• Democratic Congresswoman Destroys CNN Narrative on Syria

  Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard is a combat veteran, and member of the House Armed Services Committee.

  She recently introduced a bill to stop funding terrorists (what a novel idea!).

  She just came back from a fact-finding mission to Syria … and destroyed CNN’s tired propaganda on “moderate rebels”:

  

• Abandoned Wal-Mart To Reopen As Shelter For Illegal Immigrants With Tax-Dollar Funding

  An abandoned Walmart in Brownsville, Texas will soon be home to 100’s of illegal immigrant “minors”, many of them late in their teen years, thanks to your federal tax dollars.  According to a report from a local ABC affiliate in Brownsville, the facility is currently being converted into a shelter by a nonprofit organization called Southwest Key, which receives the majority of its funding from federal tax dollars via the Office of Refugees Resettlement.

  A Southwest Key spokeswoman confirmed the facility is set to open on March. They said it’ll be to welcome unaccompanied minors who crossed into the U.S. illegally.

   

  It will be the 4th facility in Brownsville to shelter children, under the age of 17, who have crossed into the U.S. without an adult.

   

  Southwest Key is federally funded by the Office of Refugees Resettlement. The group’s mission is to provide a safe environment for unaccompanied children while they wait to be reunited with a sponsor or relative in the U.S.

   

  Southwest Key officials said children are supervised during their stay. The program ensures youngsters have a safe place to sleep, are fed, educated and also have access to healthcare and counseling services.

  Of course, the report drew a lot of criticism from local Brownsville residents, many of whom questioned whether the money shouldn’t be redirected to fund a shelter for veterans and/or the homeless.

  

   

  As background, according to WND, Southwest Key has an annual budget of $150 million and operates 27 shelters for illegal immigrants in Texas, Arizona and California.  Per the Southwest Key website:

  Southwest Key Programs is a private, nonprofit organization founded in 1987 to keep young people out of institutions and empower them with the skills, knowledge and tools they need to succeed. Through an exceptionally competent and diverse staff, Southwest Key empowers youth and their families to make positive changes in their lives including at our 27 immigrant children’s shelters in Texas, Arizona and California.

   

  Southwest Key Unaccompanied Minor shelters operate as a self-contained unit, delivering shelter, food, healthcare, education, recreation, case management and legal services to the children in our care. We are required by the federal government to provide everything that a child needs in order to thrive in a humane and homelike environment. As a result, there is little interaction between the children in our services and the surrounding community, save for those businesses and employees engaged in their care on-site.

   

  Healthcare: The overwhelming majority of medical services are done on site by Southwest Key’s fully-staffed, licensed medical professionals who ensure the health of the children in our shelters. Every child receives a full, medical exam by a doctor within 24 to 48 hours of entering our facilities, including receiving all the CDC recommended immunizations and being screened for any infectious diseases.

   

  Education: While in our care, all unaccompanied minors receive educational services. Our presence in a community does not impact children in the local school system as our kids receive all educational services separate and distinct from local children and they never have an opportunity to interact with one another.

  

   

  If Southwest Key sounds familiar, it’s probably because it’s the same Southwest Key that drew criticism from Senator Chuck Grassley back in 2014 for using taxpayer money to provide a petting zoo and guitar lessons to their illegal immigrant residents at a cost of over $300 per child per day.  Per the Washington Times:

  One of the contractors housing some of the surge of illegal immigrant children from this summer offers them a petting zoo with miniature ponies, a tilapia fish farm operation and guitar lessons, according to documents released Thursday by a senator who questioned whether the plush accommodations were a good use of taxpayers’ money.

   

  Sen. Charles E. Grassley, Iowa Republican, said it seemed excessive to pay the $329 that Southwest Key Programs, the contractor, charged per child per day at one of its California facilities in Lemon Grove, California. Another facility in El Cajon cost taxpayers $316 per child per day.

  Here is the original report from KRGV-TV in Brownsville, TX:

  

  

• Bannon Declares War On The Media: "You Are The Opposition; Keep Your Mouth Shut"

  Not one to mince words, Steve Bannon, Trump’s Chief White House strategist, eviscerated the mainstream media during an interview last night.  Commenting on their coverage of the Trump campaign, Bannon lambasted the disconnect of the media from everyday Americans saying, “They don’t understand this country. They still do not understand why Donald Trump is the president of the United States.”  Per Axios:
  

  “The media should be embarrassed and humiliated and keep its mouth shut and just listen for awhile,” Mr. Bannon said during a telephone call. “I want you to quote this,” Mr. Bannon added. “The media here is the opposition party. They don’t understand this country. They still do not understand why Donald Trump is the president of the United States.”

  “The elite media got it dead wrong, 100 percent dead wrong,” Mr. Bannon said of the election, calling it “a humiliating defeat that they will never wash away, that will always be there.”

  

   

  But that attacks didn’t end there as Bannon went on describe the media as “the opposition party.”

  “The mainstream media has not fired or terminated anyone associated with following our campaign,” Mr. Bannon said. “Look at the Twitter feeds of those people: they were outright activists of the Clinton campaign.” (He did not name specific reporters or editors.) “That’s why you have no power,” Mr. Bannon added. “You were humiliated.”

   

  “You’re the opposition party,” Mr. Bannon said. “Not the Democratic Party. You’re the opposition party. The media’s the opposition party.”

  Finally, asked whether he was concerned that Sean Spicer had lost credibility with the press after his debate over crowd sizes, Bannon had a similarly pointed answer:

  “Are you kidding me?” he said. “We think that’s a badge of honor. ‘Questioning his integrity’ — are you kidding me? The media has zero integrity, zero intelligence, and no hard work.”

  Any remaining questions on what Steve Bannon thinks of the mainstream media?

  

  

• White House Misspells UK Prime Minister's Name In Official Memo (Multiple Times)

  A White House memo detailing President Trump’s Friday schedule offered what some might call ‘alternative letters’ in the spelling of UK Prime Minister T(h)eresa May’s name… mutliple times.

  As The Hill reports, May’s name was spelled “Teresa” three times in the daily guidance and press schedule email, which was sent Thursday evening with an hourly breakdown of the president’s schedule.

  

  The White House sent out an updated guidance with corrected spelling about a half-hour later, shortly before Vice President Pence’s office released its own guidance that misspelled May’s name once. That was also corrected about 20 minutes later.

  *  *  *

  Not a great start as Trump’s team put the ‘special’ in “special relationship.”

  

  

• "When Will It End?" BofAML's 10-Point Checklist

  So "when will it end?" BofAML's best guess remains sometime in the summer.

  The current rally started in February 2016 on the 2nd day of Yellen's Humphrey-Hawkins testimony. The inflection was caused by a. uber-bearish Positioning, b. uber-bearish profit expectations, c. Policy easing. And thus BofAML believe the rally will end with a. bullish Positioning, b. bullish Profit expectations, c. Policy tightening.

  We’re not there yet.

  Here's Michael Hartnett's checklist of Positioning, Profit & Policy data to indicate we are in the Last 100 days of the rally, perhaps also the Last 100 Days of the secular upswing that began in March 2009:

  Extreme bullish Positioning would be signaled by…

  1. BofAML Bull & Bear indicator (up from 0 in Feb’16 to 5.3 today) >8; VIX approaching all-time low reading of 9.3 (Dec’93)

  2. BofAML Global Flow Trading Rule triggering risk “sell signal" following high yield bond & global equity inflows >1% AUM in 4 weeks

  3. BofAML Global Breadth Rule signaling “overbought” with 90% of MSCI markets trading >200-day & 50-day moving averages

  4. BofAML FMS cash levels <4% (currently 5.1%, down from 5.8% in Oct); BofAML GWIM asset allocation to equities >64%, i.e. at new highs

  

  Extreme bullish Profit expectations would be signaled by…

  5. US ISM >58, i.e. a level above which EPS growth normally peaks (e.g. 1997, 1999, 2003, 2014)

  6. Surge in wage data (e.g. US average hourly earnings >3%) or producer prices (>2%, PPI’s now positive in developed markets for first time in 2 years) that hurt margins

  7. Markets signaling “peak macro” via US high yield bond spreads (currently 400bp) dropping below 350bp; real rates jumping roughly 100bps in the next 6-9 months

   

  Policy hawkishness would be signaled by…

  8. Bear flattening of yield curves as markets discount Fed playing catch-up (see Investment Clock analysis Chart 5); rate volatility (MOVE index >90)

  

  9. ECB & BoJ QE tapering announcements

  10. Fed announces an end to the "reinvestment" of their balance sheet (Chart 6) which would be the big signal that the QE era had come to a close, and is likely to become a much bigger story for markets as the year progresses

  

  The Big Top

  At this stage we see the potential in 2018 for rising rates & falling EPS, a complete reversal of the era of falling interest rates & rising profit margins that has caused risk assets to do so stunningly well since 2009. In the absence of an acceleration in labor productivity, the incoming President will find it tougher to engender the 2nd greatest bull market (2870), or the greatest ever (3504 – although should Trump match the historic 1st term annualized equity gain of 11% p.a. then 4 years of Trump would take the S&P500 to 3480.), or the longest ever (Sept 1st 2018). More likely risk assets will make a major top later in 2017.

  

  

• Paul Craig Roberts On "The Demise Of The Left"

  Authored by Paul Craig Roberts,

  On several occasions I have asked in my columns the rhetorical question: What became of the left? Today I answer my question.

  The answer is that the European and American left, which traditionally stood for the working class and peace (bread and peace) no longer exists. The cause championed by those who pretend to be the “left” of today is identity politics.  The “left” no longer champions the working class, which the “left” dismisses as “Trump deplorables,” consisting of “racist, misogynist, homophobic, gun nuts.” Instead, the “left” champions alleged victimized and marginalized groups – blacks, homosexuals, women and the transgendered. Tranny bathrooms, a cause unlikely to mobilize many Americans, are more important to the “left” than the working class 

  All white-skinned peoples except leftists, including apparently victimized women, are racist by definition.  Racism and victimization are the explanations of everything, all of history, all institutions, even the US Constitution. This program of the left cuts the left off from the working class, who have been abandoned by both political parties, and has terminated the left’s connection to the people.

  The collapse of the left as an effective and real political force followed the Soviet collapse. The underclass had resisted their exploitation before the publication of Karl Marx’s Das Kapital in 1867. But Marx raised the exploitation of labor to a fighting cause on whose side was History. The Bolshevik Revolution in Russia seemed to validate Marx with its overthrow of the existing order and proclamation of Soviet Communism.

  Soviet practices deflated left-wing hopes and expectations, but nevertheless an alternative system which continued to speak against capitalist exploitation existed. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, neoconservatives and neoliberals declared that History had chosen capitalism over the working class, and Marx’s prediction of the triumph of the working class had been proven wrong.

  The Soviet collapse caused communist China and socialist India to change their economic policy and to open their economies to foreign capital. With no rival, capitalism no longer had to restrain itself and allow widespread access to the growth of income and wealth. Capitalists began collecting it all for themselves.  Many studies have concluded that the productivity gains which formerly went mainly to the work force are now monopolized by the mega-rich.

  One avenue to the concentration of income and wealth is the financialization of the economy (emphasized by Michael Hudson and by Marx in the third volume of Capital). The financial sector has been able to divert the discretionary income of the working class into interest and fees to banks (mortgages, car loans, credit card debt, student loans).  

  The other avenue is the offshoring of American jobs to which Donald Trump is strongly opposed.  Here is what happened:

  Wall Street told US manufacturers to move their production to China in order to increase profits from lower labor and regulatory costs, or Wall Street would finance takeovers of the companies, and the new owners would raise the firms’ profitability by moving production offshore. Large retailers, such as Walmart, ordered suppliers “to meet the Chinese price.”

  When the jobs were in the US, most of the gains in productivity went to labor.  Therefore, real median family incomes rose through time, and the consumer purchasing power this income growth provided drove the US economy to success for ever more people.

  When the jobs were moved to Asia, the growth in real median US family incomes stopped and declined. The large excess supplies of labor and lower cost of living in Asia meant that Asian workers did not have to be paid in wages the value of their contribution to output. The difference between the US wage and Asian wage was large and went into corporate profits, thus driving up executives’ “performance bonuses” and capital gains (rising stock prices from higher profits) for shareholders.  In my book, The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism published in 2013, I was able to calculate that based on current information at that time, every 1,000 manufacturing jobs moved to China resulted in a labor cost saving for the US company of $32,000 per hour.  These hourly savings did not translate into lower prices for US consumers of the offshored production.  The labor cost savings translated directly into the incomes of the executives and shareholders.

  Thus, jobs offshoring permitted the productivity gains to be monopolized by corporate owners and executives.

  Instead of responding to Trump’s support of the working class and his actions on their behalf during the first week of his presidency – Trump’s termination of TPP and his demand to auto manufacturers to bring manufacturing back to America – the “left” has rallied around a victim group – illegal immigrants. The “left” even elevates non-US citizens above the US working class.

  Trump was elected by the working class. If the left is defined historically as the champion of the working class, then Donald Trump is their champion and the “left” is their enemy.

  Throughout the contest for the Republican presidential nomination and the contest for the presidency, the “left” was allied with the ruling establishment of mega-rich capitalist oligarchs and the warmonger military/security complex against Trump. As Trump’s presidency begins, it is the “left” that wants Trump impeached and delegitimized, precisely the goals of the war- mongers and the mega-rich and their presstitutes.

  Even environmental groups, such as NRDC of which I am a member, have joined the identity politics against Trump. Rhea Suh, NRDC’s president, has just sent me an email in which she declares NRDC, supposedly a champion of wildlife and the environment, to be standing with women in the Women’s March on Washington against Trump “in defense of our most basic rights as women.” “Women matter,” Rhea declares, and proceeds to blame Trump for Flint Michigan’s polluted water.

  I am convinced that it is a mistake for Trump to emphasize jobs at the expense of the environment. Whether or not global warming is a hoax, environmental destruction is not. It is real, and the working class, as in Flint, are suffering from it as well as from the offshoring of their jobs.

  The Democratic Party died during the Clinton regime when Clinton allied with the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) founded in 1985 by Al From. I have often wondered who funded the DLC. It could just as well have been the Koch brothers as the DLC turned the Democratic Party into a second Republican Party.

  The DLC convinced Democrats that the defeat of the presidential campaigns of George McGovern and Walter Mondale proved that economic populism is not politically viable. Democrats had to turn away from the left and embrace “mainstream values” and “market-based solutions.” The DLC was a big supporter of NAFTA. Reportedly, the DLC’s Will Marshall regarded pacifists and Iraq war protesters as anti-American and advised Democrats to keep their distance.

  In short, the message was: compete with the Republicans for the big corporate and financial sector money. It certainly worked for the Clintons, but not for the Democratic Party.

  As “market-based solutions” offshored US manufacturing jobs, the Democratic Party’s finances declined with union membership and power. Today Democrats and Republicans are dependent on the same interest groups for campaign funds. Thus ended the Democratic Party’s connection with the working class.

  The question is: Can Trump stand for the working class when both political parties and the presstitute media, the think tanks, universities, environmental organizations, military/security complex, Wall Street, and courts stand against the working class?

  Who is going to help Trump help the working class?

  

  

• White House Reveals How Mexico May Pay For The Wall: A 20% Border Tax

  Update 2:

  Some more clarity from Spicer, who is now backtracking on his words, telling reporters that slapping a 20 percent tax on imports from Mexico is just one of several options on the table for paying for a wall along the southern border.

  Spicer said President Donald Trump has yet to make a final decision about how the U.S. will recoup the costs of his proposed border wall. Earlier Thursday that Trump wanted to slap a 20 percent tax on all imports from Mexico and predicted the tax would generate $10 billion a year.

  He had told reporters on Air Force One that Trump has discussed the idea with congressional leaders and wanted to include the measure in a comprehensive tax reform package. But Trump’s chief of staff Reince Priebus said later that the administration has “a buffet of options” to pay for the wall.

  Importantly, Spicer said the White House was not ready to roll out any border tax at this time, and that it will will continue to have open line of communication with Mexico after Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto canceled plans to meet with President Trump; Spicer says cancellation was mutual decision.

  It would seem that the Kochs – who are fervently opposed to the BAT proposal – made a few phonecalls.

  * * *

  Update:

  Another story whch needs to be appended, because as NBC’s Peter Alexander tweets, According to Spicer the 20% tax on Mexican imports is not a policy proposal but merely an example of options how to pay for the wall.

  BREAKING: Spicer tells me 20% tax on Mexican imports is NOT a policy proposal, but example of options how to pay for wall.

  — Peter Alexander (@PeterAlexander) January 26, 2017

  * * *

  Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said that as part of its plans to make Mexico “pay for the wall”, the Trump administration is considering a 20% border tax on Mexican imports.

  In a brief gaggle on the way back from Philadelphia, Spicer said that POTUS has decided how to pay for the border wall: “by imposing a 20 percent tax on all imports from Mexico.”

  He did not give any details about that tax, how it would work, and he described it as a beginning of a process that would be part of overall tax reform. But he did describe this as a decision that POTUS has made.

  “When you look at the plan that’s taking shape now, using comprehensive tax reform as a means to tax imports from countries that we have a trade deficit from, like Mexico. If you tax that $50 billion at 20 percent of imports — which is by the way a practice that 160 other countries do — right now our country’s policy is to tax exports and let imports flow freely in, which is ridiculous. By doing it that we can do $10 billion a year and easily pay for the wall just through that mechanism alone. That’s really going to provide the funding.”

  The proposal, as explained by Spicer, appears to be similar to the Border-Adjustment Tax provision floated previously, that would tax U.S. businesses’ imports included in a House Republican tax plan.  The so-called border adjustment provision is part of a broader plan to bring the corporate tax rate down from 35 percent and 20 percent.  Trump previously dismissed the plan in an interview with The Wall Street Journal as being “too complicated.” While benefiting exporters, such as U.S.-based aerospace companies, it could hurt retailers and other American companies that manufacture goods overseas to sell in the U.S. That would result in higher prices for American consumer goods.

  “This is something that we’ve been in close contact with both houses in moving forward and creating a plan. It clearly provides the funding and does so in a way that the American taxpayer is wholly respected.”

  Spicer said that “we are probably the only major country that doesn’t treat imports this way” and added “this gets us in line frankly with the policies that the other countries around the world treat our products.”

  The highly sensitive subject of payment for the “wall” is the reason why president Pena Nieto cancelled a trip to the US on January 31 to discusses the renegotiation of NAFTA.

  While Nieto has said Mexico will not pay for the wall, Trump has repeatedly said that Mexico will end up paying, even if the US makes the initial payment; as reported earlier, Republicans have estimated the wall will cost between $12 billion to $15 billion.

  Since roughly 80% of Mexican exports go to the US, (representing around 13% of US imports, or amounting to $295 billion in 2015) Mexico finds itself in a very difficult negotiating position, in which Trump has all the leverage. On the other hand, since a 20% tax would inevitably result in a similar surge in prices of imported goods, no matter who ends up winning this particular negotiation, it will be the US consumer who foots the bill.

  * * *

  As a result of the barrage of today’s Mexico-related headlines, peso traders have had a, how shall we put it, stressful day.

  

  

  

• Hedgies Panic As Hamptons Luxury Home Prices Crash 43% Year-Over-Year

  As U.S. equity markets continue to surge to new all-time highs with each passing day, something you would expect to benefit the titans of high finance in Manhattan, demand for luxurious, multi-million dollar weekend getaways in the Hamptons has all but completely disappeared.

  According to a new 4Q report from Douglas Elliman, the Hamptons real estate market is in full-on crash mode with average prices down 29.7% YoY in 4Q16 and volumes down 14.5%. 

  

   

  Meanwhile, the “luxury” market in the Hamptons, which apparently includes homes with an average price tag of ~$7 million, is faring even worse with prices down 42.6% YoY and volumes down 14.5%. 

  

   

  Seems that New York’s hedge fund billionaires just can’t seem to make money at work or on their homes.

  As the Wall Street Journal noted, Jonathan Miller of Douglas Elliman doesn’t expect the carnage in the Hamptons to slow anytime soon as he says there is still ““too much overpriced inventory—and it is rising.”

  Brokers said the luxury market was particularly weak in 2016, despite some trophy sales reflecting the last gasp of a stronger market that surged at the end of 2014.

   

  “Softness at the top continues,” Mr. Miller said. There is “too much overpriced inventory—and it is rising.”

  Of course, the soft market didn’t stop the hedgies from recording a couple of trophy sales in 2016.  Per Douglas Elliman, the most expensive sale of the year was $109.8 million with the second highest sale a mere $70 million…must have been a dump.

  The top transaction of the year was the $109.8 million sale of three parcels on Lily Pond Lane in East Hampton by hedge-fund manager Scott Bommer. Mr. Bommer had paid $93.9 million for the properties several years earlier. The buyer, brokers said, was Michael S. Smith, a natural-gas executive and investor.

   

  The second-most-expensive sale was a waterfront home just down the street, at 199 Lily Pond Lane. The price was $70 million.

  Oh well, on the bright side, all of these real estate losses can quickly be wiped away with less than 1 year of management fees charged to America’s insolvent pension funds in return for below-S&P performance…life is good!

  

  

• War Gaming – Part 1: Nukes & Terrorism

  Submitted by Bill O'Grady via Confluence Investment Management,

  One of the key elements of global hegemony is the ability of a nation to project power. Ideally, this means a potential hegemon needs local security. In other words, a nation that faces significant proximate threats will struggle to project power globally. As a general rule, it’s easier to attack via land compared to the sea.

  Rome’s power base was the Italian peninsula. It only needed to defend the northern part of the land mass. Spain had a similar situation. The Netherlands was the global hegemon for a while but was always facing a land threat from France. Britain, being an island, was geographically ideal for superpower status; the last successful invasion of the British Isles was in 1066. Finally, the U.S. has managed to create an island effect on a larger land mass giving America more access to natural resources compared to Britain, making the U.S. a nearly ideal hegemon.

  In Part I of this report, we will examine American hegemony from a foreign nation’s perspective. In other words, if a nation wanted to attack the U.S. to either replace the U.S. as global superpower or to create conditions that would allow it to act freely to establish regional hegemony, how would this be accomplished? This analysis will begin by examining America’s geopolitical position. As part of this week’s report, we will examine the likelihood of a nuclear attack and a terrorist strike against the U.S. In Part II, we will examine the remaining two methods, cyberwarfare and disinformation, discussing their likelihood along with the costs and benefits of these tactics. We will also conclude in Part II with potential market effects.

  America’s Geopolitics

  The Americans are truly a lucky people. They are bordered to the north and south by weak neighbors and to the east and west by fish.

  — Otto von Bismarck

  

  (Source: Wikipedia)

  Although Bismarck’s quote is accurate in terms of borders, this circumstance was less due to luck than design. Successive presidents took great care to expand U.S. territory in such a manner as to leave Canada and Mexico with less hospitable border environments. This can be observed on a map of North American population density. The map below shows population density in North America. Note the low density along most of the Canadian/U.S. frontier as well as the lack of density along the Mexican border.

  

  (Source: Wikipedia)

  The U.S. pushed its northern border into areas that were less conducive to human development. Canada’s population mostly rests along the border with the U.S. and rapidly declines the further north one travels. The U.S. population is over nine times larger than Canada’s; Canada has 9.4 persons per square mile compared to 85.6 persons per square mile in the U.S. The opposite situation occurs with Mexico. Most of Mexico’s population lives in the southern parts of the state, with the northern desert region relatively unpopulated.

  Essentially, the U.S. is surrounded by two neighbors that are no military threat and two oceans. Any nation attempting to launch a conventional military attack on the U.S. would not have any element of surprise. Attacking through either Mexico or Canada would be relatively easy to see coming and force the invader to cross difficult territory on the way to the battle theater. Coming by sea requires a long voyage that would likely be detected as well.

  Since 1812, the U.S. has been able to engage the world without significant concern about an attack on the mainland. Japan was able to successfully attack Hawaii and also capture islands that were part of Alaska. But, neither event was enough to seriously threaten the mainland. In the two world wars, the U.S. was able to launch sustained military operations against its enemies with little fear that its industrial base would be attacked.

  The isolation of the U.S. makes it an ideal superpower. The U.S. can focus on power projection and use fewer resources for homeland defense. This gives America great power to influence the world and reduces potential enemies’ ability to prevent the U.S. from becoming involved in thwarting their goals.

  So, if a foreign power wanted to dethrone the U.S., or, probably more likely, establish itself as a regional hegemon without U.S. interference, what attack options are available to such a power and what are the odds of success? We will examine four different options, assuming that a conventional attack isn’t possible, at least for the foreseeable future.

  #1: Nuclear Strike

  Since the U.S. used atomic weapons on Japan at the close of WWII, no other power has launched a similar attack. The world came close on a few occasions to a nuclear war—the Cuban Missile Crisis was a near miss—but, for the most part, global leaders have refrained from using these weapons.

  During the Cold War, nuclear war doctrine evolved into one where the weapon became purely defensive. Essentially, nuclear powers can never be forced into unconditional surrender. If a nuclear power was facing defeat in conventional warfare, it could prevent complete capitulation though a nuclear attack.

  The primary concern of nuclear powers was to ensure that they had systems that would allow for a “second strike” capacity. Thus, if a nuclear power found itself facing a first strike, the goal was to have the ability to retaliate in kind. This model, known as “Mutually Assured Destruction,” required that no side could reliably win a nuclear exchange.

  Nuclear powers usually have at least two of three delivery systems: missiles, submarines or bombers. A nation relying solely on land-based missiles could be vulnerable to a first strike. Usually, if a nation only has land-based missiles, they develop mobile launch systems that make conventional attacks on nuclear facilities more difficult.

  The key deterrent to a first strike nuclear attack is the second strike response. At the same time, a full-scale nuclear exchange could have catastrophic effects on human life. The spread of radiation could poison the atmosphere. Some scientists theorize that even a modest exchange could trigger a nuclear winter that could have serious effects on the climate; recent studies have suggested it might even trigger a “little ice age.”

  The decision process for an American president is fairly straightforward if facing an attack from a major nuclear power such as China or Russia. One would expect a first strike of such magnitude that the ill effects would be global; thus, the damage to the global ecology would probably already be done, prompting an American president to retaliate in kind. In addition, the desire for revenge would be very strong and likely bring a retaliatory second strike. Where the decision becomes difficult is if a minor nuclear power launches a limited nuclear strike on the U.S. The most likely candidate for such an attack would be North Korea. If the Kim regime launched a limited strike on the Western U.S., would an American president risk ending human life on the planet to retaliate, especially if he feared that China or Russia would defend North Korea? On the other hand, allowing the U.S. to be attacked without retaliation seems unlikely due to the loss of American lives and the precedent it would set that may encourage other smaller nuclear powers (e.g., Iran) to engage in their own limited strikes.

  Overall, any foreign power attacking the U.S. with nuclear weapons is probably ensuring they will face retaliation that ends the existence of the attacking nation. Thus, this isn’t a likely option.

  #2: Terrorism

  Terrorism, a form of asymmetric warfare, is a constant threat. However, it has serious limitations as a strategy if used by a foreign nation state. Although terrorism can take many forms, the goal is to “terrorize” a population. If successful, the fear paralyzes a power and renders it incapable to respond to a foreign threat. In other words, a terrorist act can force a nation to focus inward, spend resources on security and perhaps change its foreign policy.

  However, this tactic for a foreign government is risky. It can be a bit like bringing a knife to a gunfight. Terrorism generally won’t lead to a regime change. It harms the target and often can force the target nation to retaliate strongly. In other words, a nation can launch a terrorist strike against the U.S. only to then find itself facing a significant conventional attack.

  This is why terrorism tends to be the preferred tactic of non-state actors. Al Qaeda’s attacks on the U.S. were a clear tactical victory. In fact, they probably succeeded far beyond expectations. However, the Bush administration reacted strongly with both conventional warfare and Special Forces, severely restricting the group. President Obama eventually attacked Osama bin Laden’s compound, killing al Qaeda’s leader.

  There is a temptation for nation states to support non-state actors in attacking a superpower. However, even this cover has hazards. First, the state supporter of terrorism has to take great care to ensure that it has no obvious ties to the terrorist group. Otherwise, it invites retaliation by the superpower. Second, terrorist groups can be difficult to control. They usually have their own agendas which may not coincide with the state sponsor’s objectives. Even Iran, who sponsors Hezbollah, has tried to guide the group into fewer terrorist acts and toward a focus on political control in Lebanon and more conventional fighters in the Syrian conflict. This adjustment has not always been smooth.

  Attacking the U.S. using terrorist tactics is a viable option. However, it has two serious drawbacks. First, it could invite a disproportionately harsh response. For example, we doubt the Taliban anticipated that the U.S. would oust its government because it didn’t turn over Osama bin Laden. Second, it is highly unlikely that terrorism would either lead to a regime change in the U.S. or deter America from a key foreign policy goal.

  In Part II, we will examine the two remaining tactics for attacking a superpower, namely, cyberwarfare and propaganda.

  

  

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• Trump Redpills ABC’s David Muir: “The World is as Angry as it Gets”

  In an interview with ABC’s David Muir, Trump addressed his policy to restrict immigration from certain muslim nations, with a God hammer filled with redpills. Muir brought his bag filled with liberal care trolls, asking Trump if restricting muslims from entering the United States would cause ‘more anger among muslims around the world’ and Trump took said bag and ripped it to shreds.

  Watch.

  Aside from that, Trump discussed Obamacare, waterboarding, Chicago, the inauguration crowd size, voter fraud, the border wall, and the fucking nuclear codes.

  The wall: Mexico will pay for the wall, 100%.

  Pres. Trump: Construction of border wall to begin “in months”; Mexico will “absolutely” reimburse the U.S. for wall. https://t.co/H0uApVrTYu pic.twitter.com/pK7YxUmb0O

  — ABC News (@ABC) January 26, 2017

  Obamacare: My plan will take care of everybody. ‘Obamacare is a disaster.’

  Pres. Trump on repealing and replacing Obamacare: “I want to give great health care at a much lower cost.” https://t.co/1QOK72KSRY pic.twitter.com/mMzCDmtk9y

  — ABC News (@ABC) January 26, 2017

  Trump on waterboarding: We’re not fighting on an even playing field. Waterboarding works.

  President Trump on waterboarding: “I feel it works,” but will rely on team’s guidance and do everything “legally.” https://t.co/89o6NhpsWh pic.twitter.com/vWoL5W2ycc

  — ABC News (@ABC) January 26, 2017

  Chicago murder rate: This is worst than Afghanistan. Chicago is a warzone. Maybe it’s ok if someone else is President. Not on my watch.

  Pres. Trump says he wants Chicago to fix violence problem: “Afghanistan is not like what’s happening in Chicago.” https://t.co/44NFiXe2ao pic.twitter.com/C1IdeWQTDp

  — ABC News (@ABC) January 26, 2017

  Voter fraud: We’re gonna launch an investigation. None of the illegal votes go to republicans. Wanton democrat chicanery.

  Pres. Trump “won’t allow” anyone to demean people in Inauguration crowd: “We had the biggest audience in the history of inaugural speeches.” pic.twitter.com/13dHFLbqn1

  — ABC News (@ABC) January 26, 2017

  Inaugural crowd size: We had the biggest audience in the history of inagugural speeches. I won’t let the media demean me or the people who came.

  President Trump to launch investigation into alleged voter fraud: “I want the voting process to be legitimate.” https://t.co/zjjJ6vMqXU pic.twitter.com/gDK765766l

  — ABC News (@ABC) January 26, 2017

  Nuclear codes: Sobering and scary.

  Pres. Trump on receiving nuclear codes: “It is a very sobering moment, yes. It’s very, very, very scary in a sense.” https://t.co/89o6NhpsWh pic.twitter.com/MNIpCfmec8

  — ABC News (@ABC) January 26, 2017

  Content originally generated at iBankCoin.com

  

• Top U.S. Secret Service Agent Rages: "I Wouldn't Take A Bullet For Trump"

  Submitted by Mac Slavo via SHTFPlan.com,

  

  (Pictured: Secret Service Denver District Chief Kerry O’Grady)

  As the last line of defense for the leader of the world, America’s Secret Service agents are tasked with risking their lives and even standing in the way of a bullet should it be headed towards the President.

  But after a tumultuous election year some in the agency are not prepared to do their sworn duty.

  In a series of recent Facebook posts Kerry O’Grady, reportedly one of the nation’s top Secret Service agents, said she would not be willing to take a bullet for the President.

  Kerry O’Grady, the special agent in charge of the Secret Service’s Denver district, oversees coordination with Washington-based advance teams for all presidential candidate and presidential trips to the area, including all upcoming or future trips by the president, vice president or Trump administration officials.

   

  Despite her senior security role, she has made her disdain for Trump and his incoming administration clear to her Facebook followers, who included current and former Secret Service agents and other people who were employees at the time of the posts.

   

  Via: The Washington Examiner

  The posts, written during the heat of the campaign in late 2016, show that O’Grady was a Clinton supporter and likely assumed Hillary would be elected to the Presidency. Such a move may have done wonders for her career had Clinton become her boss.

  In her initial post O’Grady raged about how she is “horrified and dismayed” by Trump and his supporters moving “our civil rights into a period of bigotry, misogyny and racism that this country has not tolerated for decades.”

  She quickly followed up with another post, in which she claimed she’d rather go to jail than to take a bullet for President Trump:

  …this world has changed and I have changed. And I would take jail time over a bullet or an endorsement for what I believe to be disaster to this country and the strong and amazing women and minorities who reside here.

  The full Facebook post was captured by The Washington Examiner and was subsequently deleted when the news organization reported it this Tuesday:

  

  While her actions are certainly being applauded, albeit behind closed doors, by mainstream media pundits who have previously joked about the assassination of President Trump, The Washington Examiner notes that while America’s First Amendment protects our free speech, Secret Service employees agree to enhanced restrictions when joining the agency, including the following two rules:

  • May not post a comment to a blog or a social media site that advocates for or against a partisan political party, candidate for partisan political office, or partisan political group.
  • May not use any email account or social media to distribute, send or forward content that advocates for or against a partisan political party, candidate for partisan political office, or partisan political group.

  Though O’Grady now claims that she would uphold her duty and protect the President, the cat is out of the bag and it is clear that neither the President or his family would be safe in her presence.

  The Secret Service said on Tuesday that they are “aware of the postings and the agency is taking quick and appropriate action.”

  We suspect Ms. O’Grady’s career with the Secret Service will be coming to an end in short order:

  

  

• Americans Are Flipping Houses Like It's 2006 All Over Again

  How quickly the sins of the past are forgotten.

  Roughly 10 years ago, a Mexican immigrant working as a strawberry picker in Bakersfield, California, making $14,000 per year, was lent every single penny he needed to purchase a $720,000 home.  And, as crazy as that sounds to most of us, stories such as that were all too common leading up to the 2008 housing crash as everyone, and their brothers, became expert real estate investors buying and flipping multiple houses every month…which worked really well, until it didn’t.

  Now, and quite unfortunately for those of us that prefer not to day trade our primary residence, America’s home flippers are making a come back.  According to a new study from Trulia, home flips accounted for 6.1% of all U.S. home sales in 2016, which is the highest share since 2006, when flips accounted for 7.3% of sales.

  

   

  As Bloomberg points out, the cities where home flipping seems to be the most pervasive are all the same ones that suffered the biggest boom/bust during the last cycle.  Perhaps we could suggest that the people of Las Vegas need to just do all their gambling INSIDE the casinos from now on.

  

   

  Of course, rising home prices are responsible for luring Americans back into the home flipping game…because everyone gets to look like a genius real estate investor in a rising market.

  Flipping has become more common as home prices have increased, said Ralph McLaughlin, chief economist at Trulia. Whether that’s cause for concern is an open question.

   

  Local housing market investors can bid up prices in a speculative frenzy, as recent history has shown. When flippers crowd into a market, meanwhile, they compete with buyers seeking a home to live in, deferring the availability of listings and pushing homes out of some buyers’ price range.

   

  But flippers can also provide a valuable service to the housing market by investing in needed improvements that owner-occupiers might not have time for, McLaughlin said. Trulia’s report shows that flippers in Las Vegas are seeking building permits at the highest rate since 2000, suggesting that they’re making substantial repairs and not simply buying homes to ride local price appreciation.

   

  “Is the market going to flip out again?” he said. “I don’t think the signs are there yet.”

  But maybe it will all work out this time around.  After all, as a Bear Stearns RMBS trader told us back in 2007, “these structures will never break because home prices have never fallen more than a few percent in the history of the United States”…well, except that one time that they did.

  

  

• Google Permanently Bans 200 "Fake News" Sites

  The crackdown has begun.

  In a blog post by Scott Spencer, director of product management for sustainable ads, posted on Wednesday, Google said it has banned 200 publishers from accessing its Adsense advertising service for posting fake news stories. Google said it had cracked down on sites which contained 1) Ads for illegal products; 2) Misleading ads; 3) Bad ads on mobile; 4) Ads trying to game the system and, 5) Promoting and profiting from bad sites. But the emphasis was on the so-called “fake news” category which has dominated media buzz for the past two months.

  This is how Spencer explained his action:

  In 2016, we saw the rise of tabloid cloakers, a new type of scammer that tries to game our system by pretending to be news. Cloakers often take advantage of timely topics—a government election, a trending news story or a popular celebrity—and their ads can look like headlines on a news website. But when people click on that story about Ellen DeGeneres and aliens, they go to a site selling weight-loss products, not a news story.

  * * *

  We’ve had long-standing policies prohibiting AdSense publishers from running ads on sites that help people deceive others, like a site where you buy fake diplomas or plagiarized term papers. In November, we expanded on these policies, introducing a new AdSense misrepresentative content policy, that helps us to take action against website owners misrepresenting who they are and that deceive people with their content.

  Google has faced criticism over its handling of fake news stories, including allowing a fake news website to rise to the top of its results displaying an incorrect story claiming that President Trump had won the popular vote.

