressurize this system until we find out the health effects of the first blowout.”

  • The Ag Paradox: Farm Incomes And Equipment Purchases Tank While John Deere's Stock Soars

    Last week we wrote about the U.S Department of Agriculture’s latest biannual report of farm incomes which painted a very bleak picture for the American farmer.  In its first forecast for 2017, the USDA saw real farm cash receipts down 14% versus 2015 and 36% from the previous high set in 2012 as farm debt continued to soar and leverage surged to all-time highs.

    Below is a summary of some of the key takeaways: 

    Real farm incomes in 2017 are expected to sink below 2010 levels which represents a 36% decline from the recent peak and a 14% decline since 2015.

    Farms

     

    Meanwhile farm debt continues to rise at an astonishing rate…

    Farms

     

    While farmer leverage has spiked to the highest level since at least 1960.

    Farms

     

    And of course, lower incomes means less money to spend on shiny new John Deere tractors with equipment capex expected to decline 35% compared to 2015.

    Farms

     

    And finally, farmer returns have crashed to the lowest levels ever.  We’re not sure about you but a 2.1% ROIC seems a “little low” even in our current rigged interest rate environment. 

    Farms

     

    In summary, farmers are making no money but are managing to barely stay afloat by adding a massive amount of debt and slashing capital expenditures.

    Moreover, the summary above was seemingly confirmed recently when ISI released their latest data on North American sales volumes for tractors and combines.  Not surprisingly, January volumes were down anywhere from 20% to nearly 50% YoY, as they were for most of 2015 and 2016. 

    Tractors 1

    Tractors 1

     

    Which leads us to our final point, which is, what exactly are John Deere investors seeing that we’re not? 

    DE

     

    While we certainly understand the concept of investing in cyclical stocks at the bottom of their earnings cycle, we’re somewhat less familiar with the strategy of completely pricing in a recovery multiple years in advance while continuing to buy those same cyclical stocks at all-time highs and peak multiples.

    JD

     

    That said, we’re sure those multiples have room to get even “peak-ier” tomorrow when John Deere reports earnings…we can’t wait to see efficient markets at work.

  • Samsung Chief Arrested For Bribery, Perjury And Embezzlement

    Exactly one month ago, South Korea’s political crisis – recall that the country’s president Park Geun-hye was impeached last December – spilled over into the corporate sector when the country’s special prosecutor unexpectedly sought a warrant to arrest the head of Samsung, the country’s largest conglomerate, accusing him of paying multi-million dollar bribes to a friend of impeached President Park Geun-hye. On the night of January 16, investigators had grilled the head of Samsung, the world’s largest maker of smartphones, flat-screen TVs and memory chips, Jay Y. Lee for 22 straight hours last week as a suspect in a massive corruption scandal, which last month led to parliament impeaching president Park.

    As a quick tangent, putting Samsung’s size and importance in context, the company generates $230 billion in annual revenue, equivalent to about 17% of South Korea’s export-oriented economy, the fourth largest in Asia.

    The special prosecutor’s office had accused Lee of paying bribes total 43 billion won ($38 million) to organizations linked to Choi Soon-sil, a friend of the president who is at the center of the scandal, in order to secure the 2015 merger of two affiliates and cement his control of the family business. The 48-year-old Lee, who became the de facto head of the Samsung Group after his father, Lee Kun-hee, was incapacitated by a heart attack in 2014, was also accused of embezzlement and perjury.  Prosecutors allege that Lee, 48, funded Park’s associates as he tried to consolidate control over the sprawling conglomerate founded by his grandfather.

    But whereas on January 19 the court rejected a request from prosecutors to arrest Lee, one month later it changed its mind. Fast forward to today, when in denial of some cynics who suggested it would could not happen, Samsung chief Jay Y. Lee was formally arrested on allegations of bribery, perjury and embezzlement, “an extraordinary step that jeopardizes the executive’s ascent to the top role at the world’s biggest smartphone maker and the nation’s most powerful company.”


    Samsung chief, Jay Y. Lee, leaves for the Seoul Central District Court,
    February 16, 2017. Reuters

    The Seoul Central District Court issued the warrant for Lee’s arrest early Friday and the 48-year-old Lee was taken into custody at the Seoul Detention Centre, where he had awaited the court’s decision following a day-long, closed-door hearing that ended on Thursday evening. According to Reuters, the judge’s decision was announced at about 5:30 a.m. (2030 GMT) on Friday, more than 10 hours after Lee, the sprawling conglomerate’s third-generation leader, had left the court. There’s a chance the suspect could destroy evidence or flee, so arresting him is appropriate, a court spokesperson said.

    On Tuesday, the special prosecutor’s office had requested a warrant to arrest him and another executive, Samsung Electronics president Park Sang-jin, on bribery and other charges.  The court rejected the request to arrest Park, who also heads the Korea Equestrian Federation, saying it was not needed given his “position, the boundary of his authority and his actual role”.