  In his post explaining how Google attempted to crack down on “bad ads, sites and scammers,” Spencer explained that Google had expanded its policies against misleading websites in November, leading to the crackdown.

  From November to December 2016, we reviewed 550 sites that were suspected of misrepresenting content to users, including impersonating news organizations.  We took action against 340 of them for violating our policies, both misrepresentation and other offenses, and nearly 200 publishers were kicked out of our network permanently.

  In total, Google took down 1.7 billion ads that they found in violation of their policies in 2016, more than double the 780 million they removed in 2015.

  It wasn’t just fake news: Google provided the following examples of common policy violations among bad sites in 2016:

  • We took action on 47,000 sites for promoting content and products related to weight-loss scams.
  • We took action on more than 15,000 sites for unwanted software and disabled 900,000 ads for containing malware.
  • And we suspended around 6,000 sites and 6,000 accounts for attempting to advertise counterfeit goods, like imitation designer watches.

  Some of the more conventional bans were the result of Google adding a policy mid-year prohibiting ads for payday loans, considered predatory. Roughly five million payday loan ads were disabled over the latter six months of 2016. Also among those the removed ads were what Google calls “tabloid cloakers.” These advertisers run what look like links to news headlines, but when the user clicks, an ad for a product such as a weight loss supplement pops up. Google suspended 1,300 accounts engaged in tabloid cloaking in 2016.

  Spencer concludes:

  In addition to all the above, we support industry efforts like the Coalition for Better Ads to protect people from bad experiences across the web. While we took down more bad ads in 2016 than ever before, the battle doesn’t end here. As we invest in better detection, the scammers invest in more elaborate attempts to trick our systems. Continuing to find and fight them is essential to protecting people online and ensuring you get the very best from the open web.

  Google has not disclosed the list of 200 sites it had permanently banned.

  

  

• Trump & Yellen's Collision Course

  Submitted by Kevin Muir via The Macro Tourist,

  

  Although the stock market is giddy from President Trump’s pro-growth policies, there is another constituent not quite so enamoured with recent developments. Although a few years ago Fed officials were begging for some help from fiscal policy, with employment now running at a “perceived” tight pace, FOMC participants have switched to viewing fiscal stimulus as a potential inflationary concern that needs to be offset with tighter monetary policy.

  Case in point – have a look at the comments from the most dovish member of the FOMC – über dove Lael Brainard (all quotes from Bloomberg):

  September 16, 2016

  “The case to tighten policy preemptively is less compelling” in an environment where declining unemployment has been slow to spur faster inflation, Brainard said Monday, according to the text of her prepared remarks in Chicago. She made no reference to a specific meeting of the policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee.

   

  Brainard’s comments are the last before the Fed enters its quiet period, during which officials abstain from publicly speaking about monetary policy in the run-up to an FOMC meeting. Policy makers will gather in Washington Sept. 20-21 to discuss their monetary policy stance. Recent comments from the committee’s voters have not projected a cohesive signal about whether they will lift interest rates or stay on hold.

   

  “Asymmetry in risk management in today’s new normal counsels prudence in the removal of policy accommodation,” Brainard said, arguing that with interest rates near zero, it’s easier for the Fed to react to faster-than-expected demand than to a negative surprise that upsets the economy. “I believe this approach has served us well in recent months.”

  January 17th, 2017

  Federal Reserve Governor Lael Brainard said the U.S. central bank may accelerate interest-rate increases and measures to shrink its balance sheet if Congress approves a sustained, material increase in fiscal stimulus that pressures inflation without lifting productivity.

   

  “Based on recent spending indicators, we might expect progress to continue to be gradual and steady,” Brainard said Tuesday in Washington. “However, if fiscal policy changes lead to a more rapid elimination of slack, policy adjustment would, all else being equal, likely be more rapid than otherwise.”

  Brainard is the most dovish member of the Federal Open Market Committee, yet she is openly warning about higher rates. Other FOMC members are even going so far as to signal upcoming balance sheet reductions and even higher rates than the market has currently priced in.

  Chair Yellen is also making some hawkish chirping noises. Have a look at the first paragraph from her recent Stanford speech:

  In my remarks today, I will review the considerable progress the economy has made toward the attainment of the two objectives that the Congress has assigned to the Federal Reserve–maximum employment and price stability. The upshot is that labor utilization is close to its estimated longer-run normal level, and we are closing in on our 2 percent inflation objective. I will then discuss the prospects for adjusting monetary policy in the manner needed to sustain a strong job market while maintaining low and stable inflation

  “Labour utilization is close to its estimated longer-run normal level, and we are closing in on our 2 percent inflation objective” is the key line. In this speech, Yellen then goes on to sketch out the basic formula for setting rates. It’s a boring econometrics discussion, but the important point is that she is setting out how the Federal Reserve will go about raising rates.

  Make no mistake – rates are going higher. Probably a lot higher than the market realizes. Just look at this comment buried in Yellen’s speech:

  That said, I think that allowing the economy to run markedly and persistently “hot” would be risky and unwise. Waiting too long to remove accommodation could cause inflation expectations to begin ratcheting up, driving actual inflation higher and making it harder to control. The combination of persistently low interest rates and strong labor market conditions could lead to undesirable increases in leverage and other financial imbalances, although such risks would likely take time to emerge. Finally waiting too long to tighten policy could require the FOMC to eventually raise interest rates rapidly, which could risk disrupting financial markets and pushing the economy into recession. For these reasons, I consider it prudent to adjust the stance of monetary policy gradually over time–a strategy that should improve the prospects that the economy will achieve sustainable growth with the labor market operating at full employment and inflation running at about 2 percent.

  In the coming quarters, the Federal Reserve will march rates higher. But more importantly, the more Trump pushes on the fiscal accelerator, the harder the Fed will lean on the brake.

  The stock market has risen on each pro-business executive order Trump signs. In fact, this latest push to new highs is the direct result of Trump’s following through with his promised plans.

  Although the stock market is screaming higher, the bond market is not at all happy. Not only does the bond market need to deal with the threat of increased inflation from Trump’s policies, but also a Federal Reserve intent on tightening monetary policy to offset the fiscal stimulus.

  I think the Federal Reserve is too eager to raise rates (and also reduce the size of the balance sheet). They continue to fight the last battle and don’t realize that in a balance sheet constrained global financial system, inflation is not the main worry. They run the risk of becoming another Japan with an economy littered with false starts. I don’t know if it is a political bias, or they would have been just as quick on the trigger for a Democratic President, but it really doesn’t matter. Nor does my opinion about the Fed being better off letting the economy run hot for a while mean two shits. All of these thoughts should just be discarded in the dustbin of not worrying about what should be and instead focusing on trading what will be.

  It seems obvious the Federal Reserve is intent on withdrawing monetary accommodation until something breaks. There is no sense fighting it.

  And it is also clear President Trump will follow through with his fiscal stimulus plans. Many pundits thought Trump’s actions might not follow his rhetoric, but the market is quickly realizing that Trump means what he says.

  These two different forces are on a collision course. More fiscal stimulus translates into more monetary tightness. And Trump isn’t going to back down anytime soon, so all that is left is an expanding fiscal environment with a Federal Reserve desperately trying to apply some brakes.

  This economic expansion is already running long in the tooth, and there is a pattern of recessions occurring in the first year of office for newly elected Presidents, so an overly aggressive Fed is a worrisome development. Ironically, Trump’s fiscal stimulus might be the trigger that ushers in the next economic slowdown.

  Many strategists believed Trump might ask Yellen to step down and appoint someone more hawkish. They mistakenly confused Trump’s campaign complaint about low interest rates killing the economy as future policy.

  Well, Trump will do no such thing. In fact, I suspect before Yellen’s term is complete in 2018, Trump will be blaming her for all his problems when the economy rolls over. I am not sure if Trump is this smart, but keeping Yellen around for exactly this task would be the wise move.

  In the mean time, Trump will keep pushing forward with more fiscal stimulus, and Yellen & Co. will push back with tighter monetary policy.

  This interplay between Trump and Yellen makes for a shitty environment for bonds, and also as real rates head higher, gold and other commodities. Eventually this giant debt disaster will need to be inflated away, but I am afraid this FOMC is not yet scared enough to let that happen.

  As this plays out, be careful with your precious metals and other commodity long positions.

  

  Higher real rates are not conducive for precious metal bull markets. As long as the Fed keeps pressing on the brake, it will be tough for these commodities to get up off the mat. It won’t be until something breaks in the financial system that you want to own them. But at that point, you should be buying with both fists.

  

  

• Dear Bernie, Meet the "Big Mac ATM" That Will Replace All Of Your $15 Per Hour Fast Food Workers

  Dear Bernie, as you continue in your never-ending “Fight for $15“, we thought you might benefit from a simple example of how economics work in a real life, functioning, capitalistic society.  You see, Bernie, labor, much like your daily serving of crunchy granola, is just another “good” that businesses can choose to consume more or less of, depending on price.  And, just to be crystal clear, when the price of labor (i.e. wages) increases, businesses tend to consume less of it.  Finally, our dearest Bernie, when misinformed politicians radically disrupt labor markets by setting artificially high base prices, like your proposed $15 federal minimum wage, then businesses simply stop consuming labor completely and instead replace that labor with this “Big Mac ATM Machine.”

  Say what?! A Big Mac ATM machine, where you can order real Big Macs, is coming to the Pru/Copley on January 31st. https://t.co/fjMZcrLpr7 pic.twitter.com/MGRxplpsRI

  — BostonTweet (@BostonTweet) January 24, 2017

   

  So, you see Bernie, pretty soon all those McDonald’s workers that you promised a “fair living wage” to make Big Macs, will have absolutely no wages at all courtesy of your “Fight for $15.”

  Of course, as the Daily Caller points out, the “Big Mac ATM” is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to low-skilled jobs that will be automated as a result of the $15 minimum wage that has already been passed in several states across the country.

  Wendy’s, another popular fast-food establishment, announced plans in May to start installing self-serving kiosks at some of its over 6,000 locations later in the year. The chain is replacing cashiers and other low-skilled jobs with computers and automated machines because, as Wendy’s president Todd Penegor told Investor’s Business Daily, it has to compensate for wage hikes.

   

  McDonald’s Europe president Steve Easterbrook announced in 2011 that the fast-food restaurant was planning on “hiring” 7,000 touch-screen cashiers to be installed across the continent, according to CNET and the Financial Times. Easterbrook said it would make transactions more efficient — namely lowering the average interaction three to four seconds each.

  

   

  So, congrats on getting all those fast food workers fired, we’re sure they really appreciate all your hard work. 

  

  

  

• Here Are 2.3 Billion Reasons Why Sanctuary Cities Are So Upset At Trump

  While we are sure Mayors de Blasio (New York), Emanuel (Chicago), and Garcetti (LA) are compassionate men who want nothing more than to ensure the safety of illegal immigrants in their cities, we couldn’t help but notice that, following Trump’s decision to defund so-called Sanctuary cities, the sound and fury spewing forth from various municipalities today was perfectly correlated with the size of taxpayer-money they received from Obama.

  Not smiling today…

  

  As Reuters reports, U.S. President Donald Trump’s attempt to strip municipalities of federal dollars for shielding illegal immigrants threatens $2.27 billion in annual funds for the nation’s ten largest cities, a Reuters analysis of federal grants found. While Trump has the authority to cut some kinds of funding to the cities, cuts to other federal funding would require an act of Congress. The total amount remains unclear, as federal money can be filtered through state governments or granted directly to social-service organizations or other groups. The numbers do not include federal money for law enforcement, which was excluded in the executive order, and programs like Medicaid, which are administered by state governments.

  

  Mayors and city councils of those cities have said that they will not be pressured to report illegal immigrants to federal agents…

  Local governments in Los Angeles County, for example, received $582 million in federal aid in the most recent fiscal year. That aid included $207 million for the Head Start preschool program, $70 million last year for airport improvements, and $114 million for community development funds used for housing and other needs.

   

  New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, on Tuesday, said he is going to put an additional $250 million a year away in reserves for four years because of a “huge amount of uncertainty” emanating from Washington.

   

  If the Trump administration actually moved to cut funding, “we would be in court immediately to stop it,” de Blasio told reporters.

   

  Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel reiterated the city would remain a sanctuary for undocumented immigrants. In December he pledged $1 million to assist immigrant families.

   

  “(Trump) has vastly overstated the funding that could be at issue with these sanctuary policies. Any attempts to withhold funds will certainly be the source of litigation and the courts, not the president, will be the ultimate arbitrator,” said Peter Markowitz, a professor at New York’s Cardozo School of Law, who focuses on immigration.

  Trump plans to make good on his campaign pledge to block federal funding
  to states and cities where local law enforcement refuse to report
  undocumented immigrants they encounter to federal authorities, White
  House press secretary Sean Spicer said.

  “The American people are no longer going to have to be forced to subsidize this disregard for our laws,” Spicer said.

  Spicer said an executive order signed by Trump on Wednesday directs the Secretary of Homeland Security to look at federal funding to cities to figure out “how we can defund those streams.”

  

  

• Trump Promises Supreme Court Pick Next Week As Cruz Threatens "Nuclear Option" To Bypass Dems

  Yesterday we previewed 3 potential picks that seem to be emerging as front-runners to fill Justice Scalia’s vacant seat on the Supreme Court (see “Obama Sets Record For Lowest Supreme Court Win Rate Since Zachary Taylor In 1850“).  While various media outlets reported that William Pryor of Alabama, Neil Gorsuch of Colorado and Thomas Hardiman of Pennsylvania are the 3 mostly likely people to get the nod, the Los Angeles Times went one step further by declaring Gorsuch the most likely ultimate winner. 

  But while speculation will undoubtedly continue to swirl, earlier this morning Trump promised that his pick will be announced next Thursday. 

  I will be making my Supreme Court pick on Thursday of next week.Thank you!

  — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 25, 2017

   

  Of course, the real fight will begin after Trump’s pick is announced as Democrats in the Senate, now led by Chuck Schumer, have vowed to block any candidate not deemed “mainstream.”  However, appearing on Rachel Maddow, Schumer pretty much vowed to fight any Trump pick put forward, mainstream or not.

  “It’s hard for me to imagine a nominee that Donald Trump would choose, that would get Republican support, that we could support.”

   

  Under current rules, Republicans will need at least eight Democrats to support Trump’s nominee to overcome the 60-vote filibuster hurdle.  That said, Ted Cruz has already started lobbying for the “nuclear option” that would lower the confirmation vote threshold to a simple majority and pave the way for Republicans to confirm any Justice put forward, without Democrat support.  Per The Hill:

  Texas Sen. Ted Cruz (R) said Republicans should fight to get President Trump’s coming Supreme Court nominee confirmed by any means necessary.

   

  Trump has said he will be announcing his choice to fill the late Antonin Scalia’s seat on the bench next week.

   

  Republicans will need at least eight Democrats to support Trump’s nominee to overcome the 60-vote filibuster hurdle. But Cruz suggested the GOP shouldn’t rule out the so-called “nuclear option” to reduce the threshold to a majority. The move would be a gamble, setting a precedent that could weaken the GOP’s position if Democrats come back into power.

   

  “I think we should do whatever it takes to get him confirmed,” the former presidential candidate said on Fox News’ “Hannity” Tuesday night.

   

  When pressed about whether Republicans would employ the nuclear option this week, McConnell simply said: “The nominee will be confirmed.”

  While Democrats will undoubtedly blast the proposed rule change, we suspect they’ll conveniently forget that they first employed the “nuclear option” in 2013 to confirm several of President Obama’s nominations, via simple majority votes, over the objection of Republicans.

  In 2013, Democrats, who at the time held the majority in the Senate, triggered the nuclear option to confirm several of President Obama’s nominees. The move did not apply to the Supreme Court.

   

  Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said recently he regrets Democrats’ 2013 decision, which is now easing the confirmation of President Trump’s Cabinet nominees.

  We would also point out that Democrats “changed the rules” in 2010, after losing their filibuster proof majority on the death of Massachusetts Democrat Ted Kennedy, to ram through one of the destructive pieces of legislation in recent history, Obamacare.

  Live by the sword, die by the sword as they say.

  

  

• Are You Ready For An Inflationary Depression?

  Submitted by Tom Chatham via Project Chesapeake,

  We are heading into a new depression. It is not coming. It is already here but we are only in the beginning so it may not be easy for many people to see just yet. Once it is easy to see it will be too late for any meaningful actions to mitigate the effects. Just as you must prepare for a tornado ahead of time, you must prepare for economic conditions early.

  We have 20 trillion in debt, over 200 trillion in unfunded liabilities and over a quadrillion in derivatives held by the banks. Our GDP is only about 17 trillion a year and world GDP is only about 60 trillion. It does not take a math wiz to realize that even if we are not paying any interest at all on this massive debt, there is no way to ever pay it all back short of some type of default.

  That is what depressions do. They wipe out all of the misallocation of resources and bad debt and provide a reset for the economy. These resets can be relatively easy or they can be very destructive depending on the amount of misallocation that is present in the system. The amount of debt, brought on by decades of unrestricted credit creation, is the largest in history. That means we are in for a very bad ride in the near future.

  Much of the money that people think they have is really only made up of digits in some computer somewhere. The banking industry has already taken this money for its own use. To eliminate the need to ever give it back to the rightful owners they must destroy these digits. That is what the new bail-ins are all about. They can at some point just wipe all of those digits out of existence and say tough luck suckers.

  The depression of the 1930’s was a deflationary one in nature. People lost their jobs, prices fell and cash was king. People holding bonds did very well. In an inflationary depression, prices rise, people will get paid in increasingly worthless paper and bonds will collapse. Banks will enact bail-ins to stay solvent and people will go broke while holding piles of cash.

  In the end the inflationary depression will end with the currency collapsing and people losing everything they have that is not fully owned. Eventually we will see deflation as prices fall due to the destruction of the monetary system. At this point most people will be financially devastated. Those that make it to this point with their wealth in tact will be the new wealthy class.

  So how can a person survive something like this? You simply need to focus on the needs of your family over this period of time. If you can provide the needs of your family regardless of the prices at the time, you will make it through the worst of times, This means you need a plan to provide these items to your family whether prices are rising or falling. If you have a years supply of food, it does not matter what the current price is, you will have the means to feed them.

  If your home is paid for, your car is paid for and you have a supply of energy or a way to produce it yourself, it will not matter to you how fast prices are changing or how much money you bring home every week. You will be able to live outside of the rapidly changing economy. The rapid changes that will destroy others will only provide you a glancing blow.

  Those that survive on credit will be devastated as their access to credit is cut off and they become unable to continue making payments on their possessions. They will be devastated even if they still have a paying job. For those that expect to survive on their savings and pensions, they will find those accounts empty following any bail-ins.

  Where you live will also play a major role in how well you survive the depression. What do you think will happen when those dependent multi generational families lose their welfare and food stamps following the breakdown of the credit system and prices rise faster than benefits? The ability to produce some items yourself will also depend on your location and the ability to stay safe.

  The whole of the production and distribution system depends on 30 day credit. When the credit system ceases to function, goods will stop being produced and transported. This will lead to high prices and few goods to buy. So even if you have a bag full of money you may not be able to buy what you want at some point.

  Just like a tornado that tears through a community, a depression can leave the people without the resources they need unless they have them hidden away safely for future use following the event. This is why having resources, real physical goods, put away now will allow you to thrive when the system fails. When the system resets, you will not get a second chance to do it right. You only have one shot and that requires you to finalize your preparations now while you still can make a difference.

  The whole point of preparing for this type of upheaval is to maintain a standard of living that you find acceptable. Lack of preparation in this type of event will likely find you living much poorer than you would like. If you are successful in maintaining your standard of living and preserving your wealth throughout this event you will have won the battle and set yourself up for a better future when things stabilize.

  

  

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• Talk Radio Host, Dr. Michael Savage, Goes on Epic Rant Over DNC Candidate Sally Boynton Brown and Anti-White Democrats

  In response to  poor Sally Boynton Brown’s anti-white rhetoric, who is vying for leadership of the DNC by promising to shut her fellow white people down, Dr. Michael Savage offered poignant commentary — hearkening back to when Amy Biehl was killed by S. African retrogrades —  bridging the two anti-white women together by describing them as being afflicted by an acute mental malady — bordering on self-immolation.

  Listen to the clip. I promise you it’s worth your time.

  As a party trying to govern all Americans, one has to theorize the democrats are merely pandering to demographic trends — hoping to solidify their standing with latinos and black Americans — by casting hideous aspersions and division in white communities — attempting to marginalize them — in an effort to secure long term power over the American economy and military apparatus.

  This is purposeful, deceitful and hateful policies — directed by them, employing identity politics and fomenting discord in people from an early age — using Hollywood and media as channels to direct their propaganda, so that they could profit from it when the scales tip in favor of their voting block.

   

  Content originally generated at iBankCoin.com

  

• Has The American Dream Become The American Nightmare?

  Submitted by John Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,

  “Most Germans, so far as I could see, did not seem to mind that their personal freedom had been taken away, that so much of their splendid culture was being destroyed and replaced with a mindless barbarism, or that their life and work were being regimented to a degree never before experienced even by a people accustomed for generations to a great deal of regimentation … On the whole, people did not seem to feel that they were being cowed and held down by an unscrupulous tyranny. On the contrary, they appeared to support it with genuine enthusiasm.”

   

  -William L. Shirer, The Nightmare Years 1930-40

  For too long now, the American people have allowed themselves to be persuaded that the government’s job is to take care of us: to feed us, clothe us, house us, educate us, raise our children, heal our infirmities, manage our finances, protect us from our enemies, guard us against all dangers (real and imaginary), and provide for our every need.

  Where Americans go wrong is in failing to recognize that there’s always a catch to such devil’s bargains purportedly carried out for the good of all society.

  You want free education for your children? The government can take care of it. In exchange for free public schools, however, your children will be molded and indoctrinated into compliant, obedient citizens who reflect the government’s values rather than your own.

  You want free health care? The government can take care of that, too. In exchange, your medical decisions—how you live and die—will ultimately be determined by corporations to whom you are little more than a line item impacting their profit and loss margins.

  You want to be insulated from all things that might cause offense? That’s not a problem for the government. Its thought police will use hate crime laws to criminalize speech, thought and actions that may be politically incorrect.

  You want a guarantee of safety? Sure, but your local police will also have to be militarized and trained in battlefield tactics, your communities and communications will be subjected to round-the-clock surveillance, and you—the citizenry—will be treated as suspects and enemy combatants.

  You want to root out domestic extremism and terrorism? That’s just fine. But in the process of identifying and targeting terrorists, the government will have the power to label anyone who disagrees with its policies as an extremist/terrorist and subject them to indefinite detentions.

  Are you starting to get the picture?

  This is the terrible price—the loss of our freedoms and the enslavement of future generations—that must eventually be paid for the goods and services rendered by a government whose priorities are the acquisition of ever-more power, control and money.

  As the old adage warns: “A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take away everything that you have.”

  Unfortunately, we’ve been on the receiving end of the government’s taxpayer-funded handouts—and its deceptively well-intended dictates—for so long that many Americans have forgotten what it is to think for themselves, provide for themselves, and govern themselves.

  Indeed, this age of entitlement is a far cry from the kind of constitutional republic America’s founders envisioned.

  Gone is the proud, independent-minded, pioneering spirit of early Americans like my parents who rejected what they called “hand-outs,” worked hard for whatever they had, protected their homes and families, and believed the government’s job was to govern based on the consent of the governed and not dictate.

  Contrast those fiercely-independent, early Americans who took to heart James Madison’s admonition to distrust all those in power with today’s citizens who not only expect the government to care for their needs but have blindly entrusted the government with vast, growing powers.

  By giving the government the green light to act in loco parentis and treat the citizenry as children in need of caretakers, “we the people” have allowed ourselves to be demoted and infantilized, reduced from knowledgeable, independent-minded, capable masters of a republic to wayward, undisciplined, dependent, vulnerable children incapable of caring for ourselves.

  It’s time to grow up.

  Incredibly, despite the fact that we allowed the government to become all-knowing, all-powerful and all-mighty in the mistaken belief that it would make our lives safer, easier and more affluent, we’re still shocked when that power and might is used against us.

  It’s time to stop being so gullible and so trusting.

  Even when the headlines blare out the news about SWAT team raids gone awry, police shootings of unarmed citizens, roadside cavity searches of young women, children being shackled and tasered, and Americans jailed for profit in private prisons, we still somehow maintain our state of denial until suddenly we’re the ones in the firing line being treated like suspects and criminals, having our skulls cracked, our doors smashed, our pets shot, our children terrorized, and our loved ones jailed for non-offenses.

  It’s time to remove those rose-colored, partisan-tinted glasses and wake up to the fact that our nation of sheep has given rise to a government of wolves.

  Even though, deep down, we have suspected that the system is run by an elite who views the citizenry as little more than cattle destined for the slaughterhouse, we’re still shocked to find ourselves treated like slaves and economic units.

  How could we not have seen it coming?

  How long has the writing been on the wall?

  How could we have been so blind, deaf and dumb to the warnings all around us?

  Unfortunately, it happens this way in every age, in every place where freedom falls and tyranny flourishes.

  As Aldous Huxley recognized in his foreword to Brave New World: “A really efficient totalitarian state would be one in which the all-powerful executive of political bosses and their army of managers control a population of slaves who do not have to coerced, because they love their servitude. To make them love it is the task assigned, in present-day totalitarian states, to ministries of propaganda, newspaper editors and schoolteachers.”

  This is how the seeds of authoritarianism are planted and watered and cultivated into aggressive, invasive growths that can quickly dominate an environment.

  Remember, tyrants don’t always come to power in a show of force. Often, they sweet-talk their way to absolute power, buoyed along by a wave of populist demand for someone to save the country from economic, military and political crises.

  As historian Jim Powell writes for Forbes:

  Hitler didn’t take over a small government with an effective separation of enumerated, delegated and limited powers.  He took over a large welfare state… He dealt with unemployment by introducing forced labor for both men and women.  Government  control of the economy made it virtually impossible for anyone to seriously threaten his regime. Hitler added secret police, death camps and another war machine. The German educational system, which had inspired so many American progressives, played a major role in all this… the government gained complete control of schools and universities, and their top priority was teaching obedience. The professorial elite promoted collectivism.  The highest calling was working for the government.

  It can easily happen here.

  In fact, the early signs of this downshift are all around us if you only know where to look.

  You can smell it in the air: there’s danger coming. A recent New Yorker article reveals the lengths some of the wealthiest in America are going to in order to survive an apocalyptic breakdown of society: isolated refuges, bunkers, gas masks, generators, solar panels, ammunition, etc.

  You can see it in the changes taking place all around you: the government is preparing for something ominous. For example, the Pentagon is using a dystopian training video to prepare special forces to deal with the urban challenges of megacities: criminal networks, illicit economies, decentralized syndicates of crime, substandard infrastructure, religious and ethnic tensions, impoverishment, economic inequality, protesters, slums, open landfills, over-burdened sewers, and a “growing mass of unemployed.”

  You can hear it in the news coming out of the independent media: the Executive, Legislative and Judicial Branches have already weakened our long-established bulwarks against tyranny by their constant undermining of the Constitution and the president’s amassing of imperial power.

  We are no longer a constitutional republic.

  The American dream is turning into a living nightmare.

  We are fast moving towards full-blown fascism.

  So what’s the answer?

  The powers that be can—and will—continue to distract us with electronic gadgets and entertainment news, they can seduce us with promises they have no intention of keeping, they can drug us with politics packaged to resemble religion, and they can use the schools to breed a populace of compliant slaves.

  In the end, however, the choice of whether to keep drinking the Kool-Aid or reject the false prophets and promises of the police state—a.k.a. fascism or totalitarianism or tyranny—rests with “we the people.”

  After all, as I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, it was “we the people” who struck this devil’s bargain in the first place, trading our liberties for dubious promises of prosperity, security and advancement.

  Through our inaction, our apathy and our unwillingness to do the hard work of holding the government accountable, perhaps “we the people” have been the greatest menace to freedom.

  Perhaps all of this is our fault.

  My parents’ advice was that if you made a mess, you had to clean it up.

  No one else is going to clean this mess up for us, certainly not anyone on the government’s payroll.

  As Jim Powell rightly concludes: “Ultimately, liberty can be protected only if people care enough to fight for it, because everywhere governments push for more power, and they never give it up willingly.”

  So let’s stop buying into the fairytale that politicians are saviors, capable of fixing what’s wrong with our communities and our lives.

  Let’s stop expecting the government to solve all our problems.

  Stop playing the partisan game that paints anyone not of your political persuasion as evil.

  Stop defending the insanity of an immoral system of government that sees nothing wrong with bombing innocent civilians, jailing innocent citizens, and treating human beings as little more than cattle.

  Stop validating a system of laws, tactics and policies that are illegitimate, egregious or blatantly unconstitutional.

  While you’re at it, start taking responsibility for your lives—and your freedoms—again. And maybe, just maybe, there will be some hope for tomorrow.

  

  

• Malls Owners Rush For The Exits As Mall-Backed CMBS Defaults Soar

  Last week we wrote about the epic collapse of the Galleria Mall at Pittsburgh Mills which sold for $100 after once being appraised for $190 million shortly after being opened in 2005 (see “Pittsburgh Mall Once Worth $190 Million Sells For $100“).  Unfortunately for mall owners, while the Pittsburgh Mills Galleria is an extreme example, crashing mall valuations are hardly an anomaly these days.  In fact, just a few weeks ago Commercial Real Estate Direct wrote about the Foothills Mall in Tuscon, Arizona which was valued at $115mm in 2006 and backs a $75mm CMBS loan but recently appraised for just $18mm…or just a slight 75% loss for lenders.

  As pointed out by the Wall Street Journal earlier today, mall CMBS defaults are up all across the country with liquidations up 11% YoY.

  In the period from January to November 2016, 314 loans secured by retail property were liquidated, up 11% from the same period a year earlier, according to data from Morningstar Credit Ratings.

   

  “We’re seeing a boatload of these kinds of properties coming to market,” said James Hull, managing principal of Augusta, Ga.-based Hull Property Group, which purchased five malls from foreclosure sales in 2016. “There have been some draconian losses for the enclosed mall business.”

  

   

  And while we’re frequently reminded of the stunning “Obama recovery” by the mainstream media, retailers seem to represent the one ‘tiny segment’ of the U.S. economy that failed to participate in that recovery as evidenced by the soaring delinquency rates of loans backing retail properties.

  Despite a strengthening economy in 2016, the delinquency rate for loans backing retail property rose by 0.6 percentage point last year to 5.76%, according to Trepp LLC, a real-estate data service. Special servicers, which deal with troubled commercial mortgage securities, managed $3.1 billion worth of mall-backed loans last year, up from $2.9 billion in 2015, according to Trepp.

   

  This year is off to a shaky start. Earlier this month, Sears said it would close 150 stores, and Macy’s gave more details of a plan to close 100 stores.

   

  Limited Stores Co. said it plans to close all 250 stores and filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last week.

  Meanwhile, as Barclays’ U.S. REIT team points out, the key question for mall owners in 2017 isn’t whether rent concessions will be granted to tenants, but rather, just how deep the cuts will have to be in order to maintain occupancy.

  A key topic going forward will be the extent of rent concessions provided in order for malls to maintain occupancy.  We think rent concessions could accelerate in 2017 as retailers continue to prune their store bases and at the margin, restaurant openings slow.  Many malls backfilled space in recent years with non-apparel offerings, like restaurants – which increase mall traffic, without cannibalizing sales.

   

  Overall, we expect mall REITs to issue cautious outlooks for 2017, with a wait and see approach to the year.  This will be against the backdrop of many retailers also reporting their holiday results and 2017 guidance, which are likely to be conservative.  We believe both these factors will contribute to negative investor sentiment.

  Alas, while mega malls were once the destination of choice for America’s misunderstood youth, we fear that they’re bound to suffer the same fate as the big hair, hoop earrings and creepy mustaches that once frequented their food courts in the 80s.

  

  

  

• "Frightened" Democrats Propose Bill To Limit Trump's Ability To Launch A Nuclear Strike

  “Frightened” Democrat lawmakers introduced a bill Tuesday that would prevent the president from launching a nuclear first strike without a congressional declaration of war. The bill – proposed by Rep. Ted W. Lieu and Sen. Edward J. Markey – follows through on a policy that was long debated – but never seriously pursued – during the Obama administration.

  As FP reports, this isn’t the first mention of such legislation – the idea of it has been mentioned on and off for years, advocated by groups such as the Global Security Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. At a January event at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said he is “confident we can deter and defend ourselves and our allies against non-nuclear threats through other means,” adding that he “strongly believes” that “deterring and if necessary retaliating against a nuclear attack should be the sole purpose for the U.S. nuclear arsenal.”

  

  But now the idea is anything but academic as the bill overtly questions President Trump’s judgment, with the lawmakers saying in a joint release:

  “the crucial issue of nuclear ‘first use’ is more urgent than ever now that President Donald Trump has the power to launch a nuclear war at a moment’s notice.”

  Congresman Ted Lieu, who has a paper sign reading, “Alternative Fact Free Zone” outside his office, took aim at Trump’s ignorance…

  “It is a frightening reality that the U.S. now has a Commander-in-Chief who has demonstrated ignorance of the nuclear triad, stated his desire to be ‘unpredictable’ with nuclear weapons, and as President-elect was making sweeping statements about U.S. nuclear policy over Twitter. Congress must act to preserve global stability by restricting the circumstances under which the U.S. would be the first nation to use a nuclear weapon.

   

  Our Founders created a system of checks and balances, and it is essential for that standard to be applied to the potentially civilization-ending threat of nuclear war. I am proud to introduce the Restricting First Use of Nuclear Weapons Act of 2017 with Sen. Markey to realign our nation’s nuclear weapons launch policy with the Constitution and work towards a safer world.”

  Senator Edward J. Markey issued the following statement:

  “Nuclear war poses the gravest risk to human survival. Yet, President Trump has suggested that he would consider launching nuclear attacks against terrorists. Unfortunately, by maintaining the option of using nuclear weapons first in a conflict, U.S. policy provides him with that power. In a crisis with another nuclear-armed country, this policy drastically increases the risk of unintended nuclear escalation.

   

  Neither President Trump, nor any other president, should be allowed to use nuclear weapons except in response to a nuclear attack. By restricting the first use of nuclear weapons, this legislation enshrines that simple principle into law. I thank Rep. Lieu for his partnership on this common-sense bill during this critical time in our nation’s history.”

  Markey and Lieu introduced their bill immediately following those September remarks, but brought it up again in the first week of Trump becoming president, receiving more press coverage. The bill has support from former Defense Secretary William Perry as well as five other prominent pro-disarmament groups.:

  William J. Perry, Former Secretary of Defense – “During my period as Secretary of Defense, I never confronted a situation, or could even imagine a situation, in which I would recommend that the President make a first strike with nuclear weapons—understanding that such an action, whatever the provocation, would likely bring about the end of civilization.  I believe that the legislation proposed by Congressman Lieu and Senator Markey recognizes that terrible reality.  Certainly a decision that momentous for all of civilization should have the kind of checks and balances on Executive powers called for by our Constitution.”

   

  Tom Z. Collina, Policy Director of Ploughshares Fund – “President Trump now has the keys to the nuclear arsenal, the most deadly killing machine ever created. Within minutes, President Trump could unleash up to 1,000 nuclear weapons, each one many times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb. Yet Congress has no voice in the most important decision the United States government can make. As it stands now, Congress has a larger role in deciding on the number of military bands than in preventing nuclear catastrophe.”

   

  Derek Johnson, Executive Director of Global Zero – “One modern nuclear weapon is more destructive than all of the bombs detonated in World War II combined. Yet there is no check on a president’s ability to launch the thousands of nuclear weapons at his command. In the wake of the election, the American people are more concerned than ever about the terrible prospect of nuclear war — and what the next commander-in-chief will do with the proverbial ‘red button.’ That such devastating power is concentrated in one person is an affront to our democracy’s founding principles. The proposed legislation is an important first step to reining in this autocratic system and making the world safer from a nuclear catastrophe.”

   

  Megan Amundson, Executive Director of Women’s Action for New Directions (WAND) – “Rep. Lieu and Sen. Markey have rightly called out the dangers of only one person having his or her finger on the nuclear button. The potential misuse of this power in the current global climate has only magnified this concern. It is time to make real progress toward lowering the risk that nuclear weapons are ever used again, and this legislation is a good start.”

   

  Jeff Carter, Executive Director of Physicians for Social Responsibility – “Nuclear weapons pose an unacceptable risk to our national security. Even a “limited” use of nuclear weapons would cause catastrophic climate disruption around the world, including here in the United States. They are simply too profoundly dangerous for one person to be trusted with the power to introduce them into a conflict. Grounded in the fundamental constitutional provision that only Congress has the power to declare war, the Restricting First Use of Nuclear Weapons Act of 2017 is a wise and necessary step to lessen the chance these weapons will ever be used.”

   

  Diane Randall, Executive Secretary of the Friends Committee on National Legislation (Quakers) – “Restricting first-use of nuclear weapons is an urgent priority. Congress should support the Markey-Lieu legislation.”

  Well if you weren’t terrified before, you sure are now. But of course, the Congressman and Senator are just doing this to ensure your safety… because to them, with all that is going on, the decision to reintroduce this bill and gain more press coverage is the highest priority.

  Ironically, Trump tweeted this afternoon that tomorrow is a big day for national security…

  Big day planned on NATIONAL SECURITY tomorrow. Among many other things, we will build the wall!

  — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 25, 2017

  

  

• Ted Cruz Trolls Deadspin Editor Ashley Feinberg Over Stupid Basketball Challenge, Deadspin's Response: "Go Eat $hit"

  

  After spending much of the 2016 campaign known as “Lyin’ Ted” while spitting venom in Donald Trump’s general direction, Senator Ted Cruz traversed a tenuous road to redemption – earning his way back into Trump’s good graces, helping with the cause, and clearly learning much about trolling along the way.

  The target of Cruz’s hijinks is Univision owned Deadspin and Senior Reporter, Ashley Feinberg. Hours after Politico ran an article mentioning that Cruz was was trying to improve relations within the GOP, Feinberg latched onto this tidbit:

  Cruz appears intent on building—and in some cases repairing—personal relationships with Republican senators. He started a weekly basketball game in the Russell Building, for example, and has been urging colleagues to attend. (Cruz is said to be a surprisingly good jump-shooter with miserable form.) Tim Scott has played, and Marco Rubio is said to be joining soon.

   

  The Deadspin editor immediately put out the call for undercover pictures, hoping of course for some shots of Ted lookin’ like an old white guy playing basketball – when Cruz himself, or Barron Trump pretending to be Ted, stopped by with an offering:

  @Deadspin what do I win? pic.twitter.com/9XuRmmIkJS

  — Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) January 25, 2017

  What follows is comedy gold as Deadspin loses their cool and Cruz responds:

  @Deadspin pic.twitter.com/TMiDBco2TB

  — Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) January 25, 2017

  Feinberg then swats Buzzfeed reporter Matthew Zeitlin:

  @MattZeitlin @tedcruz @Deadspin no I’m not……………………………

  — Ashley Feinberg (@ashleyfeinberg) January 25, 2017

  @tedcruz @Deadspin @ashleyfeinberg to be clear everyone, Ashley is getting owned, NOT senator Cruz

  — Matthew Zeitlin (@MattZeitlin) January 25, 2017

   

  Other reactions were hilarious:
  

  @tedcruz @Deadspin pic.twitter.com/e9Bab3xynx

  — Micah Grimes (@MicahGrimes) January 25, 2017

  @tedcruz @Deadspin Lord have mercy… when you get owned by Ted Cruz pic.twitter.com/6fNUrr1K0y

  — Casey ????????‍?? (@C4SEY85) January 25, 2017

  @tedcruz @Deadspin pic.twitter.com/1QfsxPHtlQ

  — M (@chellitis1) January 25, 2017

  @tedcruz @Deadspin pic.twitter.com/8kCfZTpcFV

  — {{{Mark Cromwell}}} (@markcromwell) January 25, 2017

  …in one nasty tweet @Deadspin, @tedcruz banks cred pic.twitter.com/9KEP4UX7iM

  — Elizabeth L. Schultz (@ThinkSchultz) January 25, 2017

  @tedcruz @Deadspin
  What’s even better is that this man is going 2 be the next SCOTUS pick next week. Fly High Ted! You killed these fucks. pic.twitter.com/9VEEbMEpQ9

  — The Cuck Blocker™ (@Ima_Deplorable) January 25, 2017

  Conservative review entered stage right with the comic stylings of the guy running their Twitter account:

  .@MattZeitlin @tedcruz @Deadspin @ashleyfeinberg Apparently “Literally” owned: pic.twitter.com/J6MaJVRnq8

  — Conservative Review (@CR) January 25, 2017

   This is the best timeline.

  

  

• Chinese Bitcoin Trading Volumes Crash 90% Overnight

  As we reported yesterday, there was one reason why bitcoin quickly became the darling of HFT and various high speed algo traders operating out of China – which is home to about 10 significant bitcoin venues, with a majority of trades executed on the top three, and which recently accounted for as much as 98% of global bitcoin trading: domestic transactions were “frictionless”, as there were no fees on buys or sells. However, that changed on Sunday night because as China’s three largest bitcoin exchanges, BTCC, Huobi and OkCoin, all said in separate statements on their websites, starting Tuesday they will charge traders a flat fee of 0.2% per transaction. The move was meant to “further curb market manipulation and extreme volatility.”

  As expected, the impact was immediate and on the day the new fees went into effect, trading volumes crashed by roughly 90% across most Chinese exchanges.

  According to Bloomberg, the same high-speed traders who had dominated bitcoin trading in China for the past year, are pulling out of China’s bitcoin market after the three biggest venues started charging transaction fees on Tuesday. One-hour volume at OkCoin fell 89% to 1,026 bitcoins at 1 p.m. local time, from 10,062 during the same period on Monday, according to the venue’s website. Huobi and BTC China saw declines of 92% and 82% respectively.

  According to data from Bitcoinity there were roughly 4,800 trades on OKCoin between the hours of 11pm and midnight EST. In the following hour, the exchange registered just over 1,000 trades, denominated in CNY: a comparable fall of more than 80%.

  

  Data pulled from Bitcoinity for BTCChina also demonstrates the apparent effect the new trading fees have had on volume. After registering more than 37,000 trades between the hours of 7 and 8pm EST, that amount had fallen to less than 1,000 between the hours of midnight and 1am EST

  

  As discussed previously, and as Bloomberg noted, the lack of fees was seen as the main reason why as much as 80 percent of bitcoin trading in China was automated, with professionals using strategies such as “cross-exchange arbitrage” also known as frontrunning of major order blocks. The platforms made money by charging clients to withdraw bitcoin, but Tuesday’s changes may have ended that system for good. The moves came after the Chinese central bank made on-site inspections of the exchanges and reportedly found a number of violations.

  “The exchanges are cutting their arms off to stay alive,” said Zhou Shuoji, whose Fintech Blockchain Group runs a bitcoin hedge fund and venture capital fund. The venues are proactively weeding out speculative trading to appease regulators, said Zhou. The fees, introduced by all three venues at midday on Tuesday, made market-making unprofitable, he said.

  And while HFT traders, frontrunners and other “liquidity providing market makers” are furious that their business model in China was just crushed, the good news is that much of the inherent volatility in bitcoin may now be gone.

  The good news is that bitcoin prices today were little changed, at around 6,300 yuan per bitcoin. Ultimately, any stability in bitcoin prices as a result of the elimination of HFT-driven volatility may be just what the digital currency needs to rise above $1000 and stay there.

  

  

• Trump Orders Media Blackout At Government Agencies: Bans Use Of Social Media, Bars New EPA Contracts

  It wasn’t just the EPA.

  Earlier today, we reported that the Trump administration instituted a media blackout at the Environmental Protection Agency and barred staff from awarding any new contracts or grants.

  Emails sent to EPA staff since President Donald Trump’s inauguration on Friday and reviewed by The Associated Press, detailed the specific prohibitions banning press releases, blog updates or posts to the agency’s social media accounts. On Monday, the Huffington Post reported that EPA grants had been frozen, with agency employees barred from speaking of the matter.  The memo ordering the social media blackout is shown below.

  

  Cited by The Hill, Myron Ebell, who leads the Trump EPA transition, confirmed the freeze to ProPublica.  “They’re trying to freeze things to make sure nothing happens they don’t want to have happen, so any regulations going forward, contracts, grants, hires, they want to make sure to look at them first,” Ebell told ProPublica. Trump’s pick for EPA director, Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, has frequently challenged agency policy in court. 

  The Trump administration reportedly told the Department of the Interior to stop tweeting from its accounts over the weekend after the National Park Service’s Twitter account retweeted a post about the crowd sizes at Trump’s inauguration Friday. The agency brought back its accounts on Saturday.

  Asked if the EPA had been gagged, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said on Tuesday: “I don’t know … we’re looking into it … I don’t think it’s a surprise we’re going to review the policies but I don’t have any info at this time.”

  According to Reuters sources, the move “reinforced concerns that Trump, a climate change doubter, could seek to sideline scientific research showing that carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels contributes to global warming, as well as the career staffers at the agencies that conduct much of this research.”

  The agency also was asked by the White House on Monday to temporarily halt all contracts, grants and interagency agreements pending a review, according to multiple sources. The EPA awards billions of dollars worth of grants and contracts every year to support programs around environmental testing, cleanups and research. According to Reuters,
  the White House sent a letter to the EPA’s Office of Administration and Resources Management ordering the freeze on Monday. “Basically no money moving anywhere until they can take a look,” the staffer said, asking not to be named.

  * * *

  Now, as Reuters adds, other agencies were also impacted, and the Trump’s administration has put staff at a slew of government agencies on notice – “be careful what you say.”

  In addition to the EPA, the Interior Department and the U.S. Department of Agriculture also has seen efforts to curb communication. On Monday, staff at the department’s Agricultural Research Service (ARS) were asked in an email to suspend the release of “any public-facing documents.”

  “This includes, but is not limited to, news releases, photos, fact sheets, news feeds, and social media content,” the email said.

  The U.S. Department of Agriculture disavowed the email on Tuesday, saying in a statement that it was released without “departmental direction and prior to departmental guidance being issued.”

  “ARS will be providing updated direction to its staff,” according to the statement.

  The ARS focuses on scientific research into the main issues facing agriculture, including long-term climate change.

  Last week, staff at the Interior Department were told to stop posting on Twitter after an employee retweeted posts about the relatively low attendance at Trump’s inauguration, and about how the issues of climate change and civil rights had disappeared from the White House website.

  The department has since resumed tweeting.

  

  

• Trump Threatens To "Send In The Feds" If Chicago "Doesn't Fix This Horrible Carnage"

  President Trump has seen the data and threatens to "send in the Feds"…

  If Chicago doesn't fix the horrible "carnage" going on, 228 shootings in 2017 with 42 killings (up 24% from 2016), I will send in the Feds!

  — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 25, 2017

  *  *  *

  As we detailed earlier, those Chicagoans hoping that 2017 would bring with it a new era of peace and civility among residents after the city suffered an incredibly violent 2016 in which homicides claimed the lives of over 800 people, it may be time to reset those expectations.  So far in 2017, Chicago is on track to record  the most violent opening month of the past two decades, even exceeding the extremely violent 2016 levels.

  According to the Chicago Tribune, at least 228 people have already been shot in 2017, compared to 216 during the same period last year, with 44 homicides per data from HeyJackAss!.

  Shootings and homicides in Chicago are higher than this time last January, a month that marked the deadliest start to a year in the city in nearly two decades.

   

  As of early Monday, at least 228 people had been shot in Chicago so far this year, a 5.5 percent increase from the 216 shot in the same period time last year. There have been at least 42 homicides, up 23.5 percent from the 34 homicides from the same period in 2016.

   

  Last January closed with 50 homicides, the most for that month in the city in at least 16 years, according to police statistics. The year ended with 783 homicides, the most since 1996, according to data collected by the Tribune.

   

  This January has seen several violent weekends. Over the New Year's weekend, 55 people were shot, five of them fatally. The next weekend saw a sharp drop, two killed and seven wounded. Over the following Martin Luther King Jr. weekend, 39 people were shot, 10 of them fatally.

   

  This past weekend 54 people were shot, six of them fatally. There were seven attacks that wounded three or more people, according to police.

  Aside from a 7-day period in early January, when temperatures plunged to record low levels, the cold weather hasn't seemed to deter Chicago's violent criminals. 

  

   

  With 44 homicides already recorded, Chicago is on pace for 60 murders in the opening month of January which would exceed the two-decade record high set last year.

  

   

  Just like 2016, Chicago's 2017 violence is concentrated in a handful of west and south side neighborhoods where gangs are prevalent. 

  

   

  Of course, Trump has vowed numerous times to empower police forces around the country to crack down on drug and gang-related violence.  In a tweet from earlier this year, Trump even invited Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel to seek federal help to address his city's epidemic of violence.

  Chicago murder rate is record setting – 4,331 shooting victims with 762 murders in 2016. If Mayor can't do it he must ask for Federal help!

  — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 2, 2017

   

  And while only time will tell how/if Trump will follow through on his campaign promises to crack down on rising violence in America's inner-cities, we suspect any approach taken by the new administration will be a welcome change from the Obama administration's parting efforts to delegitimize Chicago's police force by effectively labeling it as a racist organization that the habitually resorts to the use of "deadly force" in violation of the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution.

  

  

• The Democratic Party Is Out Of Ideas And About To Quadruple-Down On Failed Identity Politics

  Submitted by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,

  Yes, of course, Trump winning the GOP nomination marks the end of the party as we know it. After all, some neocons are already publicly and actively throwing their support behind Hillary. While this undoubtably represents a major turning point in U.S. political history, many pundits have yet to appreciate that the exact same thing is happening within the Democratic Party. It’s just not completely obvious yet.

   

  While it might sound strange, a coronation of Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary will mark the end of the party as we know it. There’s been a lot written about the “Sanders surge,” with much of it revolving around Hillary Clinton’s extreme personal weakness as a candidate. While this is indisputable, it’s also a convenient way for the status quo to exempt itself from fault and discount genuine grassroots anger. I’m of the view that Sanders’ support is more about people liking him than them disliking Hillary, particularly when it comes to registered Democrats. He’s not merely seen as the “least bad choice.” People really do like him.

   

  – From the February 2016 post:  It’s Not Just the GOP – The Democratic Party is Also Imploding

  By now, most of you have heard about the DNC candidate forum hosted by certifiably insane MSNBC host Joy Ann Reid, as well as the racially charged comments which vomited from the mouth of Sally Boynton Brown. We’ll get to that later, but first I want to prove to you that the Democratic Party has learned absolutely zero lessons from the 2016 contest, and will continue to focus on winning elections based on demographics alone, as opposed to confronting the actual issues. It is a carcass of a political party.

  Let’s start with an article written by Steve Phillips a few days ago in The Nation, to explain what I mean. First, who is Steve Phillips?

  Steve Phillips is a national political leader, civil-rights lawyer, author, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, and the founder and editor in chief of Democracy in Color, a multimedia platform on race and politics. He is the author of the New York Times best seller, Brown Is the New White: How a Demographic Revolution Has Created a New American Majority (New Press). He is a regular contributor to The Nation.

  He’s also one of the people who helped organize the DNC candidate forum mentioned above. What follows are a few excerpts from his article, The Next DNC Chair Must Abandon Color-Blind Politics:

   The single greatest force shaping American politics today is the demographic revolution that is transforming the racial composition of the US population. Since passage of the 1965 Voting Rights and Immigration and Nationality Acts, tens of millions of people of color have joined the electorate, rapidly swelling the ranks of people of color from 12 percent of the population in 1965 to 38.4 percent today. The force of that revolution propelled a black man into the White House, and then Donald Trump rode the backlash to that revolution to his apparent narrow Electoral College win. If the Democratic Party is going to effectively rebuild from the ashes of this defeat and reclaim control of the federal government, it must put in place new leadership that has the lived experience, cultural competence, and electoral sophistication to build power and win elections in a highly racially charged environment.

   

  That is the context for the contest for new DNC chair, and it is the framework for the Democracy in Color Chair Candidates Forum that will be held on Monday in Washington, DC, at George Washington University. I am helping to organize the forum, along with the teams at Democracy in Color, mitú, and Inclusv. We will explore three areas that demand immediate attention and complete rethinking if we are going to win in the years ahead.

  Notice how this man’s entire focus is on demographics, assuming that people of color have nowhere to turn but to the Democrats. There’s no emphasis on any of the issues that allowed a reality tv star to win the Presidency against one of the most well-funded and media supported candidates in American history. The entirety of the above is obsessed with winning elections based on identity politics as opposed to making lives better for tens of millions of suffering Americans. In today’s environment, this is a recipe for political oblivion.

  Let’s take a look at some more of Mr. Phillips’ insights.

  Cultural competence within the Democratic Party must extend to all areas of the operation, not just the rhetoric of the chair. It must manifest itself in the composition of the staff and top leadership she or he hires, the expertise and experience of the consultants retained, and the strategic priority and focus of the party’s financial expenditures. How much of the resources and money will go towards chasing the shrinking sector of the electorate made up of the conservative white working class, and how much will go to maximizing the power and potential of the most rapidly growing sectors of the population—the country’s communities of color, who make up 46 percent of all Democratic voters?

  Again, he’s explicitly saying, let’s pretty much ignore the conservative white working class and just focus on people within the demographics of those who we think owe us their vote. This is not simply cynical calculating, and gross, it’s a recipe for continued disaster not just for the Democratic Party, but the nation as a whole.

  Meanwhile, the following paragraph proves he learned absolutely nothing from Trump’s victory, which should be obvious by now anyway.

  The first step the next chair should take to fix this problem is to conduct a transparent and brutally honest assessment of exactly what happened in 2016. There are a lot of misunderstandings, incorrect conclusions, and false and facile assumptions floating around and influencing preliminary plans for progressives in the future. One such myth, for example, is that millions of voters abandoned Democrats and flocked to the Trump campaign, when in fact Clinton got just about the same number of votes that Obama did in 2012 (Trump exceeded Romney’s 2012 numbers by 2 million votes, and third-party candidates received 5 million more votes than they did in 2016). Understanding exactly what happened and why is an essential first step to winning back the White House.

  In other words, no fundamental change is needed here. We just failed to make sure certain people within the demographics who owe us their vote get off their asses next time and vote blue. He also once again makes it perfectly clear that the key is to win, as opposed to win on the actual issues.

  Now here’s his final paragraph, and it’s the most important one in the entire piece. He accidentally exposes the key flaw in his strategy and why it is doomed to failure.

  These are dark days in American politics, but Democrats and progressives must never forget that we are in fact the majority of people in this country. Each of the last three presidential elections have proved that there is a new American majority consisting of the overwhelming majority of people of color and a meaningful minority of whites who vote progressive. The mission of the DNC and its next chair is to start now to put in place the infrastructure to translate that population majority into an electoral majority in enough states to win back the White House and Congress so that we can continue to build a vibrant, just, inclusive multiracial society. That journey begins with making sure the next DNC chair has the skills, experience, strategy and sophistication to lead us on that journey. We’ll ask them these questions and more on Monday. 

  He claims “Democrats and progressives must never forget that we are in fact the majority of people in this country.” Note, the key part of this statement is “Democrats and progressives.” If Democrats aren’t progressives, what are they? Neoliberals of course, but he doesn’t want to say that for obvious reasons. Ultimately, this betrays the core flaw in his logic. You can’t say “Democrats and progressives are the majority” if those two groups ideologically clash on everything. At the end of the day, this majority coalition he expects to win elections based on demographics isn’t really a coalition at all.

  To summarize, nowhere in this article is there any sort of discussion about economic decay, corporate power, militarism, etc. Why is that? The reason is that the Democrats (ie, neoliberals) don’t want to focus on issues their donors won’t like. Identity politics is perfect for a corporate-Wall Street based Democratic Party. The truly rich and powerful in this country love identity politics and fund it like mad, because identity politics diverts attention away from economic populism, and poses no real threat to them.

  Finally, let’s end with the comments of Sally Boynton Brown, a white woman running for chair of the Democratic National Committee.

  Makes you wonder, is she trying to become DNC chair, or auditioning for a job at MTV?

  Perhaps this is her strategy for getting invited to the cool kids identity politics table, but it’s certainly not going to be a winning strategy for Democrats.

  Good luck donkeys, you’re going to need it.

  We were promised intelligent resistance, and instead all we got were furry vagina hats.

  — Michael Krieger (@LibertyBlitz) January 24, 2017

  

  

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• Paul Craig Roberts Asks "Are Americans Racists?"

  Authored by Paul Craig Roberts,

  “Racist” is the favorite epithet of the left. Every white person (except leftists) is a racist by definition. As we are defined as racists based on our skin color, I am puzzled why we are called racists a second, third, and fourth time due to specific acts, such as favoring the enforcement of immigration laws. For example, President Donald Trump says he is going to enforce the immigration laws. For the left this is proof that Trump has put on the White Sheet and joined the KKK.

  The left doesn’t say what a president is who does not enforce the laws on the books. But let’s look at this from the standpoint of the immigration laws themselves. In 1965 a bill passed by the “racist” Congress and signed by the “racist” President Lyndon Johnson completely changed the racial composition of US legal immigration.

  In 1960 75% of US legal immigration was European, 5% was Asian, and 19% was from Americas (Mexico, Central and South America and Caribbean Islands).

   

  In 2013 10% of legal immigrants were European, 30% were Asian, 55% were from Americas, and 5% from Africa.

  The 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act is a very strange law for racists to have enacted. Would racists pass a law, which has been on the books for 52 years, that fundamentally transformed the racial profile of the US by limiting white immigration, thereby ultimately consigning whites to minority status?

  We could say the racists did not know what they were doing, or thought they were doing something else. However, the results have been obvious at least since 1980, and the law is still on the books.

  We live during a time when there is an abundance of information, but facts seldom seem to inform opinions. The left delights in branding the Founding Fathers racists. The left was ecstatic when a 1998 DNA study concluded that Thomas Jefferson was one of eight possible ancestors of Eston Hemings, a descent of Jefferson’s slave Sally Hemings. The left seized on the implied sexual relationship as proof of Thomas Jefferson’s racism.

  Let’s assume Jefferson had a sexual relationship with Sally Hemings. Does this prove he was a racist, or does it prove the opposite? Why is it a sign of racism for a white to have sex with a black? Does this prove that James Bond was a racist in the film “Die Another Day”? Do we really want to define racially mixed marriages as racist, as a white conquest over a black, Asian, or Hispanic?

  The left has declared the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution to be racist documents and, therefore, proof that the US was founded on racism. The left is particularly incensed that the Constitution counts enslaved blacks as three-fifths of a white person. Is the three-fifths clause a sign or racism, or was it a compromise to get an agreement on representation in the House of Representatives?

  It was the latter. Indeed southerners, such as James Madison and Edmund Randolph, wanted blacks to be counted one to one with whites. It was northerners, such as Gouverneur Morris of Pennsylvania, who wanted blacks to count as fractions of a person. Why was this?

  The issue was whether the North or the South would have majority representation in the House. The country already had different economic interests which came to conflict in the War of Southern Secession, which is mischaracterized as a civil war. (A civil war is when two sides fight for control of the government. The Confederacy was not fighting for control of the government in Washington. The South was fighting to secede from the union in order to avoid economic exploitation.)

  The southern states were agricultural, and from early colonial times long before there was a United States or a Confederate States of America the absence of a work force meant that the agricultural labor force was imported as slaves. For the South slavery was an inherited institution, and from the South’s standpoint, if blacks were not included in the population on which US representation in Congress would be based, the South would have a minority voice in Congress and would not agree to the Constitution. The three-fifths clause was a compromise in order to move the Constitution toward agreement. It had nothing to do with racism. It was about achieving balance in regional representation in Congress. 

  The Southern Secession resulted from divergent economic interests and was not fought over slavery. In former times when the left had real intellects, such as Charles A. Beard, a historian who stressed class conflict and a founder of the New School for Social Research and president of both the American Political Science Association and the American Historical Association, the left understood the divergence of interests between northern industry and southern agriculture. Those who think Lincoln invaded the South in order to free slaves need to read Thomas DiLorenzo’s books on Lincoln. DiLorenzo establishes beyond all doubt that Lincoln invaded the Confederacy in order to preserve the Union, that is, the American Empire, which has continued its growth into the 21st century.

  The preponderance of war correspondence on both sides shows that few were fighting for or against slavery. According to the 1860 US census, slave owners were a small fraction of the Southern population.  The Confederate Army consisted almost entirely of non-slave owners who fought because they were invaded by Union armies.

  The large agricultural interests (slave owners) had the money necessary for raising armies and were represented in the governing bodies. So naturally, their interests would be represented in the articles of secession.

  As the war began with Lincoln’s invasion of the South, we should look to see Lincoln’s explanation for the war. The reason he gave repeatedly was to preserve the Union. Most historians understood this until “racism” became the explanation of all white history and institutions.

  As for Thomas Jefferson, he was opposed to slavery, but he understood that the agricultural South was trapped in slavery. The “discovery” of the New World provided lands for exploitation but no labor force. The first slaves were white prisoners, but whites could not survive the malaria. Native Indians were tried, but they were not only as susceptible to malaria as whites but also used their native knowledge of the terrain to resist those who would enslave them. Blacks became the work force of choice because of genetic superiority in resistance to malaria. As Charles C. Mann reports in his book, 1493, “About 97 percent of the people in West and Central Africa are Duffy negative, and hence immune to vivax malaria.”

  Thus, the real “racist” reason that blacks became the labor force was their survivability rate due to genetic superiority from their immunity to malaria, not white racists determined to oppress blacks for racial reasons.

  The myth has taken hold that black slavery originated in white attitudes of racial superiority. In fact, as a large numbers of historians have documented, including Charles C. Mann and the socialist economic historian Karl Polanyi, brother of my Oxford University professor, the physical chemist and philosopher Michael Polanyi, black slavery originated and flourished in Africa where tribes fought one another for slaves. The victorious would market their captives to Arabs and eventually as time passed to Europeans for transport to the new world to fill the vacuum of a missing labor force. (See for example, Karl Polanyi, Dahomey and the Slave Trade.)

  It is a mystery how the myth of Thomas Jefferson’s alleged racism and love for slavery survives his drafts of the Declaration of Independence. One of Jefferson’s drafts that was abandoned in compromise over the document includes this in Jefferson’s list of King George’s offenses:

  “he has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating it’s most sacred rights of life & liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. this piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the CHRISTIAN king of Great Britain. determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought & sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce: and that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, & murdering the people upon whom he also obtruded them; thus paying off former crimes committed against the liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another.”

  Jefferson’s attack on King George sounds like the left’s racist attack on Jefferson.

  It is amazing how proud some Americans are of their ignorance and how quick they are to hate based on their ignorance. In America the level of public discourse is so far below the gutter level that a person who ventures forth to tell the truth can expect to be met with violent hatred and every epithet in the book. Criticize ever so slightly the Israeli government’s theft of Palestine, and the Israel Lobby will immediately brand you an “anti-semite,” that is, a hater of Jews who wants to send them to the gas chamber. If you don’t denounce whites, especially Southern whites, as racists, you are not only a racist but also a member of the KKK who wants to lynch blacks.

  Yes, I know. It works also in the other direction. If you don’t hate the left, you are one of them. Because I criticized the George W. Bush regime for its war crimes, conservatives branded me a “pinko-liberal-commie” and ceased to publish my columns.

  Hardly anyone, even southerners, understands that racism in the South originated in the horrors that were inflicted on the South during the Reconstruction era that followed the military defeat of the Confederacy. The North inflicted blacks on southerners in ways that harmed prospects for relations between the races and gave rise to the KKK as a resistance movement. As Reconstruction faded, so did the KKK. It was later revived as a shadow of its former self by poor whites who were ambitious for personal power.

  The question remains: How can President Trump or anyone unite a country in which historical understanding is buried in myths, lies, and the teaching of hate?

  Try to imagine the expressions of hatred and the denunciations that this factual article will bring to me.

  If we care about humanity and the creatures on Earth, our task is to find and to speak the truth. That is what I endeavor to do.

  When the left abandoned Marxism and the working class, the left died. It has no doctrine to sustain itself, just hatreds based on historical ignorance and misunderstanding of the limits within which life is lived. Humans are not superheros or magicians who can reconstruct humanity by waving a wand or smashing evil. Everyone lives within limitations, and the many submit more than do the few.

  It is the few who fight against the limits to whom we owe the defense of our humanity.

  It is the haters who are the barriers to moral and social progress.

  

  

• Pro Immigration Advocate to Americans: You Do A lot of Drugs, Therefore You Do Not Deserve Borders

  Listen up border fags: because of your wanton proclivity for doing drugs, snorting cocaine through straws and/or inhaling crack smoke through glass pipes, you don’t get to have a country. Your borders are meaningless and you should permit any Mexican or Central American pavement slob into your country — because of your sins and because your government conducts wars abroad.

  This is, essentially, what Enrique Morones, head of Border Angels, said to Tucker Carlson tonight — exposing his 2nd grade IQ level and childish penchant to say stupid things.

  There is no argument that could assuage the American people into believing it should not control its borders. Only high level retard ‘thinkers’ on the left, communist shills, and anti-American anarchists believe unfettered immigration into cash-strapped border towns is a good idea. Ergo, anyone who suggests otherwise is instantly reduced to looking like Barney Rubble ‘motoring’ his vehicle over rugged terrain.

  In short, quit doing coke and bombing brown people, then you can enjoy a national border.

   

  Content originally generated at iBankCoin.com

  

• Mexican Protesters Seize Control Of U.S. Border Crossing In Tijuana

  A couple of weeks ago we highlighted the protests that had engulfed Mexico after the finance ministry announced plans to raise gasoline prices by 20.1% starting January 1st.  While many people have looted gas stations and/or threatened to burn them down altogether, the latest protesting strategy of pissed off Mexican motorists is to seize control of border crossings with the United States and allow for a free flow of motorists into Mexico.  According to the AP, over the weekend roughly 50 protesters were able to take control of the Otay Mesa crossing that connects San Diego to Tijuana as border officials abandoned their posts.

  Protesters took control of vehicle lanes at one of the busiest crossings on the U.S. border Sunday to oppose Mexican gasoline price hikes, waving through motorists into Mexico after Mexican authorities abandoned their posts.

   

  Motorists headed to Mexico zipped by about 50 demonstrators at the Otay Mesa port of entry connecting San Diego and Tijuana, many of them honking to show support. The demonstrators waved signs to protest gas hikes and air other grievances against the government of Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto.

   

  Other protests closed southbound traffic for hours at the San Diego-Tijuana San Ysidro port of entry, the busiest crossing along the 2,000-mile border, and halted southbound traffic at one of two crossings in Nogales, Arizona. U.S. Customs and Border Protection and California Highway Patrol officers closed southbound Interstate 5 to block access to the San Ysidro crossing, diverting traffic several miles east to the Otay Mesa port of entry.

  

   

  Despite a free flow of motorists into Mexico,  U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials confirmed that inspections were normal for all travelers entering the U.S. from Mexico.

  Of course these latest protests follow reports from last week that Mexico’s drug cartels have been looting Pemex oil and gas pipelines in an effort to create their own brand new black market for petroleum products.  With a modest upfront capital investment of $5,000 – $8,000, the cartels have realized they can tap directly into state-owned gas pipelines and withdraw seemingly unlimited supplies of gasoline which they then sell along the highway at a discount to official government prices.  It’s a win-win situation whereby the drug cartels make 100% profit margins and citizens get “cheap” fuel.

  The black market is booming. Several states experienced gasoline shortages at the end of last year as more thieves tapped into state-owned Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex) pipelines. The pilfered fuel was sold to drivers hoping to save money. Pipeline theft in 2015 increased sevenfold, to more than 5,500 taps, from just 710 in 2010. Pemex attributes the company’s 12-year slide in crude production in part to the growth in illegal taps.

   

  The drug cartels have turned to fuel theft as a side business worth hundreds of millions of dollars each year, and crime groups focused solely on gasoline robbery have sprung up, says Alejandro Schtulmann, president of Empra, a political-risk consulting firm in Mexico City. “You only need to invest $5,000 or $8,000 to buy some specific equipment, and the outcome of that is huge earnings.”

   

  Fuel theft creates a vicious cycle: The theft increases costs for Pemex and makes the official gasoline supply more scarce, contributing to higher prices for legal consumers. Theft amounts to about $1 billion a year, says Luis Miguel Labardini, an energy consultant at Marcos y Asociados and senior adviser to Pemex’s chief financial officer in the 1990s. “If Pemex were a public company, they would be in financial trouble just because of the theft of fuel,” he says. “It’s that bad.”

  

  Of course, the biggest loser in this whole situation continues to be Enrique Peña Nieto who has basically become the least popular President in Mexico since one-party rule ended in 2000.

  All this is creating headaches for Enrique Peña Nieto, whose popularity was already the lowest of any president since one-party rule ended in 2000. Peña Nieto is limited to a single term, and polls show potential candidates from his Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) trail populist opposition leader Andrés Manuel López Obrador in the race for the mid-2018 presidential election. López Obrador has made the jump in gasoline prices his latest rallying cry against the administration.

   

  “This is definitely going to have consequences for the PRI,” says Jorge Chabat, a political scientist at the Center for Economic Research and Teaching, a university based in Mexico City. “Frankly, I don’t see any way that they can win in 2018.”

  If all else fails, we hear that the tequila served in Tijuana is a very good, cheap and highly combustible alternative to gasoline.

  

  

• Building a financial defense line strategically

  This important topic we cover in our book Splitting Pennies is possibly THE MOST importact topic in teaching personal finance, and probably the most misleading concept peddled by Wall St. 

  Let’s face it – Wall St. has a reason to mislead investors, especially retail investors – because they’re on the other side of the trade!  That’s right.  When you lose – they win.  And due to hedging, they can’t actually lose.  

  The secret world of hedging – Wall St. doesn’t want you to know about because like the insurance industry, it allows investors to protect themselves.  “Options” are thought of as “Risky” which is a highly potent meme that is reinforced by the regulators:

  THE RISK OF LOSS IN TRADING COMMODITY INTERESTS CAN BE SUBSTANTIAL. YOU SHOULD

  THEREFORE CAREFULLY CONSIDER WHETHER SUCH TRADING IS SUITABLE FOR YOU IN LIGHT OF

  YOUR FINANCIAL CONDITION. IN CONSIDERING WHETHER TO TRADE OR TO AUTHORIZE

  SOMEONE ELSE TO TRADE FOR YOU, YOU SHOULD BE AWARE OF THE FOLLOWING:

  IF YOU PURCHASE A COMMODITY OPTION YOU MAY SUSTAIN A TOTAL LOSS OF THE PREMIUM

  AND OF ALL TRANSACTION COSTS.

  IF YOU PURCHASE OR SELL A COMMODITY FUTURES CONTRACT OR SELL A COMMODITY OPTION

  OR ENGAGE IN OFF-EXCHANGE FOREIGN CURRENCY TRADING YOU MAY SUSTAIN A TOTAL LOSS

  OF THE INITIAL MARGIN FUNDS OR SECURITY DEPOSIT AND ANY ADDITIONAL FUNDS THAT

  YOU DEPOSIT WITH YOUR BROKER TO ESTABLISH OR MAINTAIN YOUR POSITION. IF THE

  MARKET MOVES AGAINST YOUR POSITION, YOU MAY BE CALLED UPON BY YOUR BROKER TO

  DEPOSIT A SUBSTANTIAL AMOUNT OF ADDITIONAL MARGIN FUNDS, ON SHORT NOTICE, IN

  ORDER TO MAINTAIN YOUR POSITION. IF YOU DO NOT PROVIDE THE REQUESTED FUNDS

  WITHIN THE PRESCRIBED TIME, YOUR POSITION MAY BE LIQUIDATED AT A LOSS, AND YOU WILL

  BE LIABLE FOR ANY RESULTING DEFICIT IN YOUR ACCOUNT.

  UNDER CERTAIN MARKET CONDITIONS, YOU MAY FIND IT DIFFICULT OR IMPOSSIBLE TO

  LIQUIDATE A POSITION. THIS CAN OCCUR, FOR EXAMPLE, WHEN THE MARKET MAKES A “LIMIT

  MOVE.”

  THE PLACEMENT OF CONTINGENT ORDERS BY YOU OR YOUR TRADING ADVISOR, SUCH AS A

  “STOP-LOSS” OR “STOP-LIMIT” ORDER, WILL NOT NECESSARILY LIMIT YOUR LOSSES TO THE

  INTENDED AMOUNTS, SINCE MARKET CONDITIONS MAY MAKE IT IMPOSSIBLE TO EXECUTE

  SUCH ORDERS.

  A “SPREAD” POSITION MAY NOT BE LESS RISKY THAN A SIMPLE “LONG” OR “SHORT” POSITION.

  THE HIGH DEGREE OF LEVERAGE THAT IS OFTEN OBTAINABLE IN COMMODITY INTEREST

  TRADING CAN WORK AGAINST YOU AS WELL AS FOR YOU. THE USE OF LEVERAGE CAN LEAD TO

  LARGE LOSSES AS WELL AS GAINS.

  IN SOME CASES, MANAGED COMMODITY ACCOUNTS ARE SUBJECT TO SUBSTANTIAL CHARGES

  FOR MANAGEMENT AND ADVISORY FEES. IT MAY BE NECESSARY FOR THOSE ACCOUNTS THAT

  ARE SUBJECT TO THESE CHARGES TO MAKE SUBSTANTIAL TRADING PROFITS TO AVOID

  DEPLETION OR EXHAUSTION OF THEIR ASSETS. THIS DISCLOSURE DOCUMENT CONTAINS A

  COMPLETE DESCRIPTION OF EACH FEE TO BE CHARGED TO YOUR ACCOUNT BY THE

  COMMODITY TRADING ADVISOR.

  THIS BRIEF STATEMENT CANNOT DISCLOSE ALL THE RISKS AND OTHER SIGNIFICANT ASPECTS

  OF THE COMMODITY INTEREST MARKETS. YOU SHOULD THEREFORE CAREFULLY STUDY THIS

  DISCLOSURE DOCUMENT AND COMMODITY INTEREST TRADING BEFORE YOU TRADE,

  INCLUDING THE DESCRIPTION OF THE PRINCIPAL RISK FACTORS OF THIS INVESTMENT.

  THIS COMMODITY TRADING ADVISOR IS PROHIBITED BY LAW FROM ACCEPTING FUNDS IN THE

  TRADING ADVISOR’S NAME FROM A CLIENT FOR TRADING COMMODITY INTERESTS. YOU MUST

  PLACE ALL FUNDS FOR TRADING IN THIS TRADING PROGRAM DIRECTLY WITH A FUTURES

  COMMISSION MERCHANT OR RETAIL FOREIGN EXCHANGE DEALER, AS APPLICABLE.

  Whoa- where do I sign?  This is an example of how regulators manipulate the presentation of options in order to mislead investors away from something which can protect them from disaster.

  Financial tools like options are like any tools, they can be used like insurance, or they can be used as weapons.  Take simple construction tools.  A hammer can be used to build furniture, or destroy furniture.  A hammer can break a window, kill someone – but also it can be used for decades to build fine woodwork (if you are a craftsman).  

  Building a financial defense line

  This is the personal finance equivalent of hedging.  Hedging with options for example – should be used like an insurance policy.  It’s better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it.  

  Your financial defense line can be a property that’s paid for cash that you can live on for the rest of your life, it could be if you are in the car business an inventory of valuable used cars, it could be a pile of gold bars.  Preppers are one group that understands this concept well – it’s the underlying ethos of prepping.  