    The court reversed its opinion because, as Reuters reports, the prosecution said it had secured additional evidence and brought more charges against Lee in the latest warrant request. “We acknowledge the cause and necessity of the arrest,” a judge said in his ruling, citing the extra charges and evidence.

    When he testified at a parliamentary hearing in December, Lee said he never ordered donations to be made in return for preferential measures and rejected allegations he received wrongful government support to push through a merger of two Samsung affiliates in 2015. Still, Lee, who has been put under a travel ban, confirmed he had private meetings with Park and that Samsung had provided a horse worth 1 billion won that was used for equestrian lessons by Choi’s daughter.

    That said, according to Bloomberg, when Including procedural steps and appeals, it may take as long as 18 months for a trial and verdict.

    Meanwhile, a Samsung spokeswoman said no decision had been made about whether Lee’s arrest would be contested or whether bail would be sought.

    Samsung and Lee have denied wrongdoing in the case. “We will do our best to ensure that the truth is revealed in future court proceedings,” the Samsung Group said in a brief statement after Lee’s arrest.

    While Lee’s arrest is not expected to hamper day-to-day operation of Samsung Group companies, which are run by professional managers, experts have said it could affect strategic decision-making by South Korea’s biggest conglomerate.  “There are more than 100,000 of us (in Samsung Electronics). It wouldn’t make sense for a company of that size to not function properly just because the owner is away. It’s business as usual for us,” said an engineer at Samsung Electronics, who declined to be identified.

    Of course, when the boss of one of the world’s biggest companies is arrested for bribery, perjury and embezzlement, it is hardly ever a good thing.

    To be sure, Lee’s arrest would have an impact on longer-term investment decisions, said Kim, now a professor at Sungkyunkwan University. “Samsung presidents are evaluated on an annual basis, so they cannot make bold bets about the future. They need a chairman when making long-term investment decisions,” he said.

    Ultimately, Lee may be just a pawn, albeit very powerful, in the ongoing legal crusade against President Park and her close friend Choi Soon-sil, who is in detention and faces charges of abuse of power and attempted fraud. As reported last month, prosecutors focused their investigations on Samsung’s relationship with Park, 65, who was impeached by parliament in December and has been stripped of her powers while the Constitutional Court decides whether to uphold her impeachment.

    They accused Samsung of paying bribes totaling 43 billion won ($37.74 million) to organizations linked to Choi to secure the government’s backing for a merger of two Samsung units. That funding includes Samsung’s sponsorship of the equestrian career of Choi’s daughter, who is in detention in Denmark, having been on a South Korean wanted list.

     

    If parliament’s impeachment is upheld by the Constitutional Court, Park will become South Korea’s first democratically elected leader to be forced from office early. Park remains in office but stripped of her powers while she awaits the Constitutional Court’s decision.

     

    “This is a painful event for Vice Chairman Lee,” said Kim Sang-jo, a shareholder activist and economics professor at Hansung University who was questioned by the special prosecutor as a witness in the probe. “But this will be an important opportunity for Samsung Group to sever ties with the past,” he said, referring to links between the government and the country’s conglomerates, also known as chaebol.

    What happens to the company’s stock? It is unlikely that the market will be too excited about this rather unexpected outcome.

    “In the short term, it could have an impact on the stock, only because of sentiment, and also because the stock has risen a lot recently,” Jung Sang-jin, a fund manager at Korea Investment Management, told Bloomberg. “In the long-term, there won’t be much impact on the stock, given previous times when other chaebol heads were arrested with few problems for their companies to keep running the business.”

    Perhaps he is being too optimistic: keep an eye on the Kospi where trading may be more volatile than usual after today’s news. On the other hand, we are confident the fund manager is right: in the long run, it will most likely be business as usual.

  • Leading Progressives Say that Even Americans Who Hate Trump Should Defend Him Against Attempted Coup by the “Deep State”

    Former liberal congressman and presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich said Tuesday:

    What’s at the core of this is an effort by some in the intelligence community to upend any positive relationship between the U.S. and Russia. And I tell you there’s a marching band and Chowder Society out there. There’s gold in them there hills. There are people trying to separate the U.S. and Russia so that this military industrial intel axis can cash in.

     

    ***

    The American people have to know that there’s a game going on inside the intelligence community… at the bottom of all this is the fact that there are those that seek to separate US from Russia to reignite the cold war… that’s what’s at the bottom of all this …. Wake up America!!

     

    ***

     

    What’s going on in the intelligence community with this new president is unprecedented. They’re making every effort trying to upend him.

     

    ***

     

    It’s not just this administration. I want to remind the views and all those who are on the panel that in the closing months of the Obama administration, they put together a deal with Russia to create peace in Syria. A few days later, a military strike in Syria killed a hundred Syrian soldiers and that ended the agreement. What happened is inside the intelligence and the Pentagon there was a deliberate effort to sabotage an agreement the White House made.