  But the majority of Americans are one paycheck away from disaster.  They ‘spend money on things they don’t need, with money they don’t have – to impress people they don’t know’

  And of course, the problem with writing such an article is the paradox of education.  Those who understand this concept, are already doing it, and those who don’t understand – they don’t believe that they need to know it – they have another opinion!  Such thinking is never without punishment in the markets.  

  Hedging is all about paying for something you do not need, but may need one day, should an unexpected event happen.  It’s a form of insurance.  

  There’s one kind of insurance that takes this concept too far – life insurance.  But that’s a topic for another article.  Common insurance like homeowners insurance, professional insurances like directors’ liability insurance, and others; are a type of financial defense line.  For example, did you know in large class action cases where big corporations are involved in fraud – shareholders are settled financially primarily through insurance claims made by plaintiffs attorneys?  Commonly it’s thought that companies pay out these big settlements but actually, it’s mostly insurance companies.  Wall St. is a huge user of insurance, and hedging – which is why at companies like AIG, the lines between derivatives trading, opaque contracts, and insurance – was widely blurred.

  But you don’t need a Wall St. bank in order to create a financial defense line, it can be as simple as investing in something for cash that you may need one day ‘just in case’ but don’t need right now, like a property, a container full of canned food – whatever it is to you.

  When you HAVE the financial defense line IN PLACE – THEN and ONLY THEN can you go out into the risky market and take risks.  There’s a phenomenon that’s difficult to quantify, but the fact that you have the defense line, it seems that those investors usually don’t lose on the risks they take in the market.  The only analogy that can explain this is a Sierra Club study about bears and men carrying guns; it seems that men who hike in the mountains who carry loaded guns are almost never attacked by bears – but also they never shot any bears, which means the men must emit a pheromone that the bears can sniff.  

  Practically, it’s better not to enter the market and take risks if you don’t have a defense line.  Another example is ‘investing money you can afford to lose’ – many advisors recommend investing only a percentage of a portfolio (like 5% or 10%) that if the investment is wiped out, the portfolio will remain intact.  There’s a few demographics that understand this other than preppers – Texas Oil Investors and Silicon Valley VCs.

  In Oil Investing, 9 out of 10 wells may be dry, or just barely break even.  But 1 out of 10 can be a gusher – 1,000% returns, which make up for the dry and average wells.  

  Average investors, even if you don’t have any retirement or pension, can build a financial defense line – it can mean getting an extra job, doing something for extra income (like selling stuff online) or applying for a research grant you always dreamt of.  It’s a myth that you need money to invest.  In fact, most startups are started with 99% persperation and 1% inspiration.  Without money though, you’ll have to put MAJOR WORK into your project to really build equity.  In a simple example of a housing project, that means doing the labor yourself which can be 60% – 70% of the costs.  In a business, it means you’ll have to do 10 jobs, instead of hiring an accountant, a webmaster, and other things.

  Fortress Capital provides hedging, alternative investments, and portfolio consulting – visit www.fortresscapitalinc.com to learn more.

  Or checkout Fortress Capital Trading Academy to learn how to build a defense line, specifically.

  Hey – it’s better than sticking a crayon up your nose.  Extended warranty?  How can I lose?

  

  

• MeeT FaKe NeWS BoB…

  

  

• 80% Of Central Banks Plan To Buy More Stocks

  Regular readers remember how, when we first reported around the time of our launch eight years ago that central banks buy stocks, intervene and prop up markets, and generally manipulate equities in order to maintain confidence in a collapsing system, and avoid a liquidation panic and bank runs, it was branded “fake news” by the established financial “kommentariat.” What a difference eight years makes, because today none other than the WSJ writes that “by keeping interest rates low and in some cases negative, central banks have prompted some of the most conservative investors to join the hunt for higher returns: Other central banks.”

  To be sure, nothing that the WSJ reports is news to our readers, who have known for years how central banks overtly, in the case of the BOJ, PBOC and SNB most prominently, and covertly, as the infamous “leave no trace behind” symbiosis between the NY Fed and Citadel, however we find it particularly enjoyable every time the financial paper of record reports what until only a few years ago was considered “conspiracy theory”, and wonder what other current “fake news” will be gospel in 2020.

  Meanwhile, for those few who are still unfamiliar, this is how central banks who create fiat money out of thin air and for whom “acquisition cost” is a meaningless term, are increasingly nationalizing the equity capital markets. As the WSJ puts it “these central banks care relatively little about whether such investments make profits or losses—though they can matter politically—because they can always print more of their currency. So risk is less important, analysts say.” And since risk was no longer part of the equation, leaving only return, central banks started buying stocks.

  “When yields started to get really low and closer to zero in 2014, we decided to start equity investments,” said Jarno Ilves, head of investments at the Bank of Finland, who said he plans to increase his allocation to stocks.

  But if you think the farce is bad now, wait until next year. According to a recent study by Invesco on central- bank investment which polled 18 reserve managers, some 80% and 43% of respondents to questions on asset allocation said they planned to invest more in stocks and corporate debt, respectively. Low government-bond returns were behind the moves to diversify, said 12 out of 15 respondents, while three declined to answer.

  

   

  So between central banks outbidding each other to buy “risky” assets with “money” that is constantly created at no cost, very soon all other private investors will be crowded out but not before every stock is trading at valuations that even CNBC guests won’t be able to justify.

  The good news is that instead of focusing on Ultra High Net Worth clients, a desperate for revenue Wall Street can just advise central banks on which stocks to buy.

  The shift has significant implications for markets and the global economy, analysts say. Many central banks are hiring outside managers to handle the nontraditional assets in their portfolios, presenting an opportunity to a financial industry struggling with stagnant revenue growth.

   

  “We see more and more appetite by central banks for riskier strategies,” said Jean-Jacques Barberis, ‎who manages central-bank money for Amundi, Europe’s largest asset manager.

  The bad news, is that as more people realize that a free “market” now only exists in textbooks, and that Soviet-style central planning is the only game in town, confident in price formation will evaporate, in turn pushing even more market participants out of the quote-unquote market, until only central banks are left bidding on each other’s otherwise worthless stock certificates.

  At the same time, efforts to invest reserve funds more broadly mean that more markets will be subject to what some critics describe as central-bank distortion, as large and often price-insensitive buyers run the risk of driving up prices and reducing prospective returns for other market participants.

  For virtually all central banks, however, the grotesque central planning shift of the past decade means that instead of engaging in monetary policy, the world’s central banks are now activist hedge funds, who are focused first and foremost on “investment management”:

  The South African Reserve Bank’s growing piggy bank drove it to switch “from being a liquidity manager to focusing on investment management,” said Daniel Mminele, its deputy governor.

   

  In the third quarter of 2016, global foreign-exchange reserves totaled $11 trillion, according to the International Monetary Fund, up from $1.4 trillion at the end of 1995.

  But in the world of central bank hedge funds, no other bank comes even remotely close to the (publically-traded) Swiss National Bank, which has taken risky investing to a whole new level.

  In 2013, the SNB opened a branch in Singapore to manage its Asia-Pacific assets, which as of 2015 include emerging-market equities and Chinese government bonds. It was a necessity, since the SNB now manages a mammoth 645 billion franc ($643 billion) in foreign reserves, a pile that grew as the bank tried to push down the value of its currency in a bid to fight deflation and help exporters.

   

  In 2009, equities only made up 7% of the SNB’s reserves, four years after it started buying them. Now they are 20%, including investments of $1.7 billion in Apple Inc., $1.08 billion in Exxon Mobil Corp., and $1.2 billion in Microsoft Corp., according to third-quarter Securities and Exchange Commission filings.

  Having bought hundreds of billions in equities carries risks even for central banks, if only on paper: in 2015, the SNB booked a loss of 23.3 billion francs, when officials stopped maintaining a ceiling on the value of their currency. As the currency jumped by as much as 22% against the euro, the value of their foreign assets fell. Last year, it offset those losses with a 24 billion-franc profit, as its equity investments paid off.

  Others did not fare quite as well: “the Czech National Bank started buying stocks in June 2008 just before the financial crisis. The subsequent stock market crash wiped out a third of its equity investment that year, then roughly 2.5% of its total reserves.”

  * * *

  By now it is common knowledge that central banks openly intervene in markets, the most vivid and recent example of which is the BOJ, which as of this moment owns two-thirds of all Japanes ETFs…

  

  … and at the current rate of expansion, within a few years the world’s monetary authorities who are tasked with “financial stability”, will have acquired a majority of the world’s equity tranche, effectively nationalizing it. We bring it up in light of recent ridiculous allegations that “Russia hacked the US elections” – we wonder, will the liberal press blame the USSR after it dawns upon the world’s intrepid press that while it was busy comparing the Obama and Trump crowds, the world’s greatest wealth transfer was taking place right below everyone’s nose.

  

  

• Here Are The World's 10 Least Affordable Cities Of 2017

  In recent months, we’ve spent a lot of time writing about the various housing bubbles all over the world with an emphasis on Vancouver, Sydney and Melbourne (see here, here and here).  Now, courtesy of the “13th Annual Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey“, we have a comprehensive comparison of just how bubbly some of the world’s least affordable housing markets have become. 

  The study, which analyzed 406 metropolitan housing markets around the world, compared affordability on the basis of a ratio of median homes prices to median gross incomes with anything over 5x considered “Severely Unaffordable.”  And while there are obvious flaws in the methodology, including the fact that income isn’t adjusted for local taxing policies and building quality, the study at least provides a basis for comparison.

  

   

  Not surprisingly, Hong Kong and Sydney maintained their “lead” as the least affordable housing markets in 2016 with Vancouver moving into the number 3 spot with home prices there increasing by the equivalent of a full year’s median income in just a single year.

  

   

  Meanwhile, of the 94 “severely unaffordable markets” in the world, nearly 40% of them were located in the U.S. and another one-third were in Australia.

  There are 26 severely unaffordable major housing markets in 2016. Again, Hong Kong is the least affordable, with a Median Multiple of 18.1, down from 19.0 last year. Sydney is again second, at 12.2 (the same Median Multiple as last year). Vancouver is third least affordable, at 11.8, where house prices rose the equivalent of a full year’s household income in only a year. Auckland is fourth least affordable, at 10.0 and San Jose has a Median Multiple of 9.6.

   

  The least affordable 10 also includes Melbourne (9.5), Honolulu (9.4), Los Angeles (9.3), where house prices rose the equivalent of 14 months in household income in only 12 months. San Francisco has a Median Multiple of 9.2 and Bournemouth & Dorsett is 8.9.

   

  There are 94 severely unaffordable markets, with 36 (of 262) in the United States, 33 (of 54) in Australia, 11 (of 33) in the United Kingdom, 7 (of 40) in Canada, 6 (of 8) in New Zealand and the one market in China. Singapore, Japan and Ireland have no severely unaffordable housing markets.

   

  The least affordable among the smaller markets is Santa Cruz (CA) in the United States, with a Median Multiple of 11.6.

  

   

  Of course, for anyone who still doubts the source of the 2006/2007 U.S. housing bubble, the relationship between median incomes and housing prices remained fairly constant in the U.S. right up until the Fed decided to utilize near-zero interest rates to manage stock prices shortly after the 2000 tech bubble burst… 

  

   

  …a mistake that Yellen & Co. seems to be on a path to repeating.

  

  

• Soaring Lease Returns Set To Wreak Havoc Used Car Pricing and Auto Industry Profits

  For months we’ve warned that declining used car prices could spell disaster for subprime auto securitizations (see “Slumping Used Car Prices Spell Disaster For Subprime Auto Securitizations“).  While it’s always difficult to predict the exact timing of when bubbles will burst, a combination of record-high lease returns in 2017 and 2018, combined with rising interest rates could imply that the auto bubble is on the precipice.

  As Bloomberg recently pointed out, strong used car pricing is a critical component required to prop up the overall auto market.  While American’s love their brand new cars, if used car prices become too soft then substitution can hurt new car sales.  Add to that the impact of falling residual values on the finance arms of the auto OEMs and you have all the ingredients required for an auto market meltdown.

  A glut of used vehicles has started to depress prices. That trend will intensify as Americans will return 3.36 million leased cars and trucks this year, another jump after a 33 percent surge in 2016, according to J.D. Power. The fallout has already begun, with Ford Motor Co. shaving $300 million from its financial-services arm’s profit forecast for this year.

   

  “Ford is the canary in the coal mine,” said Maryann Keller, a former Wall Street analyst who’s now an auto industry consultant in Stamford, Connecticut.

   

  This drag may be hitting the rest of the industry, too. A National Automobile Dealers Association index of used-vehicle prices declined each of the last six months of last year. If used values weaken more than anticipated, it can lead to losses across the industry, hitting carmakers, auto lenders and rental companies.

   

  

   

  Unfortunately, the volume of lease returns is only expected to grow even more in 2018 with returns expected to approach 4mm units.

  

   

  As J.D. Power points out in it’s most recent “NADA Used Car Guide Industry Update,” the flood of lease returns is driving used car prices lower.

  

   

  Of course, how we got here is fairly obvious.  The majority of Americans buy cars based on one factor: monthly payment.  And when it comes to managing your monthly payment to the lowest level possible, leasing is the way to go.  Per the Bank Rate calculator below, buying a $30,000 car comes with a monthly payment of around $600 while leasing the same vehicle might only cost $420 per month. 

  

   

  Of course, why buy a $30,000 Ford for a $600 monthly payment when you could lease a $40,000 BMW for $560?  You can afford it so long as you can cover the monthly payment, right?

  

   

  Not surprisingly, these dynamics have caused lease share of U.S. vehicles to skyrocket in the wake of the “great recession” as people seek to maintain their excessive lifestyles on smaller budgets.

  

   

  Of course, the problem is that leased vehicles get returned to their originating lenders every 3 years for brand new leases…we wouldn’t want anyone driving around in a 5-year-old clunker now would we?  But, as we all know, vehicles have useful lives of 15-20 years.  Therefore, it doesn’t take too many excessive lease cycles to flood the market with used supply and bring the whole ponzi crashing down. 

  

  

• "Common Sense" Part 2 – Addressed To The Inhabitants Of 2017 America

  Submitted by Jim Quinn via The Burning Platform blog,

  In Part One of this article I explored Thomas Paine’s critical role in the creation of our nation. His Common Sense pamphlets inspired the common people to uncommon acts of courage and heroic feats of valor; leading to the great experiment we call the United States of America. Paine, Franklin and the other Founding Fathers produced a republic, if we could keep it.

  John Adams championed the new Constitution precisely because it would not create a democracy, as he knew a democracy “soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself.” Their herculean efforts, sacrifices, and bloodshed have been for naught as we allowed our republic to devolve into a democracy and ultimately into our current corporate fascist warfare/welfare surveillance state. Sadly, we were unable to keep the republic Franklin and his fellow revolutionaries gave us.

  

  “From the errors of other nations, let us learn wisdom.” – Thomas Paine, Common Sense

  Some might contend Paine’s Common Sense arguments against a despotic monarchy two and a half centuries ago, with an audience of two and a half million colonists, couldn’t be pertinent today in a divided nation of 325 million people. But when you examine the events, actions and catalysts inspiring Paine to pen Common Sense, you see the parallels with the events, decisions and facilitators of our current Crisis.

  For more than a decade before the eruption of open hostilities, tensions had been building between colonists and the British authorities. An overbearing far flung British Empire began to pillage the colonies to pay for their corrupt kingdom by shaking them down through the Stamp Act of 1765, the Quartering Act of 1765, the Townshend Tariffs of 1767 and the Tea Act of 1773.

  This taxation without representation was met with passionate protest among many colonists, who resented their lack of representation in Parliament and demanded the same rights as other British subjects. These demands were met with arrogant indifference by the monarchy and a haughty parliament. Forcing colonists to feed and house the very soldiers who were being paid with their taxes to repress them was the ultimate insult.

  Initially, the colonists just fumed at the domineering disrespect shown them by the British ruling establishment. The pillaging of their hard earned wealth by distant oppressors prompted the colonists to initially organize nonviolent resistance and embargoing British luxury goods. As anger against their authoritarian overseers boiled over, the British cracked down harder in their version of a colonial surveillance state. Colonial resistance eventually led to bloodshed in 1770, when British soldiers opened fire on a mob of colonists, killing five men in what became known as the Boston Massacre.

  Parliament eventually backed down and repealed all of the duties except for one symbolic duty on tea. In December 1773 the Samuel Adams inspired Sons of Liberty, dressed as Mohawk Indians, boarded British ships and dumped 342 chests of tea into Boston Harbor. An outraged Parliament passed a series of measures known as the Intolerable or Coercive Acts, designed to reassert imperial authority in Massachusetts. In response, a group of colonial delegates (including George Washington of Virginia, John and Samuel Adams of Massachusetts, Patrick Henry of Virginia and John Jay of New York) met in Philadelphia in September 1774 to give voice to their grievances against the British crown.

  

  This First Continental Congress did not mandate liberation from Britain, but it denounced taxation without representation, maintenance of the British army in the colonies without their consent, and issued a declaration of the rights due every citizen, including life, liberty, property, assembly and trial by jury. The Continental Congress voted to meet again in May 1775 to consider further action, but before it convened again Paul Revere made his fateful ride and local militiamen fired the first shots of the Revolutionary War at Lexington & Concord. These events set in motion Paine’s call to arms and the Declaration of Independence shortly thereafter.

  The First American Revolution was the result of at least a decade of government overreach, excessive taxation, disregard for the rights of citizens, elitist arrogance of empire builders, and thuggish intimidation of colonists by the British military. The Americans, most of whom had been born on American soil, felt only vague allegiance to a monarchy across the seas imposing their iron fist of taxation and intimidation upon citizens and their means of livelihood.

  There had been growing discontent for decades and the Boston Tea Party catalyst triggered a dramatic change in the colonial mood. The chain reactions happened rapidly thereafter and there was no turning back. Paine realized independence was the only true option and proceeded to inspire that result with his Common Sense pamphlets.

  “Until an independence is declared the continent will feel itself like a man who continues putting off some unpleasant business from day to day, yet knows it must be done, hates to set about it, wishes it over, and is continually haunted with the thoughts of its necessity.” – Thomas Paine, Common Sense

  With this potent image, Paine concluded Common Sense. This illustration captured Paine’s central point throughout the pamphlets that America must break away from Britain. The only question that remained was when the colonies were to become free. Paine believed the time for action was now rather than later, and exhorted his fellow Americans to rise to arms and vanquish their British oppressors.

  The moment for transformation had come. It was time for the American people to take back their country from an overbearing, corrupt, evil establishment. The Crisis had reached its regeneracy with Paine’s Common Sense and Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence, two of the most important documents in America history.

  Society is a Blessing/Government a Necessary Evil

  “Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one; for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries by a government, which we might expect in a country without government, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer…” – Thomas Paine, Common Sense

  

  If you are blind to the parallels with our current position in this Fourth Turning, you are either wallowing in willful ignorance or you are a functionary within the debased establishment. One of Paine’s main themes was society was a blessing while government was, at best, a necessary evil.

  Paine believed in the power of the people. Society constitutes everything constructive people create through working together. The creation of businesses, inventions, scientific discoveries, art, and literature has never required government. Collaboration among individuals brings about positive outcomes and the advancement of society. People transact business, cooperate, follow societal norms, and live their lives on a daily basis with absolutely no intervention or oversight from an oppressive threatening government entity.

  Human beings are fallible creatures with a weakness for the vices of greed, envy, lust, pride and a few others. The only true purpose of government is the protection of life, liberty and property. Paine presented government as an organization whose lone function was to inhibit the wickedness in man.

  Government’s fundamental purpose is to provide security from foreign invaders and insure property rights are protected. The success of a government should be judged by the extent to which it fulfills these roles. Society is a force which promotes our happiness positively, while government is a coercive force, which at best has a neutral impact on our lives and at its worse, hampers our lives through coercion.

  Paine believed the British monarchy had too much power over the lives of the colonists. The hereditary succession of the monarchy led to the elevation of asses to the throne while pretending he was a lion. King George III was just such an ass.

  The purposeful complexity of the British system of government was designed to centralize power in the hands of the few, unlawfully and unjustifiably seizing control from the people. A government should be judged on whether it improves society or makes it worse. If the government does not represent the will of the people then it needs to be discarded or overthrown. The larger the government bureaucracy, the more disordered its decision making, and more likely corruption, tyranny, and taxation will burden the citizens.

  Paine scoffed at the absurdity of branches of government checking each other. Once entrenched in power the aristocratic civil servants only served themselves and their financial benefactors. The happiness and well-being of the people was not their concern. Every government, even if its initial design had a noble purpose, devolves into a fetid swamp of control freaks, the tyrannical power hungry, egomaniacal sociopaths, and feckless apparatchiks. It becomes a bane and punisher of the people.

  

  “Society is produced by our wants, and government by wickedness; the former promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections, the latter negatively by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher.” – Thomas Paine, Common Sense

  Government of the People, By the People, For the People

  “I offer nothing more than simple facts, plain arguments, and common sense.” – Thomas Paine

  

  “We still find the greedy hand of government thrusting itself into every corner and crevice of industry and grasping at the spoil of the multitude. Invention is continually exercised to furnish new pretenses for revenue and taxation. It watches prosperity as its prey and permits none to escape without a tribute.” – Thomas Paine, Common Sense

  Three generations have passed since Paine’s words inspired a revolution, but they ring as true today as they did during that fateful year of 1776. We have been ruled by an oppressive tyrannical establishment, bent on controlling and regulating every aspect of our lives, over-taxing hard working Americans to pay for its welfare/warfare surveillance state, indebting unborn generations with over $200 trillion of unfunded promises, enriching themselves and their Deep State benefactors, impoverishing the people through systematic inflation, globalizing their jobs to Asia, and treating hard working Americans with utter contempt.

  The 2008 Federal Reserve/Wall Street created global financial collapse and subsequent banker bailout, while throwing senior citizens and the common man under the bus catalyzed this Fourth Turning. Main Street and flyover America did not participate in the faux economic recovery flogged by Obama, his minions, and their media mouthpieces.

  Propaganda, fake economic data, and a vacuous divisive empty suit Deep State pawn president, running up the national debt by $9.3 trillion while enriching Wall Street, the military industrial complex, and the sickcare complex, did nothing to benefit average Americans. The result of this blatant disregard for the well-being of millions has backfired on the establishment.

  The elevation of Donald Trump to the presidency has marked the regeneracy moment of this Fourth Turning. The mood of the country has taken a dramatic turn, with the normal people attempting to take back control of the government from malevolent Deep State financial, military, media, and corporate interests. This invisible government establishment is far more entrenched and malignant than the British monarchy confronted by Thomas Paine.

  Just as the Loyalists supported the armed clampdown upon the liberty seeking revolutionaries by the redcoats, the deranged leftist useful idiots rioting in DC and in the liberal urban bastions around the country this past week are at war against normalcy, self-reliance, fiscal responsibility, the family values that built this nation, and the geographic will of 85% of the country.

  Despite the wailing, gnashing of teeth, breaking of windows, setting limousines on fire, dressing as vaginas, calling for the assassination of Donald Trump, and overall infantile behavior of the losers in this recent election, the fact remains Trump won the popular vote in 30 states, accumulated an electoral landslide victory, and struck a chord with normal average family people who have been left behind by a government designed to benefit an autocratic few and buy off special interests for their votes.

  These supposedly grass roots rallies representing all women were nothing more than another George Soros/Democrat Party funded propaganda effort to discredit Trump’s overwhelming victory. The dying left wing media mouthpieces for the establishment felt a tingle up their legs as they breathlessly reported on the prodigious hatred for a man who has been in office for one day.

  Where were these patriots for the last eight years as their savior president droned wedding parties, blew up hospitals in the Middle East, and oversaw the unlawful collection of personal data by his rogue NSA spies? You didn’t hear any of the fake news pundits on CNN or MSNBC mention that 30 million deplorable women had voted for Trump and he crushed Hillary among white women with 53% of the vote.

  The vitriolic, unhinged reaction to Trump’s victory by a fearful establishment, their fake news corporate media hacks, and the parasitical special interests dependent upon free shit, should be a wake-up call for the normal, hard-working, tax paying, self-reliant, liberty minded people in this country. The deeply rooted evil establishment and their feckless, toady, easily manipulated, useful idiot minions have declared war on Trump and the normals (aka deplorables) who voted for him.

  After the battles of Lexington & Concord the British Empire declared war on the colonies. Many colonists still longed for reconciliation, but Thomas Paine and his fellow patriots knew that was impossible. This was going to be a fight to the death. If they lost, Paine and his brethren would be hanged.

  Paine’s simple facts, plain words and common sense bolstered the morale of the American colonists, provided backbone to those on the fence, appealed to the English people’s consideration of the war with America, clarified the issues at stake in the war, and denounced the advocates of a negotiated peace. There was no time to be a summer soldier or sunshine patriot in 1776. We now stand on the precipice of another era of revolution. These are new times, but they will also try our souls. Words do matter. This really is a war and must be fought on all fronts.

  The dumbing down of the American populace through the government run public education system results in tens of millions being intellectually incapable of resisting the never ending onslaught of Deep State propaganda through critical thought. Restoring the public’s ability to use common sense, sound reasoning, and good judgement is a virtual impossibility today, as a vast swath of the populace couldn’t name a Founding Father, why we celebrate July 4, or even voted in this past election. There were approximately 231 million eligible voters on November 8 and only 136 million voted. The apathy of the 95 million non-voters is a reflection of our iGadget addicted, debauched, feeble minded, bread and circuses distracted, confederacy of fools culture.

  With a population of 325 million, versus the 2.5 million in Paine’s day, the question is how many patriots will be required to vanquish the Deep State sycophants and their useful idiot followers. It has been noted only 3% of colonists truly fought for independence during the American Revolution. One third remained loyal to the crown, one third passively supported independence and another third didn’t support either side. We have a similar dynamic today with about 30% supporting Trump’s revolution, 30% supporting the corrupt establishment, and 40% choosing to not participate. If the 3% still applies, it will only take 7 million out of Trump’s 63 million voters to successfully see the revolution through to its conclusion.

  The venomous reaction from the fake news corporate media to Trump’s plain spoken, direct, and truthful, common sense inaugural address reveals his opponents true nature. They called the speech dark, gloomy, scary, and Hitler like. Trump derangement syndrome has clearly infected this insane clown posse of brainless talking heads and vacuous spokesmodels as they mouth the lines written by their establishment employers.

  He directly confronted his establishment enemies as they sat in front of him by declaring war on their petty world of corruption, malfeasance, idolatry of power, world domination, globalization, and disregard for the lives of the common people. Just as Paine had declared in 1776, Trump declared this week – there will be no reconciliation, no negotiated peace, and no truce. His war on the establishment will be fought to the finish, with a clear winner and a clear loser. His address is the new Common Sense for common people looking to take back control of their government.

  Trump immediately struck at the heart of the Washington DC beltway beast. The people out in the hinterlands, beyond the DC, NYC, LA, SF elitist enclaves, have been left behind and discarded while the connected few reaped unwarranted riches.

  “For too long, a small group in our nation’s capital has reaped the rewards of government while the people have borne the cost. Washington flourished, but the people did not share in its wealth. Politicians prospered, but the jobs left and the factories closed. The establishment protected itself, but not the citizens of our country. Their victories have not been your victories. Their triumphs have not been your triumphs. And while they celebrated in our nation’s capital, there was little to celebrate for struggling families all across our land.”

  Just as Paine delineated between the liberty seeking patriots and the despotic monarchical regime of King George III, Trump doesn’t play the standard political party games. This is a revolutionary movement. It’s the forgotten men and women versus the non-responsive imperious government.

  “What truly matters is not which party controls our government, but whether our government is controlled by the people. The forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer. At the center of this movement is a crucial conviction that a nation exists to serve its citizens.”

  Trump demolished the fake news storylines of economic advancement, low unemployment, reduced crime rates, and a thriving middle class. The media pundits were aghast when he told the truth about a nation in decay. After 50 years and $10 trillion of Great Society welfare programs, the poverty rate is near all-time highs; 43 million (up by 12 million since recession officially ended in 2009) people depend on food stamps to survive; over 100 million working age Americans aren’t working; real wages are lower than they were thirty years ago; and millions of family sustaining blue collar jobs have been off-shored to Asia in the name of globalization.

  Our government run public schools are nothing more than social engineering indoctrination centers wasting $12,000 per student by having mediocre overpaid union teachers flog common core pabulum to disinterested students. They graduate functionally illiterate morons into society, further degrading the civic character of our nation, while in liberal run cities, like Chicago, murder rates skyrocket as black communities implode due to the breakdown of the family unit, welfare mentality, drugs, and placing no value on education. Trump’s assessment of this carnage is dead on.

  “But for too many of our citizens, a different reality exists: mothers and children trapped in poverty in our inner cities; rusted out factories scattered like tombstones across the landscape of our nation; an education system flush with cash, but which leaves our young and beautiful students deprived of all knowledge; and the crime and the gangs and the drugs that have stolen too many lives and robbed our country of so much unrealized potential. This American carnage stops right here and stops right now.”

  Trump scorched the globalization acolytes and neo-cons with his common sense appraisal of how we’ve wasted our wealth benefiting other countries and global corporations, while disregarding our own decaying infrastructure and families’ dependent upon decent paying jobs to make an honest living. The priorities of the establishment have enriched their corporate masters while destroying a once thriving middle class.

  “We spent trillions and trillions of dollars overseas while America’s infrastructure has fallen into disrepair and decay. We’ve made other countries rich, while the wealth, strength and confidence of our country has dissipated over the horizon. One by one, the factories shuttered and left our shores, with not even a thought about the millions and millions of American workers that were left behind. The wealth of our middle class has been ripped from their homes and then redistributed all across the world.”

  It is telling how low we’ve sunk as a nation when the intellectual elitists reference Hitler when pandering to their disturbed demagogues of despair while describing Trump’s speech. I guess the author of the Declaration of Independence would be classified as a Nazi by today’s standards, as his words were directly echoed by Trump:

  “Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations…entangling alliances with none” – Thomas Jefferson

  “We will seek friendship and goodwill with the nations of the world, but we do so with the understanding that it is the right of all nations to put their own interests first. We do not seek to impose our way of life on anyone, but rather to let it shine as an example. We will shine for everyone to follow.” – Donald Trump

  If CNN, MSNBC, or the Washington Post had existed in 1776, they would have classified Thomas Paine as a terrorist, exposing his failed business ventures, failed marriages, and revealing him to be too pugnacious and nasty to be taken seriously. They couldn’t demand that he release his tax returns, since the individual income tax didn’t get enacted until 137 years later in the dreadful year of 1913. They would have glorified King George III as a benevolent father figure and boldly predicted a landslide victory for the British Army against Washington’s ragtag army of farmers.

  The dying legacy media are the propaganda arm of the establishment and will need to be crushed without impunity by the Trump administration and the hundreds of alternative truth telling media websites representing the Thomas Paines of today. One Thomas Paine cannot influence 200 million people the way he influenced 2.5 million in 1776, but an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men, can make an impact during the most crucial period of this Fourth Turning Crisis.

  Trump has pointed out what is wrong with our government. The outcry from those comfortable with the status quo has been spiteful, lashing out irrationally in a crazed manner, which will surely bring more normal people over to Trump’s side. Time and results will convert more to the right side of history.

  “A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom. But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason.” – Thomas Paine, Common Sense

  Just as the British levied taxes on the colonies to pay the debts of their French & Indian War adventures and their sprawling empire, our malevolent surveillance state wages undeclared wars across the globe, having wasted over $6 trillion in the Middle East since 2003, and extracts taxes from our paychecks at the point of a gun to pay for these neo-con wet dreams. The $20 trillion of accumulated debts and the $200 trillion of unfunded future obligations are nothing but tax obligations of our children and unborn generations.

  Just as the British military invaded the homes of American colonists, police state thugs roam our streets with impunity, intimidating, shaking down and acting as the truncheon for the establishment. The Fourth Amendment has been gutted by the powers that be, with the First and Second under constant attack.

  Paine believed in the common sense golden rule.

  “When I was teaching children I began every day writing this on the blackboard: “Do to others what you would like them to do to you”, telling them how much better the world would be if everybody lived by this rule.” – Thomas Paine, Common Sense

  But he realized everyone does not live by that rule. In fact, very few people live by that rule. They believe they are owed something for being born. The right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness isn’t good enough. The leftists fighting Trump tooth and nail believe they are entitled to special rights, privileges, and benefits. These special snowflakes have been triggered by the big bad mean talking Trump and after getting their paychecks from Soros will angrily protest within their liberal urban blue safe zones. If they ever violently venture into the 85% of the country colored red, the carnage will be instantaneous.

  

  The contemptible fake news media continues to flog the popular vote drivel of a country divided. This map shows a much unified country, unified against the liberal elite and their enslaved welfare state dregs occupying the miniscule blue areas on the map. Those in the blue believe it is their right to subdue the will of those in the red. We disagree. Let the hostilities commence. Over 90% of the legally owned firearms reside in the red areas.

  “Common sense will tell us, that the power which hath endeavored to subdue us, is of all others, the most improper to defend us.” – Thomas Paine, Common Sense

  Donald Trump had much more to lose than to gain by putting himself through the gauntlet of a presidential campaign. He was ridiculed, scorned, attacked, and dismissed by the ruling oligarchy and their prodigious array of propaganda mechanisms. The surveillance state used all their unlawful powers to discredit him.

  He has taken on the thankless task of trying to rectify decades of bad decisions, bad policy, bad finance, bad people, and an entrenched bureaucracy of DC swamp creatures. Trump is a billionaire and could have spent his waning years golfing, mentoring his sons, and enjoying the fruits of his labor. But, like the wealthy colonial landowners Washington, Jefferson, and Madison, Trump has taken a huge risk in fighting the Washington Deep State establishment to make government work for the people again.

  His inauguration speech was the first salvo in what will be a long and bloody fight. Common Sense was written in 1776 and the ratification of the U.S. Constitution was still thirteen bloody years in the future. Fourth Turnings never end in compromise. They end with a clear victor and a clear loser. The next eight years will surely try men’s souls.

  Trump is fighting against a half a century of establishment rule. As we have seen already, they will not go down without a fight. Are we ready to stand and fight, or will we be summer soldiers and sunshine patriots during this crisis, shrinking from the service of our country? The future of our country depends upon our answer.

  Aldous Huxley foretold the willful loss of our freedoms back in 1959. Our chance to vanquish the oligarchs has arrived.

  “Under the relentless thrust of accelerating over-population and increasing over-organization, and by means of ever more effective methods of mind-manipulation, the democracies will change their nature; the quaint old forms—elections, parliaments, Supreme Courts and all the rest—will remain. The underlying substance will be a new kind of non-violent totalitarianism. All the traditional names, all the hallowed slogans will remain exactly what they were in the good old days. Democracy and freedom will be the theme of every broadcast and editorial—but Democracy and freedom in a strictly Pickwickian sense. Meanwhile the ruling oligarchy and its highly trained elite of soldiers, policemen, thought-manufacturers and mind-manipulators will quietly run the show as they see fit.”

  – Aldous Huxley, Brave New World Revisited

  

  

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• Watch: Bigoted Turtleneck-Wearing Liberal Gets Tossed Off Plane For Harassing Trump Supporter!

  File this under Justice Porn…

  

  A miserable seething bitch and her browbeaten husband are the stars of a new video making it’s way around the internet after the woman, a horrible human being, decided to berate a Trump supporter on an airplane. First, here’s what happened from the guy it happened to:

  

   

  The first flight attendant to deal with his bigot isn’t having any of her shit:

  Attendant #1: “Is there going to be a problem?”

  Woman: “There will be, I would like for him to change seats with somebody who did not put us all in harm’s way”

  Attendant #1: “Well, you don’t have that right!”

  [mic drop, goes to get other flight attendant]

  When the second flight attendant breaks the news of her impending ejection, this ivory tower liberal starts throwing her dead mother in law out to try and gain some sympathy:

  Woman: “I’m going home now. My mother in law, his mother, died. And we had to be here. I’m going home now, there is no way I’m getting off this plane.”

  Attendant #2: “I’m terribly sorry for that, but that does not give you the right to treat people the way you’ve been treating them.

  [indignancy intensifies]

  Husband: “What if we trade seats and she quiets down? How would that be?”

  Attendant #2: “Unfortunately the captain has already made the call…”

  DENIED

  Enjoy the show: 

   

  And a potato quality recording of her actually getting tossed:

   

   

  Note the applause…

  

  

• Treasuries Besieged by 'Idiot Money': Record Shorts in Treasuries Paint an Ominous Picture for Bond Bears

  As some of you might recall, in December of 2015, I went long treasuries, due to my belief that negative interest rates would wreak havoc across the investment landscape — bringing with it a deflationary vortex that would consume all whole — especially equity holders. For the better part of 2016, this was the single best trade to be in — and I had it before anyone deemed it to be fashionable.

  Then the elections came and a gigantic Trump induced squeeze commenced — helping rout bonds and buoy equities in record fashion. Looking back on that rally, it was a fucking month — literally nothing in the big scheme of things. Should bonds rally again, recapturing some of its former glory, no one will remember the faux inflation days of November-January — post Hillary annihilation.

  Looking at the bond trade, it’s ripe for a reversion to the mean. After all, the most reprehensible people around, pavement apes and the like, are short bonds. These are the ‘Fast Money’ people — the same lads who bought mortgage bonds in 2007 and dot com hand grenades in the spring of 2000.

  Via CFTC:

  The amount of speculators’ bearish, or short, positions in
  10-year Treasury futures exceeded bullish, or long, positions by
  394,689 contracts on Jan. 10, according to the CFTC’s latest
  Commitments of Traders data.

  A week earlier, speculators held 344,931 net short positions
  in 10-year T-note futures.

  Net shorts in five-year T-note futures and Eurodollar
  futures among speculators also climbed to record highs in the
  latest week, while speculative T-bond net shorts rose to their
  highest level since March 2012, according to CFTC data.

  Net shorts in federal funds futures among speculators rose
  to their highest since August 2015.

  The rise in net shorts among these futures contracts
  suggested this group of market participants believes bond prices
  will resume their fall despite their rebound since mid-December.

  Juxtaposing short data with actual yield action, proves, in fact, that the shorts are literally pavement apes — idiots devoid of reason — slaves to the basest instincts that require zero thinking. These are horrible people.

  

  

  Yields on the 5 year treasury have doubled since our glorious leader, Donald J. Trump, seized power, to 1.94%. Short contracts now outstrip longs by a record 1.1 million — making this Tower of Pisa trade indelibly lopsided.

  In the end, “real money always wins,” said Tom di Galoma, the managing director of government trading and strategy at Seaport Global Holdings. “Speculators tend to get taken out. We’ve seen this occur several times in the last 10 to 15 years, where everybody thinks rates are too low.”

  A shift back into Treasuries may already be starting. Fixed-income managers who oversee a combined $225 billion held 24.7 percent of their assets in U.S. government debt in the week through Jan. 17, according to Stone & McCarthy Research Associates client survey. That’s higher than the average of 24.2 percent in 2016.

  However, signs of even a slightly more aggressive Fed can still make the bearish trades worthwhile. Last week, Fed Chair Janet Yellen said rates could rise “a few times a year” from now through 2019. That caused five-year yields to soar by the most since the central bank raised rates Dec. 14.

  In the past, the Fed has been notorious for being too confident about growth and the pace of rate increases. Jason Evans, co-founder of hedge fund NineAlpha Capital LP and the former head of U.S. government bond trading at Deutsche Bank AG, believes this time the central bank will stick to its projections and lift rates three times in 2017.

  “It’s understandable that there’s going to be a little ebb and flow,” said Evans, who said his firm put on short positions this month. Even so, “we’ll have higher yields later this year. We at least know the direction we’re heading in.”

  The expectations for the Federal Reserve is for 3 hikes in 2017, then more in 2018. However, that hope is predicated on economic growth expansion — which cannot happen without the cooperation from a Congress who has only, at this time, approved 2 of Trump’s 21 cabinet appointees and appear to be ready to fight him, tooth and nail, every step of the way. Couple that with the fact that the dollar is at 14 year highs and the cost to borrow funds has spiked, dramatically, since election day — making Trump’s fiscal dreams increasingly difficult to attain, I think it’s fair to say higher rates isn’t a foregone conclusion.

  I am long zeroes, via $ZROZ.

   

  Content originally generated at iBankCoin.com

  

• How To Predict The Behavior Of Globalists

  Submitted by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.com,

  

  In my last article, 'How Globalists Predict Your Behavior', I outlined the primary method globalists use to measure public consent, or, public dissent. The use of macro-analytics and the hyper-monitoring of web traffic is a powerful tool at the disposal of the establishment for gauging shifts in public consciousness in real time.

  For example, in early 2016 the elites were entirely aware of the rise of conservative and sovereignty movements in the U.S. and Europe. In fact, the dangers of growing “populism” were all that elitists and their publications talked about for the first six months of the year. At first, this notion seemed a little odd to me. Generally, when globalists are attempting to manage public opinion, they are careful not to reveal the slightest hint that conservative movements exist beyond an “extremist fringe”. They certainly never suggest that there is a massive undercurrent of nationalism ready to topple the globalist structure.

  In fact, whenever such movements do arise the establishment is swift to obstruct them or co-opt them. I witnessed this first hand during the Ron Paul campaign in 2008 and 2012 – the mainstream deliberately refused to acknowledge Ron Paul's existence, because attacking him repeatedly would have been a zero sum strategy that would have given him greater public attention and free publicity.

  I saw it during the Neo-con co-option of the Tea Party, a movement that I was involved in long before Fox News latched onto it and long before mainstream RINO Republicans not only jumped on the bandwagon but hijacked the horse. In a matter of months the Tea Party became a defunct entity, a shell of its former self. Luckily, most liberty activists simply left it behind and started their own separate groups and projects rather than being absorbed into the Neo-con fold.

  I also saw establishment interference on a local and state level during elections in Montana. An associate of mine was running for state office on a liberty platform and was doing rather well in the polls. He was approached by a contingent of political elites running as Republicans who told him in no uncertain terms that he could run on any platform and use any rhetoric he wanted, but if he won, he would be required to follow THEIR direction. They even encouraged him to continue arguing for constitutional government in his speeches and debates, because they felt this was the best way to “sell” his candidacy. But when all was said and done, he was supposed to stab his constituency in the back and take orders from the party leadership.

  The point is, the elites dominate the political system. Nothing happens within it without their say. So, for those same elites to suddenly and openly suggest that “populist movements” were threatening to overtake the world and destroy the global economy was suspicious, to say the least.

  In order to predict the behavior of globalists and the outcome of future economic and political events, it is important to understand certain dynamics. As just described, the establishment has a stranglehold on the political system. Party politics are a sham built around the false left/right paradigm. However, certain new dynamics are developing, and you must be able to track them.

  The best way to do this is to watch what globalists say within their own publications. They often reveal their intentions directly or indirectly. In many cases I think in their arrogance they assume that the masses are too stupid to read these publications and grasp what is being said.

  The most important element of predicting globalist actions is to know what they ultimately want; to know their ultimate goals. If you know the specifics of what any group or individual desperately wants, those people become highly predictable, because there are only so many useful paths to get to any goal.

  I have used this method to great effect over the years, so I am not merely presenting a theory, I have concrete successes to back my position.

  For example, just in the past couple of years I correctly predicted the Federal Reserve taper of QE, I predicted the inclusion of China in the IMF’s Special Drawing Rights years in advance, I predicted the exact timing of the first Fed rate hike, I predicted the success of the Brexit referendum when most of the world and the liberty movement said it was never going to happen, I predicted that the Saudi 9/11 bill would pass, that Barack Obama would veto it and that congress would override his veto, I predicted that Hillary Clinton would be the Democratic candidate and that Donald Trump would be the Republican candidate for president of the U.S. and, I predicted that Donald Trump would win the 2016 election.

  Except for the China SDR inclusion, I predicted all of these events many months in advance and received a heavy amount of criticism each time from people in the mainstream and even from people in the liberty movement. Hilariously, as soon as these predictions proved true, some of the same people that were fervently opposed came quickly out of the woodwork to claim they “saw it coming all along”. I suppose this is human nature, but it is a problem because it keeps people from learning how to better gauge globalist behavior and come to correct conclusions.

  My goal in this article is to make EVERY liberty activist adept at predicting globalist driven events. So, here is a good place to start:

  Learn To Play Chess

  The elites are obsessed with chess and chess symbolism. Many of their strategies develop much like a game of chess develops. If you don't know how to play chess, I suggest you learn. You don't have to master the game, but you do need to understand the basic concepts of winning the game.

  For example, if you know the target that your opponent is really pursuing, you can easily obstruct his efforts because all his movements will become predictable. If his goal is to take your Queen, and you know this, then he should never be able to take your queen. This is why the elites go to great lengths to distract their opponents (meaning us) from their true target. They want you to think they are going straight for your King, or your Knight; they want you focused elsewhere. They will use feints often.

  Another core strategy of chess is the “forced sacrifice”. That is to say, the best chess players are very good at positioning one of their pieces so that it threatens two or more of your pieces. This forces you to sacrifice one piece for the sake of the others. If they do this often enough, before you know it you have sacrificed your way into defeat. The globalists ALWAYS have a primary target and a secondary target. There is always more than one move developing at any given time.

  Knowing chess is key to knowing how the globalists think.

  Get In Touch With Your Darker Side

  Going by their behavior and their rhetoric when they are unguarded, most globalists display highly narcissistic character traits as well as sociopathy and psychopathy. It is not enough to research these traits in a clinical fashion, you have to tap into the darker side of your own psyche, and think as they think. This means being willing to entertain evil and malicious concepts. You must be willing to ask yourself – “If I were them, how would I go about getting what I want?”

  Understanding devious and aberrant psychopathic intent goes a long way in making the globalists predictable. Remember, many psychopaths are actually highly intelligent and intuitive. They don't have a moral compass and have lost the voice of conscience, but in order to adapt they have learned how to fake it. They are chameleons.

  ALL people are inherently capable of evil actions, just as they are inherently capable of great good. You don't have to become like the elites, but you do have to go to some ugly places in your own mind. An elitist is basically a person who went to those places and discovered that he liked it there.

  Read Globalist Publications

  As noted above, the globalists have their own media outlets in which they publish their “views”, such as Foreign Policy Magazine, The Economist, Bloomberg, Reuters, etc. Sometimes these views are honest and sometimes they are calculated propaganda. Again, if you know exactly what the elitist targets are, then you can better discern if what they are saying is legitimate or a feint to distract you.

  I predicted the success of the Brexit and the Trump win based on the knowledge that:

  1) The globalists need a large scale crisis in order to drastically change public perceptions on society and governance. That is to say, they need to create a crisis so terrifying that people will be willing to accept a fully centralized global economic system and global governance as a solution.

  2) The globalists have already set in motion an economic crisis that cannot be reversed. It is a crisis that they must avoid blame for at all costs once it accelerates.

  3) Conservative and sovereignty principles are the primary threat to the dominance of globalism. As long as ideas of individualism, national sovereignty and decentralization exist, globalism can never truly prevail. Therefore, obstructing movements based on these principles is not enough. The globalists must also destroy any positive perceptions of our principles for generations to come.

  4) As stated in the section on chess, the globalists like to use the strategy of forced sacrifice, in which they threaten two targets simultaneously, or kill two birds with one stone. I realized at the beginning of 2016 that all the rhetoric by globalists in their own publications on the “rise of populism” was staging the groundwork for the success of the Brexit and the success of Trump. What better strategy for the establishment than to allow conservative movements to take the helm of the political and economic ship just as that ship is about to sink? In this way, the globalists can have the crisis they need, while at the same time scapegoating conservatives and avoiding blame, and, destroying the image of conservative ideals, perhaps forever.

  Have No Sacred Cows

  This is a hard one for many people. We all have certain biases and these biases can blind us to reality. The overreaching bias within the liberty movement is a desire for heroic leadership. We have grown up on stories of heroes from George Washington to Thomas Jefferson – grand statesmen and military giants that crushed tyranny. The problem is, while men like Washington and Jefferson were indeed instrumental, they were nothing without the hundreds of thousands of unsung patriots working tirelessly for freedom on their own.

  The founding fathers were not considered the founding fathers until long after the American Revolution was over. At the time, they were not thought of necessarily as heroes or even great leaders. They were just men, like many other men, gambling life and liberty on a cause that was uncertain at best.

  Activists need to STOP looking around for mighty leaders and start taking leadership themselves in their own way. If we do end up with another Washington or Jefferson or Paine or Madison, etc., we will not know who they are until the fight is over and the history books are written.

  The globalists take full advantage of the movement's weakness in seeking out and artificially elevating heroes. Also, when people have this bias, they end up with blinders when examining such heroes with any skepticism. Obviously I am referring to Donald Trump, here.

  Sacred cows prevent accurate predictions of major events because a person will refuse to consider them as a potential negative factor.

  Moving Beyond Predictions

  It is one thing to be able to predict the outcome of social and political events; it is another matter to do something about them. In my next article I will outline solutions liberty activists can pursue on their own and in groups to counter globalist activity. Predicting their tactics is essential, but acting to disrupt those tactics should be the ultimate goal.

  The globalists believe that even if some of us do manage to decipher their activities and methods, we will have no means to do anything about them. They see themselves as the “history makers”, as the men who act. They see us as the “history watchers”, or the meaningless masses wafting about with geopolitical tides, helpless and incapable of determining our own destinies. I believe we will become history makers in due course. One weakness of the globalists that will sabotage them is their own hubris. They see people as pawns – but what happens when a piece walks off the chess board completely and acts in an unpredictable way? It is this potential alone that will destroy the globalists in the end.

  

  

• Man Who Stole $1.6 Million Bucket Full Of Gold In Midtown Manhattan Has Been Captured

  The most brazen, fascinating gold heist of the year, if not the decade, is now closed.

  Recall that in late November, we reported that in what may have been one of the most brazen thefts in Manhattan’s jewelry district, a man calculatedly swiped an 86-pound bucket full of gold worth $1.6 million from the back of an unattended Loomis armored truck on West 48th Street in the Diamond District on Sept. 29, in broad daylight, as tourists and locals were walking in and out of the jewelry stores that line the block. The suspect, described as 5 feet 6 inches tall, 150 pounds and in his 50s, managed to get away without a hitch. The police suspected that the unidentified man was lying low in Orlando or Miami until things blow over in the Big Apple. The whole incident was caught on closed-circuit camera.

  Then, one month ago, the police said they had not only identified the man, but speculated that the gold thief had moved on from Florida, and may have fled to California. NYPD identified the man as Julio Nivelo, and was believed to be – as of late December – in Los Angeles.

  NYPD Det. Martin Pastor said Nivelo, 53, is a convicted felon who’s known to the NYPD as Luis Toledo, among other aliases. He’s a career thief who’s been arrested seven times and deported four times to his native Ecuador, according to Pastor. 

  Nivelo, a native of Ecuador, fled to Orlando, before heading to California, WNBC reported. Nivelo, who was living in West New York, N.J., at the time of the theft, had previously been arrested seven times and deported four times, the station reported.

  

  In the end, it turns out that Nivello was not in Los Angeles, but had fled all the way back to his native Ecuador, where, as NBC 4 New York reported, he was finally arrested according to law enforcement sources.

  Authorities had been looking for Nivelo for months, with the manhunt leading police to Nivelo’s residence in West New York, New Jersey, to Orlando, to Los Angeles before detectives from the major case squad headed to Ecuador. Nivelo was arrested there Thursday morning by federal agents with Homeland Security Investigations and The National Police of Ecuador.

  He was arrested without incident after he sent the NYPD on a months-long search across the globe. It wasn’t clear when he would be extradited to New York to face charges. Police say they have recovered some of the money. 

  Before he was captured, Jalopnik reported that Nivelo was a truck cargo-stealing veteran and mastermind. He had allegedly ripped off many other trucks before he finally hit the golden jackpot in September.

  And so, as NBC 4 puts it, ends the saga of one of the luckiest, most brazen thefts to capture our collective imagination in some time. However, now that he has shown how easily it can be done, we expect the next such brazen “truck theft” to take place in the not too distant future.

  

  

• Fakewood EXPOSED: Where Fake News began

  With the internet rife with “Fake News” – Fake Profiles, fake comments, and fake just about everything; let’s do what an intelligence analyst should do (that is, analyze and not just do whatever his client pays him to do).  And, the first step before collecting current information is to understand the history.  In our case, the history of “Fake News” in USA at least, goes back to the days of WW1 (that’s World War 1) and became mainstream, during WW2.  Fake News as they are calling it, has since then been part of an information arsenal in any ground based propaganda campaign, even before the days of Edward Bernays.  Taking the most basic first step, let’s look at Wikipedia under the entry “Propaganda”:

  The first large-scale use of propaganda by the U.S. government came during World War I. The government enlisted the help of citizens and children to help promote war bonds and stamps to help stimulate the economy. To keep the prices of war supplies down (guns, gunpowder, cannons, steel, etc.), the U.S. government produced posters that encouraged people to reduce waste and grow their own vegetables in “victory gardens”. The public skepticism that was generated by the heavy-handed tactics of the Committee on Public Information would lead the postwar government to officially abandon the use of propaganda.[1]

  While they ‘abandoned’ the use of ‘Propaganda’ this later became ‘marketing’ – geniuses like Edward Bernays would then come into play, with their understanding of psychological nuances that can split hairs on fleas.  Use of the English language in particular, combined with hidden images in photography, and other dirty tricks, can lull any average IQ citizen into believing whatever the campaign says.  Take a look at what “Propaganada” used to look like:

  

  OK, it was WW1 but still, they’ve come a long way, baby!  

  Today’s Propaganda is 3d in real time.  The CIA has video technology by the way, rumored to be used to make Bin Laden videos when they knew he was dead, that could create a lifelike “Bin Laden” or whatever character to speak and say what they type in real time in 3d (but actually it’s broadcast on 2d, making it look all that more realistic).

  This article is about Propaganda you say?  What are some “Fake News” events of the day, back in the day?

  Orsen Wells War of the Worlds Alien Invasion

  Fake News started World War 1 – “Zimmerman Telegram” 

  Fake News “Weapons of Mass Destruction Found in Iraq” remember that one?

  Here’s an NY Times history of “Fake News” although they are not the most credible news agency to create such a list, being guitly of peddling it themselves.

  The real “Fake News” industry however, began in Hollywood, California.. around the time of WW2 and continues to this day.  It was the epic creation of creative producers, filmed at the big studios.  One secret agreement it’s rumored:

  “If you can help us fake the moon landing, we’ll put one of yours in the White House [Ronald Reagan]” – unknown CIA agent.

  The amount of Propaganda and Fake News created by Hollywood in that time is so large, there’s an entire topic on the subject here, with many films listed on a list “Allied Propaganda Films”.  You see, during that time, Propaganda was considered a good thing, because it was ‘good for the country’ to ‘help people realize’ how important it was to go to war!  It wasn’t until the 60’s when the youth started to ‘tune in, drop out’ that the dark side of Propaganda was exposed for what it was.  And with all the Nazi scientists now living and working in the USA, there wasn’t any ‘evil empire’ anymore, so it was soon realized that ‘our good propaganda’ was not much different than Hitler’s ‘evil’ propaganda except that of course, it was in English.  

  Hollywood’s connection to Washington is explained well in films like “Wag the Dog” and we elaborated on that in this article here on Zero Hedge.  But it goes MUCH DEEPER than that.  Where to begin?

  In every major newsroom in America, major meaning like the biggies like CNN not your local weather channel – there’s a paid CIA/NSA employee sitting near the editor keeping an eye on the content.  They send out daily ‘talking points’ to journalists to include certain ‘keywords’ in their speech.  This was used during the election in full force.

  In films, especially those about business, war, the government, or rights issues – there’s always a ‘military consultant’ who is again, part of the same department, at CIA/NSA.  

  Have you noted recently, in Hollywood films, and TV series – over the last few years there’s been a large amount of “Russian/Ukrainian” villians and they’re always bad people?  As 10 years ago it was always Mussamad Bin Galafi Turban?  That’s because the Terrorist script has run it’s course, now that Bin Laden was ‘killed’ in spirit anyway, new enemies needed to foment, and the new enemies are Russians.  Hollywood contributed more to the anti-Russian sentiment in America now than the current ‘Fake News’ about the Russian hacking.  

  How it works.  90% of Americans have a TV and watch it, even if they don’t (it’s on in the house).  Maybe the kids watch a show, or movie – there’s a Russian character who is evil, horrible, person.  He speaks with a deep, rough, raspy voice as if he just finished his third pack of smokes for the day, hasn’t shaven, and uses foul language.  It’s a character anyone would hate!  And truely, the character is portrayed as a terrible person, people should hate him.  That’s how Television “Programming” works.  So then weeks later, on CNN they broadcast “Russia Hacks the DNC” and the unsuspecting parent, not consciously knowing what is going on in their subconscious mind, thinks “Oh, I know the type, like in this film.  Dirty Scoundrels!”

  Don’t take our word for it, listen to Larry Johnson, retired CIA:

  US animosity directed at Russia is misdirected anger, said Larry Johnson, retired CIA and State Department official. The propaganda plays upon the ignorance of US people, who know little of Russia and the history of its relations with the US, he added.

  Even the MSM picked up on this, asking in 2014 “Why are RUSSIANS always the bad guys?”

  From a sadistic former KGB operative in The Avengers to the Russian evildoers in A Good Day to Die Hard, there’s certainly been no shortage of Russian villains on screen recently. Russian politicians and filmmakers have now made clear their displeasure with the US movie industry’s ongoing depictions of Russian characters as villains. There has even been the threat of a Russian boycott of Hollywood movies, highlighting the risk studios take when they demonise a nationality.

  And finally – “Thrillist” of all publications put a timeline on it, yes, it started in 2010.  “Why are Russians the greatest Villians of all time?”

  Since 2010 alone, Russian bad guys have appeared in such action flicks as John Wick, The Equalizer, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, The November Man, A Good Day to Die Hard, Jack Reacher, Limitless, Salt, The Drop, and The Tourist. Hell, even The Muppets piled on with Tina Fey’s gulag guard in Muppets Most Wanted. And this month we have two more: the Casey Affleck vehicle Triple 9, featuring the Russian mob, and Zoolander 2, featuring what appears to be a Russian Kristen Wiig.

  It’s one year before the official ‘capture’ Fake News event regarding Bin Laden.  You see, Bin Laden was like the Villian of a big comic book story, so the Hollywood script writers knew that there would be no replacing Bin Laden.  He was just bigger than life.  So they needed to plant the seeds while they planned operation capture & kill Bin Laden.

  Connect the dots – it’s not so hard!  Hollywood, or should we call it FakeWood, has been the Prime Mover of the “Fake News” movement.  

  For some FREE documents and tools about how the CIA/NSA operates with Hollywood, checkout Global Intel Hub’s Library.

  To learn how this impacts the markets, checkout Splitting Pennies – Understanding Forex.  Learn how big news agencies create “Fake News” that drops the Great British Pound – only to make a few quid!

  

  

• Ethics Group Will Sue Trump On Monday Over Foreign Government Payments

  Trump is barely two days in office, and already a lawsuit is set to be filed against the newly inaugurated president. According to press reports, a group of lawyers, including former White House ethics attorneys will file a lawsuit on Monday accusing the President of allowing his businesses to accept payments from foreign governments in violation of the U.S. Constitution.

  Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) announced Sunday night it is bringing a suit “to stop President Trump from violating the Constitution by illegally receiving payments from foreign governments.” The group said the suit will be filed in the Southern District of New York at 9 a.m. on Monday.

  Piggybacking on popular displeasure with the Clinton Foundation likewise accepting hundreds of millions in foreign payments, Deepak Gupta, a Supreme Court litigator working on the case, said the lawsuit will allege that the Constitution’s emoluments clause forbids payments to Trump’s businesses and will seek a court order forbidding Trump from accepting such payments. The case is part of a wave of litigation expected to be filed against Trump by liberal advocacy groups. It will be filed in a Manhattan federal court, Gupta said, and plaintiffs will include Richard Painter, a former ethics lawyer in Republican President George W. Bush’s White House.

  “We did not want to get to this point. It was our hope that President Trump would take the necessary steps to avoid violating the Constitution before he took office,” CREW Executive Director Noah Bookbinder said. “He did not. His constitutional violations are immediate and serious, so we were forced to take legal action.”

  “President Trump has made his slogan ‘America First,’” Bookbinder added. “So you would think he would want to strictly follow the Constitution’s foreign emoluments clause, since it was written to ensure our government officials are thinking of Americans first, and not foreign governments.”

  The litigation will focus on Trump’s refusal to divest from his business or place his assets into a blind trust, which would separate him entirely from his business empire. He has said his adult sons will run his business while he is in office, that they will not conduct any foreign deals and will subject any domestic deals to an ethics review.

  The group says that because Trump has not divested from his businesses, he is “now getting cash and favors from foreign governments, through guests and events at his hotels, leases in his buildings, and valuable real estate deals abroad.”

  Meanwhile, Trump lawyer Sheri Dillon recently said that under the business plan, Trump will not be in violation of the Constitution’s “Emoluments Clause.” “Paying for a hotel room is not a gift or a present, and has nothing to do with an office,” she said. “It is not an emolument. The Constitution does not require President-elect Trump to do anything here.”

  But, as The Hill notes, CREW charges that because Trump does business with such countries as China, India, Indonesia, and the Philippines, “now that he is President, his company’s acceptance of any benefits from the governments of those countries violates the Constitution.” It also warns that, “When Trump the president sits down to negotiate trade deals with these countries, the American people will have no way of knowing whether he will also be thinking about the profits of Trump the businessman.”

  The lawyers behind action include constitutional law professors Laurence Tribe and Erwin Chemerinsky, as well as former White House ethics lawyers and CREW board members Norm Eisen and Richard Painter, as well as Bookbinder, Zephyr Teachout and Deepak Gupta.

  Trump’s son Eric responded, telling the Times on Sunday that the company had taken more steps than required by law to avoid any possible legal exposure, such as agreeing to donate any profits collected at Trump-owned hotels that come from foreign government guests to the U.S. Treasury. “This is purely harassment for political gain,” Trump told the newspaper.

  It may be, but it will also be yet another major distraction for Trump as he prepares to unveil his various stimulus packages. Furthermore, should a adversarial judge be appointedon the case, it is possible that the case will drag out extensively, leading to even more damage for the administration, and even more confusion and chaos for markets, which may be why

  

  

• "10 Things Learned From 3 Days In Washington D.C."

  Submitted by John Mauldin via MauldinEconomics.com,

  I have been in Washington DC for the last three days. The ostensible reason was to participate in a board meeting of a public company, Ashford Inc. (AINC). We manage hotel REITs that own three hotels here in DC, and the group decided to move our board meeting up a few weeks and hold it in DC during the inauguration. That gave me the opportunity to set up a few meetings to try to gain some insight into what the first 100 days, the first six months, and the first year of the Trump administration might look like.

  This is going to be a short letter summarizing my impressions from the last few days. I think it might be easiest to present them in the form of a list.

  1. If you listen to the media you might have the impression that the Trump transition team is in complete disarray. Talking with leaders of the transition team certainly didn’t leave me with that impression. They have broken the transition process down into over 30 departments and have created a “landing document” for each department. The analogy they are using is that this process is like planning an invasion, and they are going to hand the landing document off to the “beachhead teams” who will then execute the plans.

  I was briefly allowed to look at (without actually being able to read) the plan for one cabinet-level department. It appeared to be about 100 pages plus of serious detail as to exactly what executive orders would need to be removed and added, what personnel would have to be replaced (both appointees and regular staff), what policies would need to be changed, and so forth.

   

  I was told that this level of planning was being done for every department. My impression is that there are a lot of people from various think tanks and others with experience in the presidential transition process who are involved in directing the plan for each department. That level of detailed planning doesn’t happen in less than two months. My guess is that some of that thinking has been going on for years, and now it can be implemented.

   

  That being said, we know that no battle plan survives contact with the enemy; and it was instructive to sit with Bill Bennett, who talked about his experience in trying to reform the Department of Education under Reagan. They were still dealing with personnel and policy issues a year later, and this was when the department was much smaller than it is today. And that is just one department.

   

  When I asked a key person how much of the overall plan would likely come to fruition, I got a rueful smile and a shrug. “If we even get half of this done in the first few years, that will be major reform.”

  2. There seem to be two general types of agency plans.

  First, there are those where the culture of the department has to be changed, and then are those where the current staff seems to be doing its job but the culture surrounding the department has to be dealt with.

   

  Those are entirely different issues. The first can be handled to some degree by the executive branch, but the latter needs to be dealt with by congressional action.

  3. Trump’s management style is going to drive the media (and admittedly, much of the country and the world) nuts.

  One person who has worked closely with Trump during the transition says it is a lot like the HBO show Entourage and not at all like the British sitcom Yes, Minister. Trump will have people in his entourage competing to give him the pieces of information he needs. In his business organization, he sets the vision and then hires people to execute that vision; and then he goes back to doing what we have seen him do so well, which is to create the brand and image.

   

  He is bringing in people to execute his vision, and he’s going to expect them to get it done. He will jump in when he thinks he’s needed or when he can add something to the process, but he will mostly be paying attention to his team’s performance.

   

  One assessment suggests that there is going to be more than the usual amount of personnel turnover in the first six months. The media will be writing about how Trump can’t keep people and about all the chaos in the White House and other parts of government. But from Trump’s perspective, and given his management style, that’s not necessarily bad in terms of his longer-term goal of changing things.

   

  We have not had a president with this type of management style in my lifetime. Since it’s not something that any of us are going to be familiar with, it is going to make some of us uncomfortable until we get used to it (and some people never will).

  4. Everyone in the new administration and Congress agrees there is going to be significant tax reform. That is where the agreement ends. There is absolutely no consensus on what that tax reform should actually look like. Among members of the US Congress and others you would think should know, the universal answer is “I have no idea.”

  I will candidly admit that some of the tax ideas I’ve been reading about make me nervous. The wrong type of tax reform can do serious damage to the economy. One of the few things that nearly all economists can agree on is that getting the incentive structure correct is critical. I am not sure that some of the people who seem to be in a position to influence the proposals really understand the importance of incentives and the impact they could have on trade and business.

   

  Part of the reason the market is up and that optimism levels are up in all the polls is that people have high expectations about the nature and depth of the tax reform we’ll get. Failure to deliver something that at least comes close to meeting those expectations is going to have a significant negative impact, not just on the economy but also on the markets. I don’t know how long the new administration will have to “stand and deliver.”

  5. Everyone seems absolutely convinced that Obamacare will be repealed; but there are considerable differences in the plans that would replace it.

  My guess is that we are going to get substantial relief for small businesses and move towards more significant health savings accounts. There will not be a single mandate for an insurance company to cover all sorts of things. A 55-year-old woman is not going to have to purchase insurance that has prenatal care in it. People will have much more ability to tailor insurance to their own personal needs. This should help a great deal on costs to individuals and businesses, but it doesn’t deal with the overall cost of the system.

  6. Dodd–Frank is going to be restructured.

  It is also very likely that the new DOL rule on fiduciaries and ERISA plans will at least be postponed if not significantly changed. On a personal note, there are parts of the DOL fiduciary rules that make sense, and I support them. But it appears to me that DOL was trying to make a one-size-fits-all rule that was just a bridge too far.

  7. Steve Moore passed on a story to me.

  He and my friend Larry Kudlow were meeting with Trump, and Trump asked them if they would like to be part of his economic advisory team during the campaign. They looked at each other and back at Mr. Trump and said something to the effect of, “You can’t use us. We believe in free trade.” And Trump then said, “But we agree on nearly everything else. Let’s agree to disagree on trade and figure out where we can work together.”

   

  Not many presidents are willing to have that level of disagreement from the outset. That is somewhat comforting to me. I will admit that, having asked a few questions of people who have interacted with Peter Navarro, he still makes me very nervous.

  8. There is a general understanding on the part of nearly everyone I talked to that the biggest problems are going to be in dealing with the entrenched bureaucracy.

  It is highly likely that Congress will pass legislation that requires any department making a ruling that could cost over $100 million to get congressional approval for that rule.

   

  Given the recent ruling by the Second Court of Appeals that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau does not meet the constitutional requirement for government oversight and that the law concerning it has to be changed, it is highly likely that the CFPB will be overhauled and reformed.

  9. There are literally thousands of presidential appointees that don’t have to be approved by the Senate…

  but the proper procedure is to wait until the cabinet-level officers and senior management are in place so that they can have input on those appointments. If you expect appointees to run a department or agency, you need to give them the people they want.

  10. Congress has been passing literally hundreds of pieces of legislation, knowing full well they would be vetoed and never see the light of day.

  Not all of these will be brought back up, as the Republicans were counting on Obama vetoing them. But I think we will see a great deal of legislation passed in the first six months to one year. These are bills that have already been through committee and have enough support to get action.

  I have met three types of people here in Washington DC. There are the Trump supporters, who seem to be wildly optimistic. On the other hand, as I look out my window here at the Capital Hilton, I see hundreds if not thousands of protesters walking by wearing little pink hats, and they are decidedly not happy. The third group is much smaller and consists of those who are actually aware of the amount of work that is going to have to be done and who recognize what a daunting task it will be.

  On Monday some 538 people who are the initial members of the transition beachhead teams will show up in offices all over the country, but mostly in DC. It is going to be quite some time before we begin to see much change and can begin to figure out what that change will actually look like.

  I’m not going to offer my thoughts on the inaugural speeches and events, as my political leanings are really not the focus of this letter. Next week we’ll return to the arena of economics and let the political commentators do all the talking they want to do in the arena of politics. But in the areas where politics and economics intersect – an intersection that seems to be expanding – we may have to revisit the political arena again.

  

  

• Pope Francis Warns Against "Saviours" Like Hitler, But Says "We Must Wait And See" On Trump

  In an extended interview with Spanish newspaper El Pais granted as Donald Trump was being sworn in as US president, Pope Francis warned against populism, saying it could lead to the election of “saviors” like Hitler, while condemning the idea of using walls and barbed wire to keep out foreigners.

  

  Joining the long ranks of pundits who have compared Trump to Hitler – if indirectly – and Trump’s regime, only in its second day to fascism, the pontiff said that “of course crises provoke fears and worries,” but added that for him “the example of populism in the European sense of the word is Germany in 1933 “Germany… was looking for a leader, someone who would give her back her identity and there was a little man named Adolf Hitler who said ‘I can do it’.”

  “Hitler didn’t steal the power,” the pope said “his people voted for him, and then he destroyed his people.” The Germans at that time also wanted to protect themselves with “walls and barbed wire so that others cannot take away their identity,” he said.

  “The case of Germany is classic,” he said, adding that Hitler gave them a “deformed identity and we know what it produced.”

  Then, having made it clear how he feels about Trump, the Pope tried to back down, saying that it was too early to pass judgement on Trump. “I think that we must wait and see. “I don’t like to aniticpate events. Let us see what he does, we can’t be prophets of disasters.” Well, actually, if the Pope is right, Trump can, which is why he won.

  Some highlights from the interview:
  

  Q. Your Holiness, about the world’s problems that you have just mentioned, Donald Trump has just become the president of the US, and the whole world is tense because of it. What do you think about that?

  A. I think that we must wait and see. I don’t like to get ahead of myself nor judge people prematurely. We will see how he acts, what he does, and then I will have an opinion. But being afraid or rejoicing beforehand because of something that might happen is, in my view, quite unwise. It would be like prophets predicting calamities or windfalls that will not be either. We will see. We will see what he does and will judge. Always on the specific. Christianity, either is specific or it is not Christianity.

  It is interesting that the first heresy in the Church took place just after the death of Jesus Christ. The gnostic heresy, condemned by the apostle John. Which was what I call a spray religiousness, a non-specific religiousness. Yes, me, spirituality, the law… but nothing concrete. No, no way. We need specifics. And from the specific we can draw consequences. We lose sense of the concrete. The other day, a thinker was telling me that this world is so upside down that it needs a fixed point. And those fixed points stem from the concrete. What did you do, what did you decide, how do you move. That is what I prefer to wait and see.

  * * *

  Q. Both in Europe and in America, the repercussions of the crisis that never ends, the growing inequalities, the absence of strong leadership are giving way to political groups that reflect on the citizens’ malaise. Some of them —the so-called anti-system or populists— capitalize on the fears in face of an uncertain future in order to form a message full of xenophobia and hatred towards the foreigner. Trump’s case is the most noteworthy, but there are others such as Austria or Switzerland. Are you worried about this phenomenon?

  A. That is what they call populism. Which is an equivocal term, because, in Latin America, populism has another meaning. In Latin America, it means that the people —for instance, people’s movements— are the protagonists. They are self-organized, it is something else. When I started to hear about populism in Europe I didn’t know what to make of it, I got lost, until I realized that it had different meanings. Crises provoke fear, alarm. In my opinion, the most obvious example of European populism is Germany in 1933. After [Paul von] Hindenburg, after the crisis of 1930, Germany is broken, it needs to get up, to find its identity, a leader, someone capable of restoring its character, and there is a young man named Adolf Hitler who says: “I can, I can”. And all Germans vote for Hitler. Hitler didn’t steal the power, his people voted for him, and then he destroyed his people. That is the risk. In times of crisis, we lack judgment, and that is a constant reference for me. Let’s look for a savior who gives us back our identity and lets defend ourselves with walls, barbed-wire, whatever, from other peoples that may rob us of our identity. And that is a very serious thing. That is why I always try to say: talk among yourselves, talk to one another. But the case of Germany in 1933 is typical, a people that was immersed in a crisis, that looked for its identity until this charismatic leader came and promised to give their identity back, and he gave them a distorted identity, and we all know what happened. Where there is no conversation… Can borders be controlled? Yes, each country has the right to control its borders, who comes and who goes, and those countries at risk —from terrorism or such things— have even more the right to control them more, but no country has the right to deprive its citizens of the possibility to talk with their neighbors.

  * * *

  Q. Both in Europe and in America, the repercussions of the crisis that never ends, the growing inequalities, the absence of strong leadership are giving way to political groups that reflect on the citizens’ malaise. Some of them —the so-called anti-system or populists— capitalize on the fears in face of an uncertain future in order to form a message full of xenophobia and hatred towards the foreigner. Trump’s case is the most noteworthy, but there are others such as Austria or Switzerland. Are you worried about this phenomenon?

  A. That is what they call populism. Which is an equivocal term, because, in Latin America, populism has another meaning. In Latin America, it means that the people —for instance, people’s movements— are the protagonists. They are self-organized, it is something else. When I started to hear about populism in Europe I didn’t know what to make of it, I got lost, until I realized that it had different meanings. Crises provoke fear, alarm. In my opinion, the most obvious example of European populism is Germany in 1933. After [Paul von] Hindenburg, after the crisis of 1930, Germany is broken, it needs to get up, to find its identity, a leader, someone capable of restoring its character, and there is a young man named Adolf Hitler who says: “I can, I can”. And all Germans vote for Hitler. Hitler didn’t steal the power, his people voted for him, and then he destroyed his people. That is the risk. In times of crisis, we lack judgment, and that is a constant reference for me. Let’s look for a savior who gives us back our identity and lets defend ourselves with walls, barbed-wire, whatever, from other peoples that may rob us of our identity. And that is a very serious thing. That is why I always try to say: talk among yourselves, talk to one another. But the case of Germany in 1933 is typical, a people that was immersed in a crisis, that looked for its identity until this charismatic leader came and promised to give their identity back, and he gave them a distorted identity, and we all know what happened. Where there is no conversation… Can borders be controlled? Yes, each country has the right to control its borders, who comes and who goes, and those countries at risk —from terrorism or such things— have even more the right to control them more, but no country has the right to deprive its citizens of the possibility to talk with their neighbors.