    Similarly, Pulitzer prize winning journalist Glenn Greenwald said today:

    The deep state, although there’s no precise or scientific definition, generally refers to the agencies in Washington that are permanent power factions. They stay and exercise power even as presidents who are elected come and go. They typically exercise their power in secret, in the dark, and so they’re barely subject to democratic accountability, if they’re subject to it at all. It’s agencies like the CIA, the NSA and the other intelligence agencies, that are essentially designed to disseminate disinformation and deceit and propaganda, and have a long history of doing not only that, but also have a long history of the world’s worst war crimes, atrocities and death squads. This is who not just people like Bill Kristol, but lots of Democrats are placing their faith in, are trying to empower, are cheering for as they exert power separate and apart from—in fact, in opposition to—the political officials to whom they’re supposed to be subordinate.

     

    And you go—this is not just about Russia. You go all the way back to the campaign, and what you saw was that leading members of the intelligence community, including Mike Morell, who was the acting CIA chief under President Obama, and Michael Hayden, who ran both the CIA and the NSA under George W. Bush, were very outspoken supporters of Hillary Clinton. In fact, Michael Morell went to The New York Times, and Michael Hayden went to The Washington Post, during the campaign to praise Hillary Clinton and to say that Donald Trump had become a recruit of Russia. The CIA and the intelligence community were vehemently in support of Clinton and vehemently opposed to Trump, from the beginning. And the reason was, was because they liked Hillary Clinton’s policies better than they liked Donald Trump’s. One of the main priorities of the CIA for the last five years has been a proxy war in Syria, designed to achieve regime change with the Assad regime. Hillary Clinton was not only for that, she was critical of Obama for not allowing it to go further, and wanted to impose a no-fly zone in Syria and confront the Russians. Donald Trump took exactly the opposite view. He said we shouldn’t care who rules Syria; we should allow the Russians, and even help the Russians, kill ISIS and al-Qaeda and other people in Syria. So, Trump’s agenda that he ran on was completely antithetical to what the CIA wanted. Clinton’s was exactly what the CIA wanted, and so they were behind her. And so, they’ve been trying to undermine Trump for many months throughout the election. And now that he won, they are not just undermining him with leaks, but actively subverting him. There’s claims that they’re withholding information from him, on the grounds that they don’t think he should have it and can be trusted with it. They are empowering themselves to enact policy.

     

    Now, I happen to think that the Trump presidency is extremely dangerous.

     

    ***

     

    And it is important to resist them. And there are lots of really great ways to resist them, such as getting courts to restrain them, citizen activism and, most important of all, having the Democratic Party engage in self-critique to ask itself how it can be a more effective political force in the United States after it has collapsed on all levels. That isn’t what this resistance is now doing. What they’re doing instead is trying to take maybe the only faction worse than Donald Trump, which is the deep state, the CIA, with its histories of atrocities, and say they ought to almost engage in like a soft coup, where they take the elected president and prevent him from enacting his policies. And I think it is extremely dangerous to do that. Even if you’re somebody who believes that both the CIA and the deep state, on the one hand, and the Trump presidency, on the other, are extremely dangerous, as I do, there’s a huge difference between the two, which is that Trump was democratically elected and is subject to democratic controls, as these courts just demonstrated and as the media is showing, as citizens are proving. But on the other hand, the CIA was elected by nobody. They’re barely subject to democratic controls at all. And so, to urge that the CIA and the intelligence community empower itself to undermine the elected branches of government is insanity. That is a prescription for destroying democracy overnight in the name of saving it. And yet that’s what so many, not just neocons, but the neocons’ allies in the Democratic Party, are now urging and cheering. And it’s incredibly warped and dangerous to watch them do that.

     

    ***

     

    The idea that Donald Trump is some kind of an agent or a spy of Russia, or that he is being blackmailed by Russia and is going to pass secret information to the Kremlin and endanger American agents on purpose, is an incredibly crazy claim that has been nowhere proven to be true. It reminds me of the kind of things Glenn Beck used to say about Obama while he stood at his chalkboard and drew those—those unstable charts that he drew, these wild conspiracy theories that are without evidence.

     

    We ought to have a serious, sober, structured investigation of the claims that Russia hacked the DNC and John Podesta’s emails and that there were improper ties between Donald Trump and the Russians, and that ought to be made public so that we can see the information. But this constant media obsession of leaking whatever someone whispers to them about Donald Trump and Russia, because they know it will get their reporters huge numbers of retweets on Twitter and tons of traffic by people who are being fed what they want to hear, is really feeding into the worst kind of hysteria and even fake news that the media says they’re trying to combat. These are really serious claims that merit serious investigation, and that’s exactly what we’re not getting.

    https://www.democracynow.org/embed/story/2017/2/16/greenwald_empowering_the_deep_state_to

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