  Full interview in English link

  

  

• WikiLeaks Slams Trump, Urges Hackers To Reveal His Tax Returns

  Perhaps in an attempt to demonstrate its impartiality, on Sunday WikiLeaks tweeted a request to worldwide hackers to release President Donald Trump’s tax returns after counselor Kellyanne Conway told ABC Trump will not be releasing the controversial files after all. The whistleblower site, which was blasted during the US election campaign for only releasing material damaging to the Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, tweeted the request with a link to its submission page.

  Trump Counselor Kellyanne Conway stated today that Trump will not release his tax returns. Send them to: https://t.co/cLRcuIiQXz so we can.

  — WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) January 22, 2017

  Curiously, in a second tweet, Wikileaks risked further antagonizing the president many have said it was instrumental in helping him get elected in the first place, when it compared the newly inaugurated president’s breach of promise to release his tax returns comparable to Clinton hiding her Goldman Sachs speech transcripts.

  Trump’s breach of promise over the release of his tax returns is even more gratuitous than Clinton concealing her Goldman Sachs transcripts.

  — WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) January 22, 2017

  During the campaign, Trump repeatedly refused to release his tax information to the public saying they were under audit but pledged to do so after this process was complete. That changed, however, on Sunday when Conway confirmed Sunday in an interview on ABC’s This Week, that he has no plans to do this, stating people don’t care. “The White House response is that he’s not going to release his tax returns,” she said.

  While presidents are not required to disclose their tax returns, all US presidents since Nixon have done so voluntarily. A petition was launched the day of Trump’s inauguration calling for the release of his tax returns. It quickly reached the 100,000 signatures required to get a response from the White House.

  WikiLeaks’ request has prompted mixed reaction among its followers, with many stating they do not care about Trump’s taxes…

  @wikileaks President Trump was a private citizen of the U.S. with rights to privacy! Wikileaks should understand and respect said privacy!

  — TJSLATS (@s_hand3485) January 22, 2017

  …. while others emphasized the wider public want the files released…

  To all those who “don’t care,” you’re in the minority, and the rest of us don’t care how *you* feel. #PersonalResponsibility @wikileaks pic.twitter.com/6jDwVNjdKS

  — xerophile (@segmentis) January 22, 2017

  …. yet others accused Wikileaks of doing “too little, too late”, circling back to the left with an empty gesture to get on side with liberals again.

  @wikileaks Wait what? I thought you were DJTs best friend. What happened?

  — Rahul Sood (@rahulsood) January 22, 2017

  @wikileaks Nice try, but it’s too late to backpedal. You’ll forever be tied to Trump’s election.

  — KoolaidUSA (@KoolaidUSA) January 22, 2017

  @wikileaks Wikileaks is trolling the Liberals/Left right now with the recent tweets haha.

  — Scr1nRusher (@Scr1nRusher) January 22, 2017

  @wikileaks this isn’t going to win back the left. You’re Russian spies now, just accept it.

  — Adam Blade (@Red_Mage23) January 22, 2017

  

  

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• In Speech to a the CIA, Trump Offers to Build Them a Room Without Columns: ‘Do You Understand That?’

  At the end of Trump’s speech to a room filled with 400 employees of the CIA, Trump said, rather cryptically, that maybe he’d build them a bigger room ‘by someone who knows how to build and we won’t have columns, do you understand that?’
   
  
  Here is the full speech.
   
  For those of you who are fucking retards and haven’t the slightest clue what that could mean, I suggest you read up on the fifth column theories — which are essentially the existence of a shadow government.
   

  A fifth column is any group of people who undermine a larger group—such as a nation or a besieged city—from within, usually in favor of an enemy group or nation. The activities of a fifth column can be overt or clandestine. Forces gathered in secret can mobilize openly to assist an external attack. This term is also extended to organized actions by military personnel. Clandestine fifth column activities can involve acts of sabotage, disinformation, or espionage executed within defense lines by secret sympathizers with an external force.

  Indeed. A new room, built by a capable architect, without columns, sounds awfully good to me.

  
  

  Content originally generated at iBankCoin.com

  

• How The New York Times Plays With History

  Submitted by Robert Parry via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

  Whenever The New York Times or some other mainstream news outlet holds itself out as a paragon of professional journalism – by wagging a finger at some pro-Trump “fake news” or some Internet “conspiracy theory” – I cringe at the self-delusion and hypocrisy.

  No one hates fake news and fact-free conspiracy theories more than I do, but the sad truth is that the mainstream press has opened the door to such fantasies by losing the confidence of the American people and becoming little more than the mouthpiece for the Establishment, which spins its own self-serving narratives and tells its own lies.

  Rather than acting as a watchdog against these deceptions, the Times and its mainstream fellow-travelers have transformed themselves into little more than the Establishment’s apologists and propagandists.

  If Iraq is the “enemy,” we are told wild tales about how Iraq’s non-existent WMD is a danger to us all. If Syria is in Washington’s crosshairs, we are given a one-sided account of what’s happening there, black hats for the “regime” and white hats for the “rebels”?

  If the State Department is backing a coup in Ukraine to oust an elected leader, we are regaled with tales of his corruption and how overthrowing a democratically chosen leader is somehow “democracy promotion.” Currently, we are getting uncritical stenography on every conceivable charge that the U.S. government lodges against Russia.

  Yet, while this crisis in American journalism has grown more severe in recent years, the pattern is not entirely new. It is reflected in how the mainstream media has missed many of the most significant news stories of modern history and has, more often than not, been an obstacle to getting at the truth.

  Then, if the evidence finally becomes so overwhelming that continued denials are no longer tenable, the mainstream media tries to reclaim its tattered credibility by seizing on some new tidbit of evidence and declaring that all that went before were just rumors but now we can take the long whispered story seriously — because the Times says so.

  For instance, we have the case of Richard Nixon’s sabotage of President Lyndon Johnson’s Vietnam War peace talks in 1968 to give himself a crucial boost in a tight presidential race against Vice President Hubert Humphrey. In “real time” – both as Nixon was executing his maneuver and in the years immediately afterwards – there was reporting by second-tier newspapers and independent journalists into what Johnson privately called Nixon’s “treason,” but the Times and other “newspapers of record” treated the story as little more than a conspiracy theory.

  As the years went on and the case of Nixon’s guilt grew stronger and stronger, the story still never managed to cross the threshold for the Big Media to take it seriously.

  Definitive Evidence

  Several years ago, I compiled a detailed narrative of the 1968 events from material declassified by Johnson’s presidential library and I published the material at Consortiumnews.com. Not only did I draw from newly available recordings of Johnson’s phone calls but from a file of top secret wiretaps – labeled “The ‘X’ envelope” – which Johnson had ordered his national security adviser, Walt Rostow, to remove from the White House before Nixon’s inauguration.

  

  Walt Rostow’s “‘X’ Envelope”

  I also traced how Nixon’s paranoia about the missing White House file and who might possess it led him to assemble a team of burglars, known as the Plumbers, whose activities later surfaced in the Watergate scandal.

  In other words, by unraveling the mystery of Nixon’s 1968 “treason,” you change the narratives of the Vietnam War and Watergate, two of the pivotal issues of modern American history. But the mainstream U.S. media studiously ignored these new disclosures.

  Just last November, in a review of past “October Surprise” cases – in the context of FBI Director James Comey telling Congress that the FBI had reopened its investigation of Hillary Clinton’s emails – the Times offered this summary of the 1968 affair:

  “President Lyndon Baines Johnson announced a halt to bombing of North Vietnam, based on his claim that peace talks had ‘entered a new and a very much more hopeful phase,’ and he invited the government of South Vietnam and the Viet Cong to take part in negotiations. Raising hopes that the war might end soon, the announcement appeared to bolster the standing in the polls of Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey, the Democratic presidential nominee, but Humphrey still fell short in the election against former Vice President Richard M. Nixon, the Republican.”

  In other words, the Times treated Johnson’s bombing halt and claim of peace-talk progress as the “October Surprise” to try to influence the election in favor of Humphrey. But the evidence now is clear that a peace agreement was within reach and that the “October Surprise” was Nixon’s sabotage of the negotiations by persuading South Vietnamese President Nguyen van Thieu to boycott the Paris talks.

  The Times got the story upside-down by failing to reexamine the case in light of convincing new evidence that had been available for years, albeit circulating outside the mainstream.

  However, finally, that disdain for the story may be dissipating. Earlier this month, the Times highlighted in an op-ed and a follow-up news article cryptic notes from Nixon’s 1968 campaign revealing Nixon’s instructions to top aide H.R. Haldeman.

  Haldeman’s notes – discovered at the Nixon presidential library by historian John A. Farrell – reveal Nixon telling Haldeman “Keep Anna Chennault working on SVN,” meaning South Viet Nam and referring to the campaign’s chief emissary to the South Vietnamese government, right-wing Chinese émigré Anna Chennault.

  Nixon’s gambit was to have Chennault pass on word to South Vietnamese President Thieu that if he boycotted Johnson’s Paris peace talks – thus derailing the negotiations – Nixon would assure Thieu continued U.S. military support for the war.

  Monkey Wrench It

  Another Haldeman note revealed Nixon’s intent to get Senate Minority Leader Everett Dirksen, R-Illinois, to berate Johnson about a planned bombing halt while Nixon looked for “Any other way to monkey wrench it? Anything RN [Richard Nixon] can do.”

  

  President Lyndon Johnson accompanies President-elect Richard Nixon to his inauguration on Jan. 20, 1969

  Though Haldeman’s scribbling is sometimes hard to decipher, the next entry makes reference to “SVN” and adds: “tell him hold firm” – the same message that Anna Chennault later passed on to senior South Vietnamese officials in the last days of the 1968 campaign.

  Though Farrell’s discovery is certainly newsworthy, its greatest significance may be that it has served as a tipping point that finally has forced the Times and the mainstream media to move past their longstanding dismissals of this “conspiracy theory.”

  The Times gave Farrell space on its op-ed page of Jan. 1 to explain his discovery and the Times followed up with an inside-the-paper story about the Haldeman notes. That story included some favorable comments from mainstream writers, such as former Newsweek bureau chief Evan Thomas saying Farrell “nailed down what has been talked about for a long time.”

  Of course, the story of Nixon’s Vietnam peace-talk sabotage has been more than “talked about for a long time.” A series of journalists have pieced together the evidence, including some as the scheme was unfolding and others from digging through yellowed government files as they became available over the past couple of decades.

  But the major newspapers mostly brushed aside this accumulation of evidence apparently because it challenged their “authoritative” narrative of that era. As strange and vicious as some of Nixon’s paranoid behavior may have been, it seems to have been a bridge too far to suggest that he put his political ambitions ahead of the safety of a half million U.S. soldiers in the Vietnam war zone in 1968.

  For the American people to have been told that troubling truth might have profoundly shaken their trust in the Establishment, given the deaths of 58,000 U.S. soldiers in the Vietnam War, plus the killing of several million Vietnamese. (Nearly half of the dead were killed after Johnson’s peace talks failed and as Nixon lived up to his commitment to Thieu by extending the direct U.S. combat role for four more years.)

  [For more details, see Consortiumnews.com’s “LBJ’s ‘X-File’ on Nixon’s ‘Treason’” and “The Heinous Crime Behind Watergate.”]

  A Reprise

  But the mainstream media’s concealment of Nixon’s “treason” was not a stand-alone problem in terms of distorting recent U.S. history. If the American people had realized how far some top U.S. officials would go to achieve their political ambitions, they might have been more willing to believe other serious allegations of government wrongdoing.

  

  President Ronald Reagan, delivering his Inaugural Address on Jan. 20, 1981, as the 52 U.S. hostages in Iran are simultaneously released

  For instance, the evidence is now almost as overwhelming that Ronald Reagan’s campaign reprised Nixon’s 1968 gambit in 1980 by undermining President Jimmy Carter’s negotiations to free 52 American hostages then held in Iran, another well-documented “October Surprise” case that the mainstream media still labels a “conspiracy theory.”

  With more than two dozen witnesses – including U.S., Iranian, Israeli and other officials – describing aspects of that Republican behind-the-scenes deal, the reality of this “prequel” to Reagan’s later Iran-Contra arms-for-hostages scandal should be widely accepted as a real piece of modern American history.

  But a half-hearted congressional investigation in 1991-93 naively gave then-President George H.W. Bush the crucial job of assembling internal U.S. government records to confirm the allegations – despite the fact that Bush was a principal suspect in the 1980 operation.

  Several years ago, I uncovered documents from the Bush presidential library in College Station, Texas, showing how Bush’s White House staff organized a cover-up to conceal key evidence and hide a key witness from the investigation.

  One memo by one of Bush’s lawyers disclosed that the White House had received confirmation of a key October Surprise allegation – a secret trip by campaign chairman (and later CIA Director) William Casey to Madrid – but then withheld that information from congressional investigators. Documents also showed the White House frustrating attempts to interview former CIA officer Donald Gregg, a key witness.

  Another document bluntly set out the White House’s goal: “kill/spike this story” to protect Bush’s reelection chances in 1992.

  After I discovered the Madrid confirmation several years ago – and sent the document to former Rep. Lee Hamilton, who had headed the congressional inquiry which had concluded that there was no credible evidence supporting the allegations – he was stunned by the apparent betrayal of his trust.

  “The [Bush-41] White House did not notify us that he [Casey] did make the trip” to Madrid, Hamilton told me in an interview. Asked if knowledge that Casey had traveled to Madrid might have changed the investigation’s dismissive October Surprise conclusion, Hamilton said yes, because the question of the Madrid trip was central to the inquiry.

  Yet, to this day, both right-wing and mainstream media outlets cite the investigation’s inconclusive results as their central argument for defending Reagan and his legacy. However, if Nixon’s 1968 gambit – jeopardizing the lives of a half million U.S. soldiers – had been accepted as genuine history earlier, the evidence that Reagan endangered 52 U.S. embassy personnel might have seemed a lot easier to believe.

  As these longstanding cover-ups slowly crack and begin to crumble, the serious history behind them has started to show through in the mainstream media. For instance, on Jan. 3, during a CNN panel discussion about interference in U.S. presidential elections, popular historian Doug Brinkley added, “One point: 1980, Ronald Reagan was taking on Jimmy Carter, and there was the October Surprise meeting keeping the hostages in Iran. William Casey, people in the Reagan administration were interfering with foreign policy then saying, ‘Keep the hostages in until after the election.’ So it has happened before. It’s not just Nixon here or Donald Trump.”

  [For more details on the 1980 case, see Robert Parry’s America’s Stolen Narrative or Trick or Treason: The 1980 October Surprise Mystery or Consortiumnews.com’s “Second Thoughts on October Surprise.”]

  Contra-Cocaine Scandal

  But the denial of serious Establishment wrongdoing dies hard. For instance, The New York Times, The Washington Post and other major news outlets have long refused to accept the overwhelming evidence that Reagan’s beloved Nicaraguan Contra rebels engaged in cocaine trafficking under the benevolent gaze of the White House and the CIA.

  

  Then-Vice President George H.W. Bush with CIA Director William Casey at the White House on Feb. 11, 1981. (Photo credit: Reagan Library)

  My Associated Press colleague Brian Barger and I assembled a lot of that evidence in 1985 for the first story about this scandal, which undermined Reagan’s claims that he was fighting a relentless war on drugs. Back then, the Times also went to bat for the Establishment. Based on self-serving information from Reagan’s Justice Department, the Times knocked down our AP reporting. And, once the Times got taken in by its official sources, it and other mainstream publications carried on vendettas against anyone who dared contradict the accepted wisdom.

  So, when San Jose Mercury News reporter Gary Webb revived the Contra-cocaine story in 1996 — with evidence that some of that cocaine had fed into the “crack epidemic” — the Times and other big newspapers savaged Webb’s articles and destroyed his career. Not even an institutional confession by the CIA in 1998 that it had been aware of widespread Contra drug smuggling and looked the other way was enough to shake the mainstream media’s false conventional wisdom about the Contras’ and the CIA’s innocence.

  After the CIA inspector general reached his damning conclusions admitting knowledge of the drug-running, the Times did run a story acknowledging that there may have been more to the allegations than the newspaper had previously believed, but the same article kept up the bashing of Webb, who was drummed out of journalism and, nearly penniless, committed suicide in 2004.

  Despite the CIA admissions, The Washington Post also continued to deny the Contra-cocaine reality. When a movie about Webb’s ordeal, “Kill the Messenger,” was released in 2014, the Post’s investigative editor Jeff Leen kept up the paper’s long-running denial of the reality with a nasty new attack on Webb.

  Leen’s story was endorsed by the Post’s former executive editor Leonard Downie Jr., who circulated Leen’s take-down of Webb with the added comment: “I was at The Washington Post at the time that it investigated Gary Webb’s stories, and Jeff Leen is exactly right. However, he is too kind to a movie that presents a lie as fact.”

  [For more on Leen’s hit piece, see Consortiumnews.com’s “WPost’s Slimy Assault on Gary Webb.” For more on the Contra-cocaine story, see “The Sordid Contra-Cocaine Saga.”]

  Lies as Truth

  The fact that mainstream media “stars” lie in calling facts a lie – or they can’t distinguish between facts and lies – has contributed to a dangerous breakdown in the public’s ability to sort out what is and what is not real.

  Essentially, the problem is that the mainstream media has sought to protect the integrity of the Establishment by dismissing real cases of institutional criminality and abuse of power. However, by shoring up these defenses – rather than challenging systemic wrongdoing – the mainstream media has watched its own credibility erode.

  One might hope that someone in a position of power within the major news organizations would recognize this danger and initiate a sweeping reform, which might start by acknowledging some of the long-buried historical realities even if it puts Establishment icons, such as Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, in a negative light.

  But that is clearly not the direction that the mainstream U.S. news media is heading. Instead, the Times, the Post and other mainstream outlets continue to take whatever Establishment sources hand out – now including dubious and bizarre U.S. intelligence allegations about Russia and President-elect Donald Trump.

  Rather than join in demanding real evidence to support these claims, the mainstream media seems intent on simply channeling the Establishment’s contempt for both Russia and Trump. So, whatever is said – no matter how unlikely – merits front-page headlines.

  The end result, however, is to push more and more Americans into a state of confusion regarding what to believe. While some citizens may seek out honest independent journalism to get what they’re missing, others will surely fall prey to fake news and conspiracy theories.

  

  

• Raoul Pal Warns The Day Of Reckoning Looms For VIX Shorts: "Reminds Me Of Portfolio Insurance In 1987"

  ubmitted by Patrick Ceresna via Macrovoices.com,

   

  In a podcast interview on MacroVoices, Macro Guru Raoul Pal makes some comments on some of the biggest imbalances in the markets today. 

  

  He compares the VIX contango trade to the portfolio insurance problem that was blamed for the 1987 crash…

  • they don't realize the rate of change of the VIX can be so extraordinary that the losses can mount up massively and super quickly

  Pal then goes on to discuss the record level of speculative long positions in the oil markets compares to the conditions in the summer of 2014 prior to the bear market decline

  • The other thing was speculative position in crude oil was all time high in fact if I took the trend going back from the early 80's it was seven standard deviations above that trend and well over three standard deviations maybe four standard deviations from the trend in the last 20 years or 15 years.
  • I've seen a similar situation with copper driven by China and a few other things where copper position is wildly extreme and so I start to think well too much reflation is priced into these things maybe there’s an interesting opportunity on the short side
  • What is interesting oil volatility has been coming lower. Look, I don't think it's going to get back to where it was in 2014 when it was trading below 20 but it has come down from a peak of 80, a kind of a real trading range of 50 down to 30. If it comes any lower the ability to buy options start to make sense because oil volatility can go to 80 can go to a 100

  Full podcast:

  Excerpts of the interview:

  Erik:                One of the risk factors that we discussed last time was this crazy VIX contango trade where basically people are shorting VIX futures because each time they roll that contract forward they capture the contango by being short and they see it as a way to produce income. Of course, you know that's not just picking up nickels in front of a steamroller, that's pennies being pried out from under the steamroller and so far a big downdraft in equity prices has not happened which was the big risk that you saw there. You described how if there was a sudden downward move in equity prices it could really blow up in these guys' faces. Is that risk still in the system, is that trade still on or have people wised up and gotten out of it?

  Raoul:             No, that trade still goes on to this day and it reminds me a lot of the portfolio insurance stuff around 1987 or some of the kind of spread trade Low Vol trades that happens around 1998 people go over their ski tips with this stuff. They think it's all manageable and they think that OK we can sell VIX and if we lose money on that, we'll use this as an opportunity to buy stock because we've been taking in premiums but they don't realize the rate of change of the VIX can be so extraordinary that the losses can mount up massively and super quickly.

  

  So, I worry about that position. I worry about a whole world that sets up for low volatility when you've got a new administration that is almost unquantifiable. We don't know what kind of volatility should be under an administration like this but a relatively aggressive administration should create more volatility overall so at which case the generalized level of volatility should rise.

  

  If the past 20 years of global historical data is anything to go by, that 'awakening' of uncertainty is very bad news…

  

  Erik:                Well I’ll see if you want to grade me on the thoughts I have. The only real directional trade that I see right here is long the dollar index and I think we agree on that we've already discussed the reasons why.

  Beyond that the things I'm looking at there, if I look at the term structure of crude oil. We've got a fairly steep contango for a few months but then we see backwardation in the belly of the curve. So apparently, we're not going to need storage after June or July or so it's going to be a non-issue those tanks are going to be empty. I'm not buying that story.

  So I do see a curve steepener trade that is– I actually just bought a bunch of spreads short June, long December. Just thinking that at that point there was backwardation in that segment of the curve I don't think that's going to stay in backwardation I think by the time June gets here we're going to be looking at contango again.

  So that's one trade that I see the other one I'm kind of waiting for and I’m lining up quite a few dominoes here is I think that Trump is going to get tough with ISIS very quickly after entering office and I wouldn't be surprised if there's some kind of ultimatum, ISIS knock it off or else, and I think there's so much hysteria right now politically there's so many people with such polarized viewpoints that you could easily see a an overreaction, a massive upward spike in oil prices because a lot of paranoid people are convinced that Donald Trump is going to launch nuclear weapons on ISIS or something.

  I don't think that'll actually happen. If there was a $25 up spike in oil prices from here I would look at that as a very very ripe shorting opportunity because I don't think prices can go $25 higher and stay there because the shale revolution will be restarted, the bakken will be relaunched and those prices will come back down.

  So I don't want to bet on the up spike I'm not convinced it will happen if it does happen I'll definitely bet on the mean reversion. Frankly that's all I can really see at this point for trades.

  Raoul:             So to add on about oil. Oil is interesting to me because if you remember I made a very public forecast on oil way back in 2015 I think it was, when I said look I think oil is going to fall to $30 dollars a barrel it was like at 110 at the time and luckily it got there these things don’t always work out that way but it did and the reason I had a lot of faith was twofold one the dollar was going up and I thought it would go much higher which obviously is the normal nature of oil prices so that helps that.

  The other thing was speculative position in crude oil was all time high in fact if I took the trend going back from the early 80's it was seven standard deviations above that trend and well over three standard deviations maybe four standard deviations from the trend in the last 20 years or 15 years. So, the position was huge.

  

  If I look at it now again, I'm looking again at my Bloomberg screen as we speak it's equal to where it was. So, it came, all the way back down, it's got all the way back up. So, the market is wildly gigantically bullish on crude oil and that is something that starts looking like an opportunity to me on the short side.

  I get what you're saying about the price risk which is always the danger of shorting crude oil it's always a bit of a negative gamma trade. So it makes it a bit nervous but I still think that crude oil comes lower so I’m bullish in that.

  I've seen a similar situation with copper driven by China and a few other things where copper position is wildly extreme and so I start to think well too much reflation is priced into these things maybe there’s an interesting opportunity on the short side.

  

  Erik:                Yeah, I very much agree with that I want to be short equities here and I want to be short crude oil but I don't dare to touch either trade from the short side right now because there's been so much bullish hysteria in the equity market. I don't know what's going to happen to you know sell the inauguration. OK I've said sell quite a few times in the last few years and been wrong so I want to be short but– emotionally I want to, I can't bring myself to do it because there's just been– every time I say OK the market can't possibly go higher than this it ends up going higher.

  In the case of crude oil, I'm convinced that this rally has played out from a fundamental standpoint. It’s that hysteria risk that if it happens it's a fantastic opportunity to go short. I would consider puts on crude oil here as a speculation that maybe they'll go lower. But I don't want be an outright futures here I'd rather be in puts on futures and have a very limited downside if Trump scares everybody.

  If that happens – I don't think it's a real risk – I just think it's hysteria and look at there's actually been an increase in residency applications in Chile because there are people freaking out about Donald Trump so much that they want to be in the southern hemisphere for when he starts the nuclear war that's a fact. This is hysteria and until it settles down I don't want to be on the short side of the oil trade unless it's using options or something protected.

  Raoul:             Yeah, I agree. What is interesting oil volatility has been coming lower. Look, I don't think it's going to get back to where it was in 2014 when it was trading below 20 but it has come down from a peak of 80, a kind of a real trading range of 50 down to 30. If it comes any lower the ability to buy options start to make sense because oil volatility can go to 80 can go to a 100 so maybe buying some puts on oil or you buy kind of out of the money calls out of the money puts If you've got the view that you have that there is a tail risk events of something that Trump administration will do to drive up the price of oil and that's possible don't forget that the economic policies is credibly pro oil in the U.S. right now with the new administration. So, it is in that economic interest to drive up the price of oil.

  

  So yes, I can see that too. I love these kinds of puzzles. These are the kind of ones that get me up at night thinking wow, that’s interesting, you've got all of the reasons why the oil price should fall, all of the geopolitical reasons and business reasons why the U.S. wants a higher oil price so how does this play out what does that mean for us.

  

  

• Pepe Escobar: Here's How The Trump Presidency Will Play Out

  Authored by Pepe Escobar via The Saker,

  The Trump era starts now – with geopolitics and geoeconomics set for a series of imminent, unpredictable cliffhangers.

  I have argued that Trump’s foreign policy guru Henry Kissinger’s strategy to deal with the formidable Eurasia integration trio – Russia, China and Iran – is a remixed Divide and Rule; seduce Russia away from its strategic partnership with China, while keep harassing the weakest link, Iran.

  In fact that’s how it’s already playing out – as in the outbursts of selected members of Trump’s cabinet during their US Senate hearings. Factions of US Think Tankland, referring to Nixon’s China policy, which was designed by Kissinger, are also excited with the possibilities of containment regarding at least one of those powers “potentially arrayed against America”.

  Kissinger and Dr. Zbig “Grand Chessboard” Brzezinski are the two foremost, self-described Western dalangs – puppet masters – in the geopolitical arena. In opposition to Kissinger, Obama’s foreign policy mentor Brzezinski, true to his Russophobia, proposes a Divide and Rule centered on seducing China.

  Yet an influential New York business source, very close to the real, discreet Masters of the Universe, who correctly predicted Trump’s victory weeks before the fact, after examining my argument offered not only a scathing appraisal of those cherished dalangs; he volunteered to detail how the new normal was laid out by the Masters directly to Trump. Let’s call him “X”.

  The non-stop China watch

  “X” starts by doing something US deep state-connected regulars, who revere their idols, never dare to, at least in public;

  “It is important not to attribute too much importance to either Kissinger or Brzezinski as they are merely fronts for those who make the decisions and it is their job to cloak the decisions with a patina of intellectuality. Their input means relatively nothing. I use their names on occasion as I cannot use the names of those who actually make the decisions.”

  That’s the cue for “X” to detail the new normal;

  “Trump was elected with the support of the Masters to tilt towards Russia. The Masters have their tools in the media and Congress maintaining a vilification campaign against Russia, and have their puppet Brzezinski also come out against Russia, stating ‘America’s global influence depends on cooperation with China’. The purpose is to threaten Russia to cooperate and place these chips on the negotiating table for Trump. In a traditional good cop-bad cop approach, Donald is portrayed as the good cop wanting good relations with Russia, and Congress, media, Brzezinski are the bad cops. This is to aid Trump in the negotiations with Russia as Putin sees the ‘precarious’ position of his friend and should be willing to make major concessions as the line goes.”

  And that brings us to how Taiwan – and Japan – got into the mix;

  “Donald shows the Russian tilt by talking to the Taiwanese, demonstrating that the shift is serious. But it was decided to throw Japan into the mix as a predator against US industry, with an attack on Toyota, thoroughly deserved. That moderated the position as the Masters became afraid that the perception of our building up Japan against China would be too much of a provocation.”

  So expect China – as “not too much importance” Kissinger prescribed – to be under non-stop scrutiny;

  “The Masters have decided to reindustrialize the United States and want to take jobs back from China. This is advisable from the Chinese viewpoint; for why should they sell their work to the US for a dollar that has no intrinsic value and get really nothing back for the work. China should have a car in every Chinese worker’s garage and they will become a larger producer of cars than the EU, US and Japan combined, and their own nation will keep their wealth in their own country.”

  And why China over Russia?

  “Russia in this sense being a natural resource country with a gigantic military industrial complex (the latter being the only reason she is secretly respected) is exempt from any tough trade talk as they hardly export anything but natural resources and military equipment. The Masters want jobs back from Mexico and Asia including Japan, Taiwan, etc., and you see this in Trump’s attack on Japan. The main underlying reason is that the US has lost control of the seas and cannot secure its military components during a major war. This is all that matters now and this is the giant story behind the scenes.”

  In only a few words “X” details the reversal of an economic cycle;

  “The Masters made money out of transfer of industry to Asia (Bain Capital specialized in this), and Wall Street made money from the lower interest rates on the recycled dollars from the trade deficits. But now, the issue is strategic; and they will make money on the return of industries scaling down their investments in Asia and returning them to the United States as we rebuild production here.”

  “X” remains quite fond of Henry Ford’s business strategy; and that is the cue for him to address the crucial theme: national defense. According to “X”,

  “Ford doubled the wages he paid and made more money than any other manufacturer. The reason was that a living wage where the mother can have many children on her husband’s wage was psychologically good for productivity in his car plants, and that his workers could then afford his cars. He thus recognized that in a society there must be a just distribution of wealth that his admirer Steve Jobs could not. Henry’s mass productivity was the wonder of the world and that was what won World War Two for the United States. Amazon does not contribute anything to national defense, being merely an internet marketing service based on computer programs, nor Google which merely organizes data better. None of this builds a better missile or submarine except in a marginal way.”

  It’s the Pentagon, stupid

  So yes; this all has to do with reorganizing the US military. “X” made a point to refer to a CNAS report I quoted in my initial column;

  “It is very important for what is visible between the lines. And that is we are in deep trouble being technologically behind Russia by generations in weapons, which is a follow-up on the Brzezinski quote that we are no longer a global power.”

  This is a thorough, wide-ranging analysis of how Russia has managed to organize the best armed forces in the world. And that does not even take into account the S-500 missile defense system, which is now being rolled out and arguably seals the entirety of Russian airspace. And the next generation – S-600? – will be even more powerful.

  “X” does venture into deep state taboo territory, as in how Russia, over the past decade, has managed to leap far ahead of the US, “eclipsing it as the strongest military power”. But the game may be far from over – wishful thinking or otherwise;

  “We hope Secretary of Defense James Mattis will understand this and that the Deputy Secretary of Defense has advanced technological skills, organizational ability and the foresight to understand that the weapons of World War Three are offensive and defensive missiles, and submarines, and not air power, tanks and aircraft carriers.”

  A realist, “X” admits that the warmongering neocon/neoliberalcon status quo – represented by most US deep state factions – will never abandon the default posture of unremitting hostility towards Russia. But he prefers to focus on change;

  “Let Tillerson reorganize the State Department along Exxon efficiencies. He may be worth something in that.  He and Mattis may be gutless but if you tell the truth to the Senate you may not be confirmed. So what they say means nothing. But notice this about Libya. The CIA had a goal of driving China out of Africa and so does AFRICOM. That was one of the secrets to our Libyan intervention.”

  Not that it worked; NATO/AFRICOM turned Libya into a wasteland run by militias, and still China was not driven away from the rest of Africa.

  “X” also admits, “Syria and Iran are red lines for Russia. So is the eastern Ukraine from the Dnieper.” He is fully aware Moscow will not allow any regime change gambit on Tehran. And he’s also aware that “China’s investments in Iranian oil and gas imply that China also will not permit Washington’s overthrow of the Iranian government.”

  The going really gets tough when it comes to NATO; “X” is convinced Russia “will invade Romania and Poland if those missiles are not taken out of Romania and the missile commitment to Poland rescinded. The issue is not the worthless defensive missiles of the United States but the substitutability of offensive nuclear missiles in these silos. Russia will not tolerate this risk.  These are not subject to negotiation.”

  In contrast to the “perpetual threat” perpetual propaganda by the US War Party, Moscow focuses on actual facts on the ground since the 1990s; the break up of historic Slavic ally Serbia; Warsaw Pact nations and even former USSR republics annexed by NATO, not to mention attempts to also include Georgia and Ukraine; US deployment of color revolutions; the “Assad must go “ fiasco, as in regime change forced on Syria even including the weaponizing of Salafi-jihadis; economic sanctions, an oil price war and raids on the ruble; and non-stop NATO harassment.

  “X”, fully aware of the facts, adds, “Russia has always wanted peace. But they are not going to play a game with the Masters of the Universe that has Trump as the good guy and the Congress, CIA, etc. as the bad guy as a negotiating ploy. That is how they see it. They do not regard this circus as real.”

  The circus may be just an illusion. Or wayang – Balinese puppet theatre – as I suggested. “X” advances a crisp interpretation of the shadow play ahead from Moscow’s point of view, allowing “several months to see if Putin can work out a detente with Trump that essentially creates an autonomous eastern Ukraine, a peace treaty in Syria with Assad in place, and a withdrawal of NATO forces back to their line of defense under Ronald Reagan.”

  Who will prevail; the Masters, or the deep state? Brace for impact.

  

  

• THe JeSTeR…

  

  

• An Alternative Perspective On Today's "Women's March"

  What was the March about again?

   

  

  Source: Townhall.com

  

  

• Doug Casey Warns "Every American Needs To Be Concerned Right Now"

  Authored by Doug Casey via InternationalMan.com,

  Making The Chicken Run, Part 1

  “Making the chicken run” is what Rhodesians used to say about neighbors who packed up and got out during the ’60s and ’70s, before the place became Zimbabwe. It was considered “unpatriotic” to leave Rhodesia. But it was genuinely idiotic not to.

  I’ve written many times about the importance of internationalizing your assets, your mode of living, and your way of thinking. I suspect most readers have treated those articles as they might a travelogue to some distant and exotic land: interesting fodder for cocktail party chatter, but basically academic and of little immediate personal relevance.

  I’m directing these comments toward the U.S. mainly because that’s where the problem is most acute, but they’re applicable to most countries.

  Now, in 2017, the U.S. is in real trouble. Not as bad as Rhodesia 40 years ago—and definitely a different kind of trouble—but plenty serious. For many years, it’s been obvious that the country was eventually going to hit the wall, and now the inevitable is rapidly becoming imminent.

  What do I mean by that? There’s plenty of reason to be concerned about things financial and economic. But I personally believe we haven't been bearish enough on the eventual social and political fallout from the Greater Depression. Nothing is certain, but the odds are high that the U.S. is going into a time of troubles at least as bad as any experienced in any advanced country in the last century.

  I hate saying things like that, if only because it sounds outrageous and inflammatory and can create a credibility gap. It invites arguments with people, and although I enjoy discussion, I dislike arguing.

  It strikes most people as outrageous because the long-running post-WWII boom has been punctuated only by brief recessions. After 70 years, why should it ever end? The thought of a nasty end certainly runs counter to the experience of almost everyone now alive—including myself—and our personal experience is what we tend to trust most. But it seems to me we're very close to a tipping point. Ice stays ice even while it’s being warmed—until the temperature goes over 32° F, where it changes very quickly into something very different.

  First, the Economy

  That point—economic bankruptcy accompanied by financial chaos—is quickly approaching for the U.S. government. With deficits over a trillion dollars per year for as far as the eye can see, the U.S. Treasury will very soon be unable to roll over its maturing debt at anything near current interest rates. The only reliable buyer will be the Federal Reserve, which can buy only by creating new dollars.

  Within the next 24 months, the dollar is likely to start losing value rapidly and noticeably. Foreigners, who own over 6 trillion of them (including T-bills and other IOUs), will start panicking to dump them. So will Americans. The dollar bond market, today worth $40 trillion, will be devastated by much higher interest rates, a rapidly depreciating dollar, and an epidemic of defaults.

  And that will be just the start of the trouble. Since the U.S. property market floats on a sea of debt (and is easy to tax), it’s also going to be hit very hard, again, this time by stifling mortgage rates. The next step is up for interest rates. Forget about property owners paying their existing mortgages; many won’t be able to pay their taxes and utilities, and maintenance will be out of the question.

  The pain will spread. Insurance companies are invested mostly in bonds and real estate; many will go bankrupt. The same is true of most pension funds. If the stock market doesn’t collapse, it will only be because money is looking for a place to hide from inflation. The payout for Social Security will drop significantly in real terms, if not in dollars. The standard of living of most Americans will fall.

  This rough sequence of events has happened in many countries in recent decades, and they’ve survived the tough times. But it has the potential, at least in relative terms, to be more serious in the U.S. than it was in Argentina, Brazil, Serbia, Russia, Mozambique, or Zimbabwe for two main reasons.

  First, many people in those countries knew they couldn’t trust their government and acted accordingly, even in contravention of the law, by accumulating assets elsewhere. So, there was a significant pool of capital available for rebuilding. Americans, on the other hand, tend to be much more insular, law-abiding, and trusting in their government. When they lose their U.S. assets, they'll have lost everything.

  Second, those societies were significantly more rural than the U.S. is today. As in the America of 100 years ago, much of the population lived quite close to the land and had practical skills and habits that helped them get through the tough times. For 21st-century Americans, it's a different story. Shortages and disorder are going to hit commuters who live in suburbs, and urban dwellers who think milk appears in cartons magically, like a ton of bricks.

  One thing you can absolutely count on is that everyone will look to the government to “do something.” Americans really do think governments control the way the world works. Another certainty is that the U.S. government will “step in” massively, because everyone will want them to, and the politicians themselves believe they should. This will greatly aggravate the crisis and make it last much longer than necessary.

  Then It Gets Serious

  But that’s just over the short run. The long run is much more serious because the next chapter of the Greater Depression has every chance of radically, and at least semi-permanently, overturning the basic character of American life. Ice turned to water—suddenly and unexpectedly—in Russia in 1918, Germany in 1933, China in 1949, Vietnam in 1954, Cambodia in 1975, and Rwanda in 1995. Those are just the first examples that come to mind. There are scores more.

  The economic events I’ve outlined are going to mean serious hardship and unpleasantness for many people. But that doesn't concern me nearly as much as the social and political reaction.

  *  *  *

  Doug says we're on the edge of a genuine precipice. The economy is crumbling… and there's a good chance things will only get worse. This is exactly why Doug and his team put together a time-sensitive video explaining how it could all go down. A financial shock far greater than 2008 could strike America during Trump's first 100 days in office. It could either wipe out a big part of your savings… or be the fortune-building opportunity of a lifetime. Click here to watch it now.

  

  

• Visualizing The Global War On Cash

  There is a global push by lawmakers to eliminate the use of physical cash around the world. This movement is often referred to as “The War on Cash”, and there are three major players involved:

  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.

   

  

  Courtesy of: The Money Project

   

  Is Cash Still King?

  Cash has always been king – but starting in the late 1990s, the convenience of new technologies have helped make non-cash transactions to become more viable:

  • Online banking
  • Smartphones
  • Payment technologies
  • Encryption

  By 2015, there were 426 billion cashless transactions worldwide – a 50% increase from five years before.

  And today, there are multiple ways to pay digitally, including:

  • Online banking (Visa, Mastercard, Interac)
  • Smartphones (Apple Pay)
  • Intermediaries ( Paypal , Square)
  • Cryptocurrencies (Bitcoin)

  The First Shots Fired

  The success of these new technologies have prompted lawmakers to posit that all transactions should now be digital.

  Here is their case for a cashless society:

  Removing high denominations of bills from circulation makes it harder for terrorists, drug dealers, money launderers, and tax evaders.

  • $1 million in $100 bills weighs only one kilogram (2.2 lbs).
  • Criminals move $2 trillion per year around the world each year.
  • The U.S. $100 bill is the most popular note in the world, with 10 billion of them in circulation.

  This also gives regulators more control over the economy.

  • More traceable money means higher tax revenues.
  • It means there is a third-party for all transactions.
  • Central banks can dictate interest rates that encourage (or discourage) spending to try to manage inflation. This includes ZIRP or NIRP policies.

  Cashless transactions are faster and more efficient.

  • Banks would incur less costs by not having to handle cash.
  • It also makes compliance and reporting easier.
  • The “burden” of cash can be up to 1.5% of GDP, according to some experts.

  But for this to be possible, they say that cash – especially large denomination bills – must be eliminated. After all, cash is still used for about 85% of all transactions worldwide.

  A Declaration of War

  Governments and central banks have moved swiftly in dozens of countries to start eliminating cash.

  Some key examples of this? Australia, Singapore, Venezuela, the U.S., and the European Central Bank have all eliminated (or have proposed to eliminate) high denomination notes. Other countries like France, Sweden and Greece have targeted adding restrictions on the size of cash transactions, reducing the amount of ATMs in the countryside, or limiting the amount of cash that can be held outside of the banking system. Finally, some countries have taken things a full step further – South Korea aims to eliminate paper currency in its entirety by 2020.

  But right now, the “War on Cash” can’t be mentioned without invoking images of day-long lineups in India. In November 2016, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi demonetized 500 and 1000 rupee notes, eliminating 86% of the country’s notes overnight. While Indians could theoretically exchange 500 and 1,000 rupee notes for higher denominations, it was only up to a limit of 4,000 rupees per person. Sums above that had to be routed through a bank account in a country where only 50% of Indians have such access.

  The Hindu has reported that there have now been 112 reported deaths associated with the Indian demonetization. Some people have committed suicide, but most deaths come from elderly people waiting in bank queues for hours or days to exchange money.

  Caught in the Crossfire

  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.

  As the War on Cash accelerates, many shots will be fired. The question is: who will take the majority of the damage?

  *  *  *

  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.

  

  

• White House Spokesman Slams Media Over "Crowd Size Comparisons" In Bizarre First Briefing

  In a bizarre first briefing, White House press secretary Sean Spicer on Saturday unloaded a blistering attack on the media and accused it of false reporting about the otherwise irrelevant question of why Trump’s inauguration crowd was visibly smaller than that of Obama’s.

  Spicer used up virtually all the time in his first official appearance in the Press Briefing Room to denounce news organizations’ focus on the inaugural crowd size, saying “these attempts to lessen the enthusiasm of the inauguration are shameful and wrong.”

  We wouldn’t necessarily use those words: silly should suffice since if Trump really wanted to “defend” why fewer people attended his inauguration, he can simply say many more of his supporters are employed and had to be at work on Friday, than during either Obama’s 2009 or 2013 inauguration events.

  However, the press secretary decided that hyperbole is the better part of valor and said “This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration, period, both in person and around the world”

  Spicer made the allegation despite photographs of the event clearly showed that the Mall was not full in the sections Spicer described, with dwindling-to-nonexistent crowds near the Smithsonian Institution Building and west toward the Washington Monument. There was also sparse attendance along the parade route from the Capitol to the White House. He alleged that some photos of the inauguration were “intentionally framed in a way” that minimized the crowd, without providing examples or evidence.

  No official agency provides estimates of the size of gatherings on the Mall. But photos taken from the same vantage point at about the same time of day show that the crowds were far smaller than for President Barack Obama’s first inauguration, which Washington city officials estimated at 1.8 million people.

  CNN airs this comparison graphic after Trump @PressSec claimed “This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration, period.” pic.twitter.com/m7nJKof4CT

  — Jon Passantino (@passantino) January 21, 2017

  From same @PressSec stmt:

  1:36 in: “No one had numbers.”

  2:25 in: “This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration, period.

  — Mike Memoli (@mikememoli) January 21, 2017

   

  Ultimately, the whole press briefing episode had a surreal undertone, one in which Trump, via his speaker, appears to continue to troll the press, now in the White House.

  As a seemingly perturbed NYU journalism professor Jay Rosen summarized it “Wow. Sean Spicer walked to the podium. Unloaded on the media for bias. Accused reporters of dishonesty. Walked off without taking questions.”

  Wow. Sean Spicer walked to the podium. Unloaded on the media for bias. Accused reporters of dishonesty. Walked off without taking questions.

  — Jay Rosen (@jayrosen_nyu) January 21, 2017

  The reaction among the rest of the press was similar.

  Spicer took no questions from reporters and he did not say specifically how many people the White House believes attended the inauguration. He said three large sections of the Mall that each held at least 200,000 people were “full when the president took the oath of office.”

  Earlier on Saturday, in remarks at CIA headquarters in Langley, Trump said that from his vantage point at the podium, “it looked like a million, million and a half people. They showed a field where there were practically nobody standing there, and they said Donald Trump did not draw well.” Trump also said parts of the National Mall “all the way back to the Washington Monument” were “packed.”

  Quoted by Bloomberg, former White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said on Twitter after Spicer’s remarks that “This is called a statement you’re told to make by the president. And you know the president is watching.”

  He is indeed, and what he is seeing is that he once again is controlling the media narrative, which is focusing on a very immaterial and arbitrary issue, instead of spending time on investigative work and reporting on far more serious issues relating to Trump’s new administration.

  Full clip below.

  WATCH unbelievable WH briefing:@seanspicer: “We’re going to hold the press accountable.”pic.twitter.com/7BeGvNIB7L

  — Rob S??Silver Surfer (@RobPulseNews) January 21, 2017

  

  

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• Trump's Declaration Of War: 12 Things He Must Do For America To Be Great Again

  President Trump’s brief inaugural speech was a declaration of war against the entirety of the American Ruling Establishment. All of it.

  As Paul Craig Roberts details, Trump made it abundantly clear that Americans’ enemies are right here at home: globalists, neoliberal economists, neoconservatives and other unilateralists accustomed to imposing the US on the world and involving us in endless and expensive wars, politicians who serve the Ruling Establishment rather than the American people, indeed, the entire canopy of private interests that have run America into the ground while getting rich in the process.

  If truth can be said, President Trump has declared a war far more dangerous to himself than if he had declared war against Russia or China.

  The interest groups designated by Trump as The Enemy are well entrenched and accustomed to being in charge. Their powerful networks are still in place. Although there are Republican majorities in the House and Senate, most of those in Congress are answerable to the ruling interest groups that provide their campaign funds and not to the American people or to the President. The military/security complex, offshoring corporations, Wall Street and the banks are not going to roll over for Trump. And neither is the presstitute media, which is owned by the interest groups whose power Trump challenges.

  Trump made it clear that he stands for every American, black, brown, and white. Little doubt his declaration of inclusiveness will be ignored by the haters on the left who will continue to call him a racist just as the $50 per hour paid protesters are doing as I write.

  Indeed, black leadership, for example, is enculturated into the victimization role from which it would be hard for them to escape. How do you pull together people who all their lives have been taught that whites are racists and that they are the victims of racists?

  Can it be done? I was just on a program briefly with Press TV in which we were supposed to provide analysis of Trump’s inaugural speech. The other commentator was a black American in Washington, DC. Trump’s inclusiveness speech made no impression on him, and the show host was only interested in showing the hired protesters as a way of discrediting America. So many people have an economic interest in speaking in behalf of victims that inclusiveness puts them out of jobs and causes.

  So along with the globalists, the CIA, the offshoring corporations, the armaments industries, the NATO establishment in Europe, and foreign politicians accustomed to being well paid for supporting Washington’s interventionist foreign policy, Trump will have arrayed against him the leaders of the victimized peoples, the blacks, the hispanics, the feminists, the illegals, the homosexuals and transgendered. This long list, of course, includes the white liberals as well, as they are convinced that flyover America is the habitat of white racists, misogynists, homophobes, and gun nuts. As far as they are concerned, this 84% of geographical US should be quarantined or interred.

  In other words, does enough good will remain in the population to enable a President to unite the 16% America haters with the 84% America lovers?

  Consider the forces that Trump has against him:

  • Black and hispanic leaders need victimization, because it is what elevates them to power and income. They will turn a jaundiced eye toward Trump’s inclusiveness. Inclusiveness is good for blacks and hispanics, but not for their leaders.
  • The executives and shareholders of global corporations are enriched by the offshored jobs that Trump says he will bring home. If the jobs come home, their profits, performance bonuses, and capital gains will go away. But the economic security of the American population will return.
  • The military/security complex has a 1,000 billion annual budget dependent on “the Russian threat” that Trump says he is going to replace with normalized relations. Trump’s assassination cannot be ruled out.
  • Many Europeans owe their prestige, power, and incomes to the NATO that Trump has called into question.
  • The financial sector’s profits almost entirely flow from putting Americans into debt bondage and from looting their private and public pensions. The financial sector with their agent, the Federal Reserve, can overwhelm Trump with financial crisis. The New York Federal Reserve Bank has a complete trading desk. It can send any market into turmoil. Or support any market, because there is no limit on its ability to create US dollars.
  • The entire political ediface in the US has insulated itself from the will, desires, and needs of the people. Now Trump says the politicians will be accountable to the people. This, of course, would mean a big drop in their security in office and in their income and wealth.
  • There are a large number of groups, funded by we-know-not-who. For example, RootsAction has responded today to Trump’s forceful commitment to stand for all of the people against the Ruling Establishment with a request to “ask Congress to direct the House Judiciary Committee to open an impeachment investigation” and to send money for Trump’s impeachment.
  • Another hate group, human rights first, attacks Trump’s defense of our borders as closing “a refuge of hope for those fleeing persecution.” Think about this for a minute. According to the liberal-progressive-left and the racial interest group organizations, the US is a racist society and President Trump is a racist. Yet, people subject to American racism are fleeing from persecution to America where they will be racially persecuted? It doesn’t make sense. The illegals come here for work. Ask the construction companies. Ask the chicken and animal slaughter houses. Ask the vacation area cleaning services.

  This list of those on whom Trump has declared war is long enough, although there are more that can be added.

  We should ask ourselves why a 70 year old billionaire with flourishing businesses, a beautiful wife, and intelligent children is willing to give his final years to the extraordinary stress of being President with the stressful agenda of putting the government back in the hands of the American people. There is no doubt that Trump has made himself a target of assassination. The CIA is not going to give up and go away. Why would a person take on the grand restoration of America that Trump has declared when he could instead spend his remaining years enjoying himself immensely?

  Whatever the reason, we should be grateful for it, and if he is sincere we must support him. If he is assassinated, we need to take up our weapons, burn Langley to the ground and kill every one of them.

  If he succeeds, he deserves the designation: Trump the Great!

  Russia, China, Iran, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, and any other country on the CIA’s hit list should undersand that Trump’s rise is insufficient protection. The CIA is a worldwide organization. Its profitable businesses provide income independent of the US budget. The organization is capable of undertaking operations independently of the President or even of its own Director.

  The CIA has had about 70 years to entrench itself. It has not gone away.

  But, as Jeremiah Johnson explains (via SHTFPlan.com), it will take a complete sea change to rectify the course this country has been heading in the past eight years.  These are some of the problems that Trump will need to reverse when he becomes President Trump, many of which he promised to either change or end completely:

  1. The (Un)Affordable Health Care Act, now law, termed “Obamacare” that is the most heinous piece of legislation…a law that mandates a requirement for a citizen to have health care coverage as dictated by government requirements.

  2. “Differentially permeable” borders: where foreigners, such as Mexicans and Canadians can come and go as they please, and illegal aliens have free access…but Americans are confined until a full cavity search is conducted.

  3. An economy based not on true GNP, but on consumer spending (almost 80%); convincing one company not to pick up and relocate overseas is an illustration of the concept, and not the implementation…not yet.

  4. A reversal of the true unemployment rate, that hovers between 15 and 20%, depending on what paid “parrot” (such as Labor and Statistics) announces the phony figure.

  5. A reversal of the Entitlement Nation: the EBT and Food Stamp users, the unemployment collectors, the Social Security Disability recipients whose corpulence from overeating is termed a “disability,” the illegal aliens on the dole for all of the above, plus free healthcare, the almost 100 million no longer “in the work force.”

  6. Knocking the knees off lobbyists, NGO’s, and NPO’s who have been holding administrations hostage (the 1st), or acting as if they were a government agency (the 2nd), or with executives profiting immensely while running on slave labor using socially misfortunate people and writing it all off (the 3rd).

  7. Revitalizing a military whose Air Force is forced to scavenge parts from “the Boneyard,” and where levels of service members in terms of numbers and readiness have fallen to their lowest point since before WWII.

  8. Resetting an abysmal foreign policy where (for the past eight years) we have instituted coup d’états, undermined relations that worked throughout the world, placed ourselves in position to start a new Cold War, and turned the Middle East and Eastern Europe completely upside down.

  9. Revitalizing a crumbling infrastructure of roads, bridges, and buildings very dangerously in disrepair…where maintenance charges and fees continue to rise with very little return on taxpayer dollars and nothing changing on our highways, ports, and bridges.

  10. Permitting (yes, permitting) and encouraging American businesses to be able to start up, operate, and produce in the United States without Soviet-style restrictions, regulations, and an army of bureaucratic “flying monkeys” inserting themselves into the business’s “fourth point of contact,” preventing U.S. businesses (especially the small proprietorships and Mom-and-Pop concerns) from either starting, or succeeding.

  11. The Supreme Court: just look at them…and nothing else really needs to be said: Except that a branch of the U.S. government meant to be a “check and balance” does not need to circumvent the Constitution and be the sole arbiter and (in essence) a lawmaker to institute policy for a presidential administration.

  12. Bring about a change in the hearts of the American people.

  Perhaps the most important item in that list is the last one.

  When Reagan took office, we (and he) faced double-digit unemployment, double digit inflation, and enormous taxation and loss of liberties.  We faced a crumbling infrastructure, a military that was in shambles (Desert One to free the Iranian hostages, conducted with helicopters in a sandstorm as Carter approached the midnight hour to lose the election should never be forgotten).  The Soviets were strong, and we were not…having recently ended the war in Vietnam.  We weren’t doing too well, in the world and in our own minds and hearts.

  Then Reagan came, and he turned it around.  He was not perfect, but he made up for his imperfections by surrounding himself with an excellent staff.  He had a heart for the United States, and the fortitude to stand up for it.  His leadership staved off the fall of the U.S., and turned things around for us.  Do you remember that Lake Placid victory of the amateur U.S. hockey team in the semifinals against the professionals of the Soviet hockey team?  Remember the moment…a small thing, perhaps, and many may discount it as being “completely unimportant” or “unrelated to problems we now face.”

  But that victory was neither one of those disparaging remarks.  It was something that we all could focus upon, to form some kind of cohesive unity and think of ourselves together as Americans…to take pride in accomplishment in something…for once, after four years of Carter.  There was a sea change made.  Did it last?  Perhaps it didn’t, and yet, if the memory of those years is still alive in even one person with the hopes of a repeat…then maybe others can feel the same.

  This is still the best country in the world.  Trump’s campaign slogan was “Make America Great Again.”  Cliché, perhaps, but we must start somewhere.  Last time I checked, the preamble to the Constitution starts out with “We the people.”  Yes, we the people need to do the best we can with what we have, to be vigilant in our undertakings to prevent another eight years akin to the ones we are just emerging from, and to move forward and improve our lives.  Many will say that it doesn’t matter, and that there are forces that are out of our control that will prevent us as a nation from overcoming obstacles.

  Such may be for a while, as it was under Obama.  Those times cannot last forever, and eventually the change has to occur.  We have perhaps a bigger job than those 12 items I listed for Trump to accomplish.

  Number 12 is not all on him: it’s also on us.

  In order for the country to succeed, the people have to return to core values of family, hard work, respect (for self and others), and faith, with one another and in God.  Trump can do a great deal, but in the end, it is we the people who will enable him to turn it around or not.  Change can’t be forced upon you by some jerk with a perfect smile who tells you that change is a movement “we can believe in,” and then assumes the role of a dictator and forces it on you.  Change is something that comes from within, precipitated by a feeling that is in one’s heart.  We have our chance to change it all, and let us wish success for this man who will become the president of the United States in a couple of days.  Let us hope that he has that feeling inside of himself and holds onto it…to unite the United States of America again.

   

  

  

• Chinese, Germans Bidding To Turn Abandoned Nuclear Wasteland Of Chernobyl Into Solar Farm

  For 30 years the 1,000 square miles surrounding the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine, Belarus and Russia have lay largely inhabited and remains one of the most radioactively contaminated areas in the world.  But that’s all about to change if a group of German and Chinese investors have their way about it.  According to Ukraine’s Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources, Ostap Semerak, 39 separate entities have applied for permission to install 2 gigawatts worth solar panels on the land that would otherwise lie unutilized for centuries to come.  Per Bloomberg:

  Chinese and Germans are among dozens of investors taking Ukraine up on its offer to turn the grounds of one of the world’s worst nuclear disasters into a massive solar park.

   

  Thirteen international investors are among the 39 groups seeking Ukraine permission to install about 2 gigawatts of solar panels inside the radioactive exclusion zone surrounding the defunct Chernobyl nuclear plant, according to Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources Ostap Semerak. Two gigawatts is almost the capacity of two modern nuclear reactors, although atomic power unlike solar works day and night.

   

  “We have received requests from businesses that are interested in renting land for building solar power stations,” Semerak said in a phone interview from Kiev. “We are not looking to profit from land use, we are looking to profit from investment.”

  

   

  Of course, the effort to attract the new investors required a modest 85% rent reduction and guaranteed rates through 2030 to subsidize the solar farms which are otherwise not cost competive.

  Chinese companies GCL System Integration Technology Co Ltd. and China National Complete Engineering Corp said in November that they plan to build a 1 gigawatt solar project on the site in several stages. A German renewables developer has applied to install 500 megawatts, Semerak said, declining to name the firm. The remaining project proposals are for plants that are about 20 megawatts in size.

   

  Companies “have requested between 20 hectares and 1,000 hectares for projects,” Semerak said. In a push for foreign investment, Ukraine has lowered the rent charged for state property by 85 percent, he said.

   

  The country set up a feed-in-tariff system running through 2030 that offers a fixed price which is reduced annually. Projects that sign on in 2017 will receive 17 euro cents (18 U.S. cents) a kilowatt.

  That said, there is one minor issue which could disrupt the otherwise genius plan, if we understand it correctly, which is that the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development has waffled on providing financing and said loans will be contingent on “environmental due diligence.”  Seriously?
  

  The lingering radiation at Chernobyl is a concern of the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development, which is considering whether to finance the solar projects. Loans will be contingent on environmental due diligence, according to spokesman Anton Usov. The projects would have to be safe to install and operate and also be commercially viable to receive funding, he said.

   

  “For any project above 10 megawatts in size, you would need someone on-site almost every day,” said Pietro Radoia, solar analyst at Bloomberg New Energy Finance. “The bigger the project, the more daily small issues come up that have to be dealt with.”

  After seeing some pretty ridiculous “environmental” concerns derail large M&A projects in the U.S., we would love to see the consulting report that approves this deal.

  

  

• The Geopolitics Of 2017 In 4 Maps

  Submitted by George Friedman and Jacob Shapiro via MauldinEconomics.com,

  International relations and geopolitics are not synonymous… at least, not the way we understand them at Geopolitical Futures. “International relations” is a descriptive phrase that encompasses all the ways countries behave toward one another. “Geopolitics” is the supposition that all international relationships are based on the interaction between geography and power.

  Our brand of geopolitics takes this a step further and asserts that a deep understanding of geography and power enables you to do two things. First, it helps you comprehend the forces that will shape international politics and how they will do so. Second, it allows you to identify what is important and what isn’t.

  This makes maps an extremely important part of our work. Writing can be an ideal medium for explaining power, but even the best writer is limited by language when it comes to describing geography. So this week, we have decided to showcase some of the best maps our graphics team (TJ Lensing and Jay Dowd) made in 2016… not just because these four maps are cool (though they are), but because we think they go a long way in explaining the foundations of what will be the most important geopolitical developments of 2017.

  Map 1: Russia’s Economic Weakness

  
  Click to enlarge

  This map illustrates three key aspects of Russia that are crucial to understanding the country in 2017. First is the oft-overlooked fact that Russia is a federation. Russia has a strong national culture, but it is also an incredibly diverse political entity that requires a strong central government. Unlike most maps of Russia, this one divides the country by its constitutive regions. There are 85 of these regions… 87 if you count Crimea and Sevastopol. Not all have the same status—some are regions, while others are autonomous regions, cities, and republics.

  The second aspect is that there is a great deal of economic diversity in this vast Russian Federation. The map shows this by identifying regional budget surpluses and deficits throughout the country. Two regions have such large surpluses that they break the scale: the City of Moscow and Sakhalin. Fifty-two regions (or 60% of Russia’s regional budgets) are in the red. The Central District, which includes Moscow, makes up more than 20% of Russia’s GDP, while Sakhalin and a few other regions that are blessed with surpluses produce Russia’s oil.

  The third aspect follows from combining the logical conclusions of the first two observations. Russia is vast, and much of the country is in a difficult economic situation. Even if oil stays around $55 a barrel for all of 2017, that won’t be high enough to solve the problems of the many struggling parts of the country. Russian President Vladimir Putin rules as an authoritarian. This is, in part, because he governs an unwieldy country. He needs all the power he can get to redistribute wealth so that the countryside isn’t driven to revolt.

  Russia is making headlines right now because of Ukraine, Syria, and alleged hacking. But the geopolitical position of Russia is better described by studying the map above.

  Map 2: China’s Cage

  
  Click to enlarge

  Maps that shift perspective can be disorienting, but they are meant to be. Our minds get so used to seeing the world in one way that a different view can feel alien. But that is even more reason to push through the discomfort. The map above attempts to do that by looking at the Pacific from Beijing’s perspective.

  China's moves in the South China Sea have received a great deal of attention. In a Jan. 12 confirmation hearing with Congress, nominee for US Secretary of Defense James Mattish identified Chinese aggressiveness as one of the major reasons he believes the world order is under its biggest assault since World War II. But we believe the Chinese threat is overstated. This map helps explain why.

  China’s access to the Pacific is limited by two obstacles. The first is the small island chains in the South and East China Seas. When we look at this map, China’s motive in asserting control over these large rocks and molehills becomes clear. If China cannot control these islands and shoals, they can be used against China in a military conflict. (If there were small island chains off the US coast in the Pacific or the Atlantic, US strategy might look like China’s.)

  The second obstacle is that China is surrounded by American allies. Some such as Japan (and to a lesser extent South Korea and Taiwan) have significant military forces to defend themselves from Chinese encroachment. Taiwan sticks out as a major spur aimed squarely at China’s southeast coast. Those that don’t have sufficient military defenses, like the Philippines, have firm US security guarantees. China is currently at a serious geographic disadvantage in the waters off its coast.

  This map, though, does not reveal a critical third piece of this puzzle—the US Navy outclasses the Chinese navy in almost every regard, despite impressive and continuing Chinese efforts to increase capabilities. But looking at this map, you can see why China wants to make noise in its coastal waters and how China is limited by an arc of American allies. You can also see why one of China’s major goals will be to attempt to entice any American allies to switch sides. Consequently, China’s moves regarding the Philippines require close observation in 2017.

  Map 3: Redrawing the Middle East

  
  Click to enlarge

  It has become cliché to point out that the Middle East’s current political borders were drawn after World War I by colonial powers like the United Kingdom and France, and that the region’s wars and insurrections in recent years are making these artificial boundaries obsolete. What isn’t cliché is doubling down on that analysis. We’ve drawn a new map of the Middle East based on who controls what territory, as opposed to the official boundaries recognized by international organizations like the United Nations.

  The map above reveals what the Middle East really looks like right now. Many will object to some of the boundaries for political purposes, but this map is explicitly not trying to make a political statement. Rather, it is an attempt to show who holds power over what geography in the Middle East.

  From this point of view, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and Libya don’t exist anymore. In their places are smaller warring statelets based on ethnic, national, and sectarian identities. Other borders (like those of Lebanon and Israel) are also redrawn to reflect actual power dynamics. Here, a politically incorrect but accurate map is more useful than an inaccurate but politically correct one.

  Just as important as redrawing the borders of countries that no longer function as unified entities is noting which countries’ borders do not require redrawing. These countries include three of the region’s four major powers: Turkey, Iran, and Saudi Arabia. The borders of the other major power, Israel, are only slightly modified. (Egypt is an economic basket case and does not qualify as a major power, even though it has arguably the most cohesive national culture in the Arab world.)

  The Middle East is defined by two key dynamics: the wars raging in the heart of the Arab world and the balance of power between the countries that surround this conflict.

  Map 4: Imagining 2017’s Brexit

  
  Click to enlarge

  Analyzing this map must begin with a disclaimer: This is, first and foremost, an analytical tool and a means of thinking about Europe’s future. It is explicitly not a prediction of what Europe’s borders will look like in the future.

  The map identifies areas in Europe with strong nationalist tendencies. Those regions with active separatist movements are not italicized. The italicized regions are those demanding increased autonomy but not independence. In many of these regions, secessionist movements may be favored by a minority of the population. The point here is not their size, but rather that in all these regions, there is some degree of national consciousness that is dissonant with the current boundaries of Europe’s nation-states.

  The European Union is a flawed institution because its members could never decide what they wanted it to be. The EU is not quite a sovereign entity, but it claims more authority than a free trade agreement. European nation-states gave up some of their sovereignty to Brussels… but not all of it. So when serious issues arose (such as the 2008 financial crisis or the influx of Syrian and other refugees), EU member states went back to solving problems the way they did before the EU. Instead of “one for all and all for one,” it was “to each their own, but you still have to buy German products.”

  Brexit shook the foundations of the EU in 2016. Elections in France and Germany and domestic instability in Italy will shake those foundations in 2017. But Brexit also opened the doors to a deeper question: How will national self-determination be defined in the 21st century? Not all of Europe’s nation-states are on stable ground. The most important consequences of Brexit may end up being its impact on the political future of the United Kingdom. And in Spain, Catalonia already claims it will hold an independence referendum this year.

  Brussels, meanwhile, keeps trying to speak with one voice. This map communicates just how hard that is… not just for the EU, but also for some of Europe’s nation-states.

  Conclusion

  The saying goes that a picture is worth a thousand words. Maps are worth many more. Our perspective on the world is rooted in an objective and unbiased approach to examining geography and power. Maps like these are foundational components for building that perspective. These four maps are especially helpful in thinking about the geopolitical forces that will shape the world in the year ahead.

  *  *  *

  Over the last couple of weeks, we’ve shared some sneak peeks of our 24-page forecast, The World in 2017. If you’ve enjoyed these snapshots, you can now download your free copy of a special report that further illuminates the year ahead. The report, Top 3 Economic Surprises for 2017, contains information on what the future holds for three geopolitically important countries. Simply click here to get your free copy.

  

  

• Friday Humor: Hillary Catches Bill Staring At Ivanka

  While there is no proof that Bill is indeed ogling Ivanka Trump as this viral clip alleges, judging by Hillary’s reaction (and Bill’s stoic avoidance of Hillary), it is hardly that far fetched. In any case, it’s been a long week, it’s Friday, and its funny: what difference does it make if this is a “fake clip.”

  Credit: @beinlibertarian! Hillary catches Bill staring at Ivanka #Inauguration pic.twitter.com/b0NwQZHb5D

  — James Slingsby (@luckyjimsling) January 20, 2017

  

  

• Trump Takes Over 'Riskiest' America Since World War II

  While most are well aware that President Obama is leaving office having almost doubled the national debt during his 'reign', the more concerning fact is that this debt-splosion came with the weakest economic recovery in US history. What this means simply is that Obama is handing Trump the 'riskiest' America since World War II as debt-to-GDP is the highest since Truman.

  Combine this…Worst Recovery Ever…

  

  Source: JPMorgan

  With this…Biggest increase in debt ever…

  

   

  And you get this… the highest debt-to-gdp since Truman…

  

  h/t @Schuldensuehner

  Trump is taking over America in its most perilous economic state since World War II.

  

  

• The Epidemic Of Bad Ideas

  Submitted by David Galland via GarretGalland.com,

  Our education begins within a few minutes of arriving on planet Earth. That’s when we begin to learn that crying and carrying on is rewarded with coddling and nourishment.

  That particular lesson stays with us throughout our lives, more so with some people than others. I especially love watching red-faced yuppies trying to argue canceled airline flights back into service.

  We also are educated by the physical world. Running barefoot and stepping on a tack/bee/piece of glass/thorn/etc. teaches us the importance of protective garments. As does our first time staying out too long shirtless in the sun.

  Of course, our family members and friends also play an important role, teaching us the difference between wrong and right. Of course, as often as not, those concepts are subjective. Is it really “wrong” to question your elders? Or “right” to fall to your knees in prayer to an invisible superhuman at bedtime?

  Maybe, maybe not. But not being privy to the hard data proving either point in our formative years, we are expected to take these various ideas on board without questioning. And, for the most part, we do.

  It is also clear that having a poor role model can have long-term deleterious results. A single mother on welfare who is addicted to crack is unlikely to instill in Junior a strong moral compass or the work ethic needed to get ahead in a competitive world.

  Regardless, while still in the proverbial short pants, we are one day bundled up and sent off to begin our formal education. This is where things get interesting.

  Moving along, it seems appropriate to drop the virtual needle on Pink Floyd’s classic, Another Brick in the Wall.

  Bricks in the Wall

  Once our parents hand the keys to our brains to professional teachers, any number of factors come to play in our education.

  For starters, every graduating class of future teachers contains those who sit in the front and those who hide at the back. If you’re lucky, your formative years won’t be shaped by a guy with “Dopey” as a college nickname.

  And that’s not the worst roll of the dice. In my early schooling, I had a perennially pissed-off teacher by the name of Mr. Hirata. That I still remember his name is the direct result of his pulling a handful of my hair out by the roots in front of the class. My crime? Tossing a small glob of rice at another student during lunch break.

  Likewise, in the education of my own children, there was an intensely passive-aggressive female teacher (at least I think she was female) who clearly disliked boys. Not the best setting for my son, and another brick in the wall that ultimately led my wife and me to homeschool the kids.

  But stupidity, an excess of emotions, or gender bias are not the worst traits an educator might possess. While those may affect a subset of the student body, leaving them with a poor opinion of their educational experience, the real threat comes from bad ideas accepted by academics as good ideas.

  I subscribe to the theory that ideas are like living viruses: a strong idea, once released into the ether, will take hold and gain currency. The stronger the idea, the more likely it is to spread.

  Unfortunately, even terrible ideas can spread virulently. The classic of the genre being Karl Marx’s “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.”

  That particular idea has literally cost millions of lives. Incredibly, despite having been proven false time and again since its first utterance, it continues to spread.

  Violence as Policy and Other Insanities

  Throughout history, bad ideas such as those espoused by Marx have taken hold in the public arena and become institutionalized. This despite the inherent violence required by a system where individuals are forced to be subservient to the state.

  The iconic socialist revolutionary, Che Guevara, made the case that in a true socialist revolution, large swaths of the population had to die.

  “Is it possible or not, given the present conditions in [the Americas] to achieve socialist power by peaceful means? We emphatically answer that, in the great majority of cases, this is not possible. The most that could be achieved would be the formal takeover of the bourgeois superstructure of power and the transition to socialism of that government that, under the established bourgeois legal system, having achieved formal power will still have to wage a very violent struggle against all who attempt, in one way or another, to check its progress toward new social structures.”  

  —Che Guevara, Tactics and Strategy of the Latin American Revolution, 1962

  You may recognize that doctrine being applied eight years after it was written in Pol Pot’s regime. More than 20% of the population died horribly in the reeducation camps where they were sent to learn how to think correctly. Or die. Actually, mainly die.

  If mass murder as policy isn’t about as bad an idea as ever stalked the land, I don’t know what is. Yet, there is still a large demand among the clamoring masses for T-shirts and posters emblazoned with Che’s beret-bedecked cabeza. You know, because he’s sooo cool.

  But I drift.

  The point I am laboring toward is that once bad ideas infest the educational system, they invariably jump the intellectual barriers and end up in the political system.

  It is thus that the low-information processors have so tightly embraced the Chicken Little idea that the sky is falling due to the degradation of the environment, and that the governments of the world have responded by spending hundreds of billions of dollars fighting a fiction.

  This despite all the flashing fluorescent signs that the idea holds no water. If it did, why the pivot from “global warming” to the catch-all broader notion of “climate change”? And why is there a steadfast refusal by leading climate alarmists to publicly debate scientists who dispute the theory?

  But that is just one small example of a long list of bad ideas that have crossed the blood-brain barrier.

  Here’s another. Not all that long ago, some bright light decided that voluntarism should be injected into the schools. For example, making it a class project to read to old folks or play with stray dogs down at the local animal shelter. Harmless enough activities designed to “teach” the young to be more civic-minded. Well, that idea has morphed from a one-off activity to being mandatory for graduation.

  And rather than providing the simple lesson that people can do a bit of good in their local community by volunteering, it has become indoctrination to advance Marx’s mantra.

  We know a nice enough family back in the States that can never just go on vacation. Rather, they feel compelled to head off to some backwater to do good works, paying for their “holidays” with donations dunned from friends and family members.

  The Epidemic of Bad Ideas

  Slapping together an abbreviated list of the bad ideas now sweeping aside intelligent thought across the land—both in the US and in most countries where people have too much time on their hands, we come up with:

  • Mother Earth Is Dying. What a dismal and stupid perspective. And doubly stupid because the same morose idea has infested the human imagination time and time again over the millennia. In the past, Gaia’s purported assassins have taken the form of overpopulation, a new ice age, air pollution, swine flu, holes in ozone layers, dying bees, or whatever the hell.

    Speaking as someone who has visited all points of the compass on planet Earth, if there’s a problem humanity faces, it is underpopulation. Case in point, my partner Olivier Garret’s sainted mother lives in the countryside about 20 minutes from Paris. Despite the area being populated since men and apes were dating, there are rolling green hills and forests as far as the eye can see.

    Dear readers in England might get a kick out of this illustrative quote from Paul Ehrlich, the dimwitted father of modern doomsday predictions:

    “By the year 2000 the United Kingdom will be simply a small group of impoverished islands, inhabited by some 70 million hungry people … If I were a gambler, I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000.”
    —Speech at British Institute for Biology, September 1971

    Proving how hard it is to kill off bad ideas, to this day Ehrlich remains the president of Stanford University’s Center for Conservation Biology.

  • All Cultures Are Good. You have to be naive in the extreme to accept this notion as true. Is an Islamic theocracy on par with living in a secular democracy where, for example, women have basic rights? Is African tribalism as an organizing system as valuable as one based on the rights of the individual to pursue life, liberty, and happiness? Is the Indian caste system really okay?

    In my opinion, the idea that individual cultures should be preserved like museum pieces is one of the most dangerous ideas afflicting modern man. That which separates us does not make us stronger.

  • Capitalism Is Bad. Wake up and smell the Starbucks! Or some other brand determined to unseat Starbucks by offering better coffee at a better price. Though far from perfect—and, sorry to break it to you, but like Santa Claus, there is no such thing as a perfect economic system—minimizing government interference in the free exchange of goods and services works best at elevating the quality of life for the greatest number of people.

    Conversely, despite Marx’s quip, the systems that work worst are invariably based on some group of elites using the cover of “public good” to pull the levers on a command economy.

  • Political Correctness. Talk about a slippery slope. Today, virtually any action or word can be seen to “micro-aggress” against some sensitive soul. In response, universities and governments feel compelled to take active measures to protect those same souls.

    The end result has to be a Gordian knot of soul-draining policies, regulations, and other complexities. Oh wait, why should it be a Gordian knot? Why not Gordiana or some other gender-neutral name? Sexist bastards!

  • White People Are Bad and a Dying Breed. And that goes double for white men, eeeww! Sorry toots, but in the US 75% of the population is Caucasian, and just under half of that number are men. And it’s not just in the US that whites make up the demographic majority, by a wide margin. That is also the case in Canada, Australia, the UK, Europe, Russia, and many other countries. It may surprise you to learn that here in Argentina, the number is closer to 90%, and it’s even higher than that in Costa Rica, among many others.

    The idea that white people will effectively fade away anytime soon crashes and burns in the face of demographic facts. Regardless, focusing on the color of a person’s skin in making policy is, per my comments above, looking for ways to separate us humans, and so I am 100% against it. As far as the notion that white people are somehow bad, that’s just naked racism.

  I could go on. However, as the sun is high in the sky, it is time to move on to other tasks.

  As I slide toward the exit, I will sum up by expressing my concern that parts of the world, in particular the United States, are now cartwheeling down the slippery slope toward disaster. A disaster caused by the epidemic of bad ideas that have germinated in the educational system and subsequently taken root in the halls of political power.

  Of course, not everyone has been equally infected. Individuals with common sense and an inclination toward facts and the scientific method are largely immune and can only view with alarm the zombie-like madness caused by bad ideas.

  With the body politic so deeply divided, I really don’t see how a serious sociopolitical crisis can be avoided.

  Trump’s inauguration, happening today, very well may serve as a starter pistol in unleashing the physical manifestation of the extraordinary conflict in the ideas held by approximately equal contingents of the population.

  I will watch this particular parade closely and with deep concern, but very definitely from afar, here in the warm and pacific climes of the Argentine outback.

  Don’t forget to duck.

  (For those of you who want to read a scholarly dissertation about the takeover of the US educational system by socialists and progressives—two sides of the same coin—the National Association of Scholars recently released a comprehensive study entitled, “Making Citizens—How American Universities Teach Civics.” It’s long, but worth a scan.)

  Here Come the Clowns

  Mother, May I? Our clowny entry this week provides additional support for the contention that an epidemic of bad ideas has spread across the land.

  In the United Kingdom where the bureaucrats have, at least until recently, seemed keen to pattern their regulatory regime to achieve a society that rhymes with Orwell’s 1984, a woman was called to the bench and made to pay a fine of £80 (US$98) for the offense of pouring a cup of coffee down the drain.

  One can only hope that, with Brexit, the dogma-blinded cretins in the bureaucracy there will be chased back into the shadows.

  

  

• George Soros faces backlash in Eastern Europe and Balkans

  Amid cooling global attitudes towards international institutionalism and open border, anti-sovereign state political policies, George Soros has found himself facing an increasingly resilient and international resistance to his non-profit organizations and NGOs.

  On January 17, 2016 Macedonian Newspaper Republika reported the January 16th launch of a domestic initiative to investigate and resist the influence of George Soros aligned NGOs and political parties within Macedonia.  Co-founder Nikola Srbov cited the “take over of the entire civil sector and its abuse and instrumentalization to meet the goals of one political party” as the reason for the movement’s founding. Srbov was quoted by Czech publication Svobodné Noviny as calling for all “freedom-minded citizens” regardless of ethical origin or religion to join in “the fight against the civilian sector, which is designed and managed by George Soros.”

  The news breaks less than a month after EU officials criticized Macedonian VMRO DPMNE party leader Nikola Gruevski for comments he made accusing Macedonia’s election commission of allowing “foreign ambassadors” to interfere in their work. In late December, Macedonia’s Public Revenue Office began to send financial inspectors to the Open Society Foundation’s offices along with 20 other NGOs. They insisted that the inspections were not related to Gruevski’s comments.

  Macedonia’s moves to restrict the influence of George Soros-aligned organizations come just days after an announcement by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban that his government would use “all the tools at its disposal” to crack down on non-governmental organisations bankrolled by the Hungarian-born business magnate and investor.

  George Soros’ Open Society Foundation works globally to promote liberal ideals and generate support for open-border, liberal institutionalist policies around the world. Soros is well known for funneling millions of dollars into the U.S. Democratic Party to support Hillary Clinton during the 2016 Presidential Election.

  

  

• As Its Housing Bubble Pops, Chinese Real Estate Firms Halt Monthly Pricing Data

  That didn’t take long.

  Earlier this week we reported that after 19 straight months of continued acceleration in home prices, China’s latest housing bubble may have finally burst (again) after December prices in the 70 cities tracked by the NBS, rose by 12.7%, below the 12.9% annual growth rate in the previous month – the first annual decline in nearly 2 years.

   

  

   

  Fast forward to Friday, when at least two
  major Chinese private providers of home price data stopped
  publishing the figures, just as the housing market is stating to cool off at a dramatic pace across all Tier cities. According to Reuters, the
  China Index Academy, a unit of U.S.-listed Fang Holdings, has stopped
  distributing monthly housing price index data for 100 cities that it
  usually issued at the start of the month. The academy said it had suspended distribution indefinitely, without giving a reason for the suspension.

  “I don’t know who exactly is making the order, and it’s not mandatory,” said a source with knowledge of the matter, who declined to be identified as the topic is a sensitive one.

  Home price data from private providers tends to show sharper increases than official data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), which publishes monthly and annual percentage changes in 70 major cities. It also overextends on the downside, which according to official data, has now begun, and may explain the self-imposed censorship.

  Since last summer, in an attempt to cool the overheating housing market, China’s government had levied curbs on buying and ownership to rein in soaring prices and limit asset bubble risks. E-house China, another influential private real estate consultancy also indefinitely suspended its monthly housing price index for 288 cities.

  “Judged by current conditions, we won’t publish it in the future,” said Cherilyn Tsui, a public relations officer at CRIC, the consultancy’s real estate research branch. “We stopped distributing prices data a few months ago. At first it was just no external distribution, but now even internally we don’t distribute any more,” she told Reuters.

  While Tsui said she did not know the reason for the halt, she added that data on sales volumes and inventories would still be published.

  “Housing prices are an extremely sensitive matter right now,” a second source with knowledge of the matter told Reuters. Perhaps the reason is that having created a massive bubble to the upside, Beijing is hoping to delay the descent in prices  in order to attain a smooth landing at a time when China is already faced with record capital outflows, a plunging currency and all time high levels of debt.

  E-house’s last data release in November said new home prices in Beijing and Shanghai rose 1.32 percent and 1.09 percent in October, respectively, on the month. The NBS reported an increase of 0.5 percent. In light of the slowdown reported by the official data, one can surmise that the December print would have been quite dire.  In China Index Academy’s last data release in December, new home prices in Beijing and Shanghai rose 0.84 percent and 0.88 percent in November, while the NBS reported prices unchanged.

  The NBS usually publishes price data around the 19th of the month, and private providers issue it earlier.

  Meanwhile, the NBS denied it had ordered the data suspension. “We didn’t ask that. It’s not true,” an NBS representative told Reuters by telephone, when asked if it had asked private real estate consultants to halt distribution.

  Why would one doubt the sincerity of Chinese government organization? Perhaps the same reason that also last week, China – facing daily smog alerts and a population which has grown weary and angry of Beijing’s unwillingness to address the issue – ordered its local weather bureaus to stop issuing smog alerts.

  Which brings us back to a question we asked earlier in the week: if, as circumstantial evidence shows, 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 once again become the bubble choice du jour, as happened in mid to late 2014 and early 2015, when the bursting of the home bubble pushed the housing speculators into the stock market with scary, if entertaining, consequences. And, as we concluded, “it may not be a bad 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.”

  News like today’s only validates our suspicion that Chinese stocks are about to soar yet again.

   

  

  

• Anti-Trump Protester Reacts As Donald Trump Is Sworn In

  No commentary necessary.

  An anti-Trump protester screams ‘no’ as Donald Trump is sworn in as the 45th US President pic.twitter.com/qmsaFmMSkr

  — ITV News (@itvnews) January 20, 2017

  

  

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• Here Were the Biggest Winners and Losers During Obama's Reign of Terror

  At the end of the Bush administration, I hated the republicans. George was such a fucking idiot, alongside the tea party retards. I viewed Obama as a welcomed respite. In hindsight, I probably voted for Obama to prove that I wasn’t some sort of redneck racist.

  The Obama administration was very good for stocks — maybe the best ever. But at what cost?

  The national debt has doubled, borrowing more than $9 trillion since 2008 and the Fed’s balance sheet has gone from $700 billion to $4.5 trillion. This whole economy is a fucking illusion, a sham. Try to unwind those positions and start paying down that debt and you’ll see the true nature of the economy and the markets.

  Obama did nothing, other than kick the can down the road — passing on a nuclear time bomb for future generations. By that fact alone, I consider Obama a grandiose failure, of the community organizing varietal. I’m not even going to get into the wars and his social policies — which has laid waste to the social fabric of America.

  So what stocks did the best over the past 8 years, an era defined by crony capitalism, massive advances in technology, and social networks?

  BAD NEWS FOR TRADERFAGS. Most of the big winners were held captive by FRED ‘Fucking’ WILSON and his crony capitalist VC pigs. Those greedy fuckers presided over monumental gains in social networks. Here are a few.

  Facebook: $4b valuation in 2008 to $363b today.
  Twitter: $1.5m valuation in 2008 to $12.3b today.
  Yelp: $200m valution in 2008 to $3.2b today.
  Snapchat: $485k in 2012 to $25b today.
  Airbnb: $20k valuation in 2009 to $30b today.
  Uber: $200k valuation in 2009 to $70b today.

  That’s where the real money was made. Let’s see what scraps were left over for us — the little rich people.

  $TREE +5,130%
  $NFLX +4,415%
  $JAZZ +4,400%
  $DPZ +3,517%
  $MKTX +3,300%
  $PCLN +3,100%
  $ULTA +3,000%
  $INCY +2,800%
  $MGPI +2,800%
  $PPC +2,200%
  $PRSC +1,700% (literally a welfare play)

  And here were the losers.

  $BBRY -85%
  $APOL -85%
  $SPWR -79%
  $SHLD -77%
  $FSLR -76%
  $RIG -75%
  $AVP -73%
  $FRO -73%
  $CYH -66%
  $JCP -66%
  $CHK -65%
  $BBG -64%

  Notice any trends? Which will be the biggest winners and trends under Trump?

  I saw a world in need of automation, superfluous comforts indicative of a nation with plenty of excess. It was an era of wanton hedonism for the elite, and a grueling struggle for everyone else. One cannot discuss Obama without thinking about healthcare — his cornerstone issue during his time in office. It failed and now we have to deal with the ramifications.

   

  
  

  Content originally generated at iBankCoin.com

  

• Trump Versus The CIA

  Authored by Paul Craig Roberts,

  When I read Trump’s defenders, such as Daniel Lazare, having to balance their defense with denunciations of Trump, I think the CIA’s propaganda is working. In his article, Lazare asks the rhetorical question, “Is a military coup in the works?” He then goes on to describe the CIA and presstitute coup against Trump unfolding before our eyes. 

  Having described the unprecedented frame-up of the president-elect of the United States by the CIA and the Western media, Lazare has to square himself with those doing the frame-up:

  “This is not to say that the so-called President-elect’s legitimacy is not open to question. . . . Trump is a rightwing blowhard whose absurd babblings about Saudi Arabia, Iran and Yemen reveal a man who is dangerously ignorant about how the world works.”

  Note that Lazare goes beyond the CIA and the presstitutes by elevating Trump from someone not sufficiently suspicious of Vladimir Putin to “dangerously ignorant.” I suppose Lazare means dangerously ignorant like Bill and Hillary Clinton, George W. Bush, and Obama. If this is what Lazare means, why is Trump any less qualified to be president than his three most recent predecessors and his opponent in the election?

  Of course, Lazare has no idea what he means. He is simply afraid he will be called a “Trump deplorable,” and he stuck in some denuciatory words to ward off his dismissal as just another Russian agent.

  At other times I conclude that the CIA is discrediting itself with its fierce and transparently false attack on the president elect. The attack on Trump from the CIA and its media agents at the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, the network TV channels, the BBC, the Guardian, and every other Western print and TV source with the exception of Fox News, is based on no evidence whatsoever. None of the US 16 intelligence agencies can produce a tiny scrap of evidence. The evidence consists of nothing but constant repetitions of blatant lies fed into the presstitute media by the CIA .

  We have witnessed this so many times before: “Tonkin Gulf,” “Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction,” “Iranian nukes,” “Assad’s use of chemical weapons,” “Russian invasion of Ukraine.”

  General Smedley Butler, the most decorated Marine in the history of the US military said that he and the US Marines spent their lives defending the interests of the United Fruit Company and some lousy investment of the banks in Latin America. That’s all the attack on Trump is about. Trump is saying that “America first” doesn’t mean a license for America to rape and plunder other countries.

  Normalized relations with Russia removes the orchestrated “Russian threat” justification for the $1,000 billion taxpayer dollars taken annually from ordinary Americans and given to the military/security complex via the federal budget.

  Trump’s question about the relevance of NATO 25 years after the collapse of NATO’s purpose—the Soviet Union—threatens the power and position not only of the US military/security complex but also of Washington’s European vassals who live high in money and prestige as Washington’s servants. All European governments consist of Washington’s vassals. They are accustomed to supporting Washington’s foreign policy, not having had a policy of their own since World War II.

  Trump is taking on a policy world long under the influence of the CIA. Little wonder WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange and a number of other clued-in people say that the CIA will assassinate Trump if he cannot be brought into line with a Western alliance organized for the power and profit of the few.

  So what is Trump to do?

  There are various alternatives. Trump could fire CIA director John Brennan, have the Attorney General indict him for treason, have the FBI locate all participants in the intelligence agencies and presstitute media who aided and abetted the attempted frame-up of the president-elect of the United States and put them all on trial. This would be the best and surest way for Trump to clean out the snakepit that is Washington, D.C. To call a snakepit a “swamp” is to use an euphemism.

  Another alternative is for Trump to make the obvious point that despite the allegations of the CIA and the presstitutes, any hacking that occurred was not the fault of Trump and Russia, but the fault of the US intelligence agencies who were too incompetent to prevent it. Trump’s trump question to the CIA, NSA, FBI is: So, you know the Russians hacked us and you did not prevent it? If you repeat your incompetence, I am going to fire everyone of you incompetents.

  The same goes for terror attacks. Trump should ask the intelligence agencies: “How were you so totally incompetent that a handful of Saudi Arabians who could not fly airplanes brought down three WTC skyscrappers and desroyed part of the Pentagon, humiliating the world’s sole super-power in the eyes of the world?”

  Trump should make the point that the huge amount of money spent on security does not produce security. The massive security budget cannot prevent hacking of an American election and it cannot prevent humiliating attacks on the SuperPower by a handful of Saudi Arabians operating independently of any intelligence service.

  Trump should raise the obvious question: Has the Saudi’s oil trillions purchased the CIA and the presstitutes so that the CIA and the corrupt Western media now serve foreign interests against the United States? The story is being established that the Saudis are responsible or 9/11 and nothing is done about it. Instead the Saudis are supplied with more weapons with which to murder women and children in Yemen.

  All of the CIA’s propaganda can be turned against the agency. 9/11 was due to CIA failure, and to nothing else. Putin’s theft of the US presidential election was due to CIA failure, and to nothing else. All the bombings in France, UK, and Germany are due to intelligence failings, and to nothing else, as is the Boston Marathon bombing and every other alleged “terror event.”

  I mean, really, the CIA is a sitting duck for Trump. He has every reason to abolish the agency that has traditionally operated in behalf of narrow interests. In his book, The Brothers, Stephen Kinzer documents the use of the CIA and State Department in behalf of the clients of the Dulles brothers’ law firm’s clients. The CIA serves no American purpose, only the private purposes of the ruling elites, who are the real deplorables who have used corrupt Western governments to solidify all income and wealth in a few greedy hands.

  There is no reason for Trump to tolerate spurious charges against him by the CIA. At best the CIA is incompetent. At worst the agency is complicit in, or organizer of, terrorist events.

  

  

• Child at Anti-Trump Protest Starts Fire and Says 'Screw Our President' on National TV

  This is what happens when two libfags get together and breed. The child is innocent. This is a reflection upon them and their abhorrent parenting skills.

  Those same people featured above have been camped outside of the DeploraBall Event, with the keynote speaker being Milo from Breitbart, claiming they were Nazis — because MUH alt-right.

  Not before long, the savages could not contain themselves and ended up getting MACED in the face by police for attacking Deploraball attendees.

  Police use pepper spray after empty bottles thrown at #DeploraBall attendees. More pepper spray in my eyes pic.twitter.com/LmCZCFIWaO

  — Alexander Rubinstein (@AlexR_DC) January 20, 2017

  Anti-#Trump protest in DC outside the #DeploraBall https://t.co/0oguBgn3Eu

  — RT America (@RT_America) January 20, 2017

  This, of course, is DEVELOPING…

   

  
  

  Content originally generated at iBankCoin.com

  

  

• Assange "Stands By" Extradition Offer; Promises "Big Publishing Year" In 2017

  Just yesterday we noted that Julian Assange and his lawyers were seemingly shying away from an offer they previously made to the Obama administration whereby Assange agreed to U.S. extradition in return for clemency for Chelsea Manning (see “Assange’s Lawyer Provides An “Out”: Says Conditions Not Met For Extradition Deal“).  While initial tweets from WikiLeaks implied that the extradition deal was still on, a follow-up from Assange’s U.S. attorney seemed to declare a technical breach of “contract.”

  “Mr. Assange welcomes the announcement that Ms. Manning’s sentence will be reduced and she will be released in May, but this is well short of what he sought,” said Barry Pollack, Assange’s United State’s attorney.

   

  “Mr. Assange had called for Chelsea Manning to receive clemency and be released immediately.”

  That said, on a live press conference held earlier today on periscope, Assange once again confirmed that he “stands by everything I said including the offer to go to the United States if Chelsea Manning’s sentence was commuted.”

  “We look forward to having a conversation with the DoJ [Department of Justice] about what the correct way forward is.”

   

  “I’ve always been willing to go to the United States provided my rights are respected because this is a case that should never have occurred.”

  The full press conference can be viewed here:

  LIVE WikiLeaks general press conf #askWL https://t.co/mm5nJ3COkE

  — WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) January 19, 2017

   

  Meanwhile, irrespective of what happens with his personal extradition agreement, Assange promised a “big publishing year” in 2017 with the popularity of the ‘Podesta Emails’ encouraging other sources to come forward with new leaks.

  Assange promised a “big publishing year ahead” for WikiLeaks, adding “I’m in love with the publications we have coming.”

   

  Following the media coverage the Podesta emails garnered, Assange said “that exposure has, like it always does, encouraged other sources to come forward.”

   

  “We have a lot of material to get through, it takes time,” he said, concluding that WikiLeaks’ decade-long record of accuracy is a valuable reputation to maintain.

  Among a litany of other topics, Assange also touched on the “fake news” epidemic saying that Facebook was “more or less in the tank for Clinton” and has become “integrated with the U.S. establishment.”

  Assange described Facebook’s attempts to stop fake news as “super interesting,” saying that as Facebook “became rich [it] has integrated with the US establishment,” adding the social media site was “more or less in the tank for Clinton” during the election.

   

  “Organizations like Facebook are permitting many people to publish billions at the touch of a button – that’s breaking down the control structure,” he said. ”That is a new circumstance in democracy.”

  Finally, touching on a topic we’ve written about frequently in recent months, Assange discussed the attempts of the establishment to dismiss any hint of legitimate opposition from a pissed off electorate as nothing more than a reflection of Russian propaganda….

  “There is that environment now, where you can see the incentives, so whatever propaganda Russia may be putting out, through RT or elsewhere, and it certainly has its angle on things, you can see the incentives for incumbents, like Merkel, just like we could see with Clinton to try and hype up an issue about potential Russian involvement.”

   

  “It’s not that they [the incumbents] have a genuine opposition.  It’s not that the people are annoyed with misbehavior in government, and of course there is, I’m not saying anything in particular about Merkel’s government, but as a government who misbehaves, well, there’s an attempt to go, any criticism of governmental misbehavior, corruption,  or incompetence, well it’s not the opposition or the people making a fuss, no it’s secretly the Russians.”

  …though we’re sure the Russians told Assange to say all of the above so we highly recommend you take it all with a grain of salt. 

  

  

• Dynamic Scoring is More Voodoo Economics (Video)

  By EconMatters

  
  

  

  We discuss the $20 Trillion National Debt, the $5 Trillion Central Bank Balance Sheet and the 105 Percent Debt to GDP Ratio in the context of the environment that Donald Trump is going to inherent as President in this video. No more experimental policies, we know what works, cut government spending, keep tax revenue constant, and start paying down the National Debt.

  Every American needs to know these 3 charts backward and forward because you are the one who has to pay for this government spending and debt obligations over your lifetime. It is time that our government goes on a spending diet, no more military jets that we don`t really need, let alone can actually afford. There are no magic, fantasyland budgetary solutions and Dynamic Scoring and Laffer Curve nonsense to justify an agenda is unacceptable with a $20 Trillion National Debt staring us in the face this year.

  It is time to break it down to solid finance basics, spend less, keep revenue increasing slightly to account for the entitlements hitting the budget with babyboomers` entitlements obligations starting in 2018, build a budget surplus each year, and start paying down the National Debt with some Fucking Financial Discipline.

   

  

  

  

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

  

• "He Wants To Be Emperor" – How Mark Zuckerberg Is Scheming To Become President

  Submitted by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,

  

  At this point, I’ve seen enough. It’s becoming quite clear that Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg wants to be President of these United States.

  The topic first piqued my interest about a week ago when I read an article published at Vanity Fair titled, Will Mark Zuckerberg be Our Next President?

  Increasingly, a number of influential people in Silicon Valley seem to think that Mark Zuckerberg will likely run for president of the United States one day. And some people, including myself, believe that he could indeed win. “He wants to be emperor” is a phrase that has become common among people who have known him over the years.

   

  We’ll get to my theory on what that means a little later. First, let’s zip through the myriad indications that he might choose to throw his hoodie into the ring. Last year’s Facebook proxy statement articulated that Zuckerberg can run for office and still maintain control of his company. (To this end, Trump’s controversial precedent may facilitate any thorny political complications regarding the matter.) Then, over the holidays, Zuckerberg responded to a question about being an atheist, a belief he once professed, with a decidedly more politically circumspect answer: “I was raised Jewish and then I went through a period where I questioned things, but now I believe religion is very important.” (No one likes a president who doesn’t believe in some sort of God.) More recently, President Obama’s former campaign manager, David Plouffe, joined the philanthropic Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, to lead policy and advocacy. Other politicians from both parties have also joined the organization. And then there was the most obvious intimation: earlier this year, Zuckerberg, who has a habit of posting his annual New Year’s resolution on his Facebook page, declared that after conquering the previous challenges of learning Mandarin, and building an artificial-intelligence butler for his home, this year he was going to meet “people in every state in the US.” He noted that he’s “spent significant time in many states already, so I’ll need to travel to about 30 states this year to complete this challenge.” I wonder how many of those states are swing states?\

   

  If he does want the job, Zuckerberg definitely has the personality for it. When Facebook went public in 2012, I co-authored a profile of the young C.E.O. During the reporting, I heard from several friends about his penchant for playing world-conquering board and video games. Early childhood pals told me that one of Zuckerberg’s favorite video games as a boy was Civilization, the game in which you have to “build an empire to stand the test of time.” Others have told me that, to this day, Zuckerberg loves to play Risk, a strategy board game where you have to essentially take over the world. Believe it or not, he ended up applying some of these theories while forging and managing the extraordinary growth of Facebook, organizing his product teams in similar ways to his battalions in the board games. (According to someone close to him, these days Zuckerberg loves Game of Thrones and enjoys cooking a meat-laden “Dothraki Feast” while watching Westeros fall in and out of anarchy.)

  Then, this morning, I came across the following tweets.

  Zuck straight up delivering stump speeches on his Facebook page now pic.twitter.com/U5R9VB8Hk6

  — Alex Kantrowitz (@Kantrowitz) January 19, 2017

  Zuck: "We may come from different backgrounds, but we all want to find purpose and authenticity in something bigger than ourselves." Hmmm

  — Alex Kantrowitz (@Kantrowitz) January 19, 2017

  Zuck recap:
  1) No longer an atheist
  2) Will visit every state
  3) Hires Obama 2008 campaign manager
  4) …..https://t.co/j6KroIKGEX

  — Alex Kantrowitz (@Kantrowitz) January 10, 2017

  If that’s not enough for you, how about the team of 12 people now working on his personal page to make sure it’s perfectly pristine. Bloomberg reports:

  When Facebook went public five years ago, the world had a pretty vivid picture of who Mark Zuckerberg was. As much as anything, that image was of Jesse Eisenberg’s fictionalized performance as Zuckerberg in The Social Network: an intense, socially inept kid billionaire who always wore a hoodie, whether he was meeting with financiers or trying to screw a co-founder in court. Over the past couple of years, Zuckerberg has made a concerted effort to steer his image in a different direction.

   

  Near the end of 2014, he began holding Q&A sessions with groups of people wherever he was traveling around the world, fielding softballs ranging from lessons on startup-building to his favorite pizza toppings. Those town halls have evolved into near-daily posts on Zuckerberg’s own Facebook page, mixing news of company milestones with personal epiphanies, soft-focus photos from his life as a new dad, and responses to user comments. “What he’s learned over the last two years is that his image in the digital domain needs to be controlled,” says David Charron, who teaches entrepreneurship at the University of California at Berkeley. “And he’s simply growing up.”

   

  Zuckerberg has help, lots of it. Typically, a handful of Facebook employees manage communications just for him, helping write his posts and speeches, while an additional dozen or so delete harassing comments and spam on his page, say two people familiar with the matter. Facebook also has professional photographers snap Zuckerberg, say, taking a run in Beijing or reading to his daughter. Among them is Charles Ommanney, known most recently for his work covering the refugee crisis for the Washington Post. Company spokeswoman Vanessa Chan says Facebook is an easy way for executives to connect with various audiences.

   

  While plenty of chief executive officers have image managers, the scale of this team is something different.

  Naturally, Zuck doesn’t spend all of his free time smooching on Texas babies. So what’s he doing in between the professional photo shoots, Dothraki feasts, and playing cuddly tech oligarch for “ordinary” Americans? Well he’s suing native Hawaiians to get off his 700-acre, $100 million estate on the Hawaiian island of Kauai, of course.

  As reported by the Daily Mail:

  Mark Zuckerberg is suing Hawaiian families in an attempt to get them to sell their land to make his 700-acre property more secluded, a Honolulu newspaper reported Wednesday.

   

  Almost a dozen of small parcels on the Facebook co-founder’s $100 million Kauai property belong to Hawaiian citizens who acquired them through legislation dating back to 1850, called the Kuleana Act, according to the Star Advertiser.

   

  As such, these land owners are allowed to walk through Zuckerberg’s domain. But the billionaire is believed to have filed lawsuits against a few hundred people in the hope that they will sell their parcels at a public auction.

   

  Using the law to induce land sales, which isn’t uncommon in Hawaii, can be viewed as problematic because it severs the native Hawaiian community’s link to ancestral land.

   

  Zuckerberg is believed to have sued a few hundred people via several companies that he controls, the Star Advertiser reported. Some of these people, who inherited or owned interest in the land, are dead.

   

  Similar auctions have in the past led to below-market sales, but according to the Star Advertiser, some of those involved in the Zuckerberg cases believe the billionaire will offer a fair amount of money.

  I know that’s a lot to take in, so let me end this post with a little humor.

  

   

  No, that’s not real.

  

  

• In Last Farewell, Russia Slams Obama Whose "Dumb" Actions "Claimed Tens Of Thousands Of Lives"

  In a scathing Facebook post, Russia’s former president and current Prime Minister, Dmitry Medvedev (who less than five years ago was assured by Obama that “he would have more flexibility”) gave his final assessment of US-Russia relations during the Obama administration, and lashed out at the outgoing US president, accusing him of destroying relations “between the United States and Russia, which are at their lowest point in decades” and predicting that “this is its key foreign policy mistake which will be remembered by history.”

  Medvedev was relentless, saying “US-Russia relations completely fell apart by the end of the second term of the Obama administration,” which has shown itself to be “short-sighted on such an important and complex issue as relations with Russia.”

  Despite some initial achievements in US-Russian relations, when “our countries signed a nuclear weapons reduction treaty, and Russia and the United States played a leading role in resolving the controversy surrounding the Iranian nuclear program” which gave “hope” to Russia that the two countries could establish good relations, that did not happen, for one reason: “the most important thing was to remember that Russia is not a banana republic (even though equal dialogue is a must with all members of the international community).”

  Obama’s mistake? Belittling a foe which saw itself a more equal with every passing day, “a country with defensive capabilities equal to the United States,” and a permanent seat at the UN Security Council (UNSC) deserved a different approach. “It is important to remember that Russia-US relations, without exaggeration, determine the fate of major international initiatives.”

  Why did Obama fail to grasp that foreign policy is a two-way street? Simple: according to Medvedev, “there is only one explanation for such actions: the interests of the United States. An explanation which is entirely defensible in America itself, though much less so in other countries.” But, he added accusing Obama not just of callousness, but outright stupidity, “the real issue lies elsewhere– the failure to understand one’s own true interests.”

  As a result, Obama’s “reckless” policies led to “the complete collapse of the political systems” and wars “which claimed tens of thousands of lives.”

  “Everyone is aware that the United States has always tried to” steer” almost all global processes, brazenly interfering in the internal affairs of various countries and waging multiple wars on foreign soil. Iraq, the Arab Spring, Ukraine, and Syria are just a few examples of such reckless policies in recent years. We can still see their consequences.“

  Taking the verbal humiliation up a notch, Russia’s prime minister then said “it doesn’t get any dumber than restricting entry to the United States for the leadership of the Russian parliament, ministers, and businessmen, thus deliberately reducing the possibility of full-fledged contacts and closing the window to cooperation. The bet was on brute force and sheer pressure. It is impossible to imagine such actions even during the Cuban missile crisis, even though the situation was much more serious then…”

  Having cast Obama on the trash heap of diplomatic history, the Russian did save some hope that relations between the two countries may recover thanks to Trump:

  “We do not know yet how the new US administration will approach relations with our country. But we are hoping that reason will prevail. And we are ready to do our share of the work in order to improve the relationship.“

  We can only hope that Trump will reciprocate.

  * * *

  Medvedev’s full Facebook post below:

  The administration of US President Barack Obama has come to a close and the results are decidedly mixed. I would like to give my assessment of Russia-US relations during this period, especially since I was directly involved in many events.

  On the one hand, Russia and the United States managed to work together to resolve a number of major international problems. Our countries signed a nuclear weapons reduction treaty, and Russia and the United States played a leading role in resolving the controversy surrounding the Iranian nuclear programme. We achieved the elimination of chemical weapons in Syria. These outcomes are important for the entire world.

  On the other hand, US-Russia relations completely fell apart by the end of the second term of the Obama administration.

  Everyone is aware that the United States has always tried to” steer” almost all global processes, brazenly interfering in the internal affairs of various countries and waging multiple wars on foreign soil. Iraq, the Arab Spring, Ukraine, and Syria are just a few examples of such reckless policies in recent years. We can still see their consequences, which range from the complete collapse of the political systems in these countries to wars which claimed tens of thousands of lives.

  There is only one explanation for such actions: the interests of the United States. An explanation which is entirely defensible in America itself, though much less so in other countries.

  But the real issue lies elsewhere– the failure to understand one’s own true interests.

  The Obama administration was completely short-sighted on such an important and complex issue as relations with Russia. There was hope that it would be smarter, more circumspect, and more responsible– despite differing assessments of complex international processes, varying approaches to key decisions, the role of emotion and the pressure exerted by various political forces. The most important thing was to remember that Russia is not a banana republic (even though equal dialogue is a must with all members of the international community). It is unacceptable to talk to a country which is a permanent member of the UN Security Council in such a manner. A country with defensive capabilities equal to the United States. It is important to remember that Russia-US relations, without exaggeration, determine the fate of major international initiatives. Often, we may like or dislike some of the policies of our key partners, but we must be aware of our common responsibility. This is something that the Obama administration failed to do.

  The pressure on our country has reached unprecedented proportions. Ill-considered economic sanctions, which did no one any good, have reduced our cooperation to zero. There were the ridiculous individual sanctions that nobody paid attention to. And it doesn’t get any dumber than restricting entry to the United States for the leadership of the Russian parliament, ministers, and businessmen, thus deliberately reducing the possibility of full-fledged contacts and closing the window to cooperation. The bet was on brute force and sheer pressure. It is impossible to imagine such actions even during the Cuban missile crisis, even though the situation was much more serious then…

  Who benefited from this? No one. Certainly not the United States. It didn’ t work.

  Conclusion: The Obama administration has destroyed relations between the United States and Russia, which are at their lowest point in decades. This is its key foreign policy mistake which will be remembered by history.

  We do not know yet how the new US administration will approach relations with our country. But we are hoping that reason will prevail. And we are ready to do our share of the work in order to improve the relationship.

  

  

• China Grows At Slowest Pace In 26 Years Despite Record Debt, Currency Devaluation

  Amid constant liquidity additions, record credit support, a devaluing currency, and admission that the last three years of macro data was fabricated; China ended 2016 with the worst economic growth since 1990…

  

  China's macro data avalanche was a mixed bag. The headline GDP grew more than expected (+6.8% YoY) but Industrial Production disappointed and while retail sales rose more than expected, fixed asset investment growth missed.

  If debt is growth then China's transmission mechanism is officially FUBAR as Q4 saw the largest surge in aggregate financing ever…

  

  Credit expansion at close to twice the pace of GDP growth will be tough to sustain without putting financial stability at risk.  

  And a massive devaluation occurred in the yuan during Q4… (along with soaring bond yields and rising default risk)

  

   

  And the result of all that…

  • GDP (4Q): +6.8% BEAT +6.7% Exp
  • Industrial Production (Dec.): +6.0% MISS +6.1% Exp
  • Retail Sales (Dec.): +10.9% BEAT +10.7% Exp
  • Fixed Assets Investments (YTD): +8.1% MISS +8.3% Exp

  

  As Bloomberg notes,

  "Stable growth has come at the expense of higher leverage and bubbles from bonds to bitcoin. A policy shift toward controlling financial risks and curbing housing prices will weigh on the economy in 2017."

  On a long-term horizon, the economy seems to be filled by ever-growing debt rather than investment or consumption.

  Reaction from Stephen Innes, a Singapore-based senior trader at foreign exchange company Oanda:

  "GDP beat market expectations. Mind you, China’s growth remains supported by massive government spending and record-setting bank lending which in itself continues to fuel asset bubble fears."

  *  *  *

  As a reminder, Bloomberg notes that a shrinking working-age population, reduced scope for additions to the capital stock and diminished space for productivity gains mean that China's potential growth is slowing. Bloomberg Intelligence estimates potential growth at 7.1% in 2016, down from 7.3% in 2015 and on a path to 6.5% by the end of the decade.

  

  As Enda Curran, Bloomberg's Chief Asia Economics Correspondent, concludes…

  Of course, there is a cost to propping up GDP like this. And that's debt.

   

  

   

  It's hard to look past the headline number without considering the gargantuan lending China's banks were forced to pump into the economy to keep things chugging along. We know that policy makers are aware of this risk given the recent signals about prudent monetary policy and a tolerance for slower growth.

  The initial fallout was a drop in the offshore Yuan rate (following Yuan strength going into the numbers thanks to Yellen's dovish comments)…

  

   

   

  

  

• California Governor Jerry Brown Admits To $1.5 Billion "Math Error" In State Budget

  Budgeting can be difficult, particularly for expansive state budgets that require a ton of inputs to support 1,000s of line items each of which can result in massive variances depending on the development of various economic indicators like interest rates, commodity prices, etc. throughout the year.

  That said, while forecasting variances are inevitable, we, as taxpayers, generally rely on our expensive budget office employees to at least present annual budgets that reflect sound mathematics and accounting principles.  Unfortunately, that seems to be too much to ask of the math-challenged administration of California Governor Jerry Brown which decided to double count certain cost savings and simply “forgot” to incorporate other expenses altogether.  Per the LA Times:

  Budget staffers said there were, in fact, two mistakes:

   

  –  A double counting of state savings from a program that coordinates health, behavioral and long-term care services with local government. That error understated expenses by $913 million.

   

  –  A forgotten state government cost from two counties — San Mateo and Orange — enrolling in the coordinated program, which meant missed expenses of $573 million.

  

   

  Embarrassingly, when asked about the “mistakes” that resulted in a $1.6 billion budget deficit, the Chief Deputy Director of Brown’s Department of Finance could offer no other explanation than that the “math was wrong” while another spokesman admitted, “There’s no other way to describe this other than a straight up error in accounting, which we deeply regret.”

  Meanwhile, adding insult to injury, Brown’s administration allegedly discovered their “accounting errors” several months ago but didn’t disclose them to State Senators until last week.  Per Mercury News:

  The administration discovered accounting mistakes last fall, but it did not notify lawmakers until the administration included adjustments to make up for the errors in Brown’s budget proposal last week.

   

  The Department of Finance said it did not account for $487 million in rebates from drugmakers that the state must pay the federal government to reimburse Washington for its share of Medi-Cal drug costs.

   

  The state also miscalculated costs for the Coordinated Care Initiative, an experimental program in seven counties to improve care for a group of high-needs patients eligible for both Medi-Cal and Medicare, the federally funded health plan for seniors and people with disabilities.

   

  Officials double-counted some of the expected savings, leading to a budget hole of $913 million, and undercounted the costs in San Mateo and Orange counties by $573 million.

   

  In his spending plan, Brown proposed eliminating the Coordinated Care Initiative because he said the program was not cost effective, angering counties that said the change would shift $550 million in costs to them.

  Of course, the blatant attempt to cover up their “math error” rather than quickly admit the mistake last fall, led California State Senator John Moorlach to ask the obvious question of what other errors may be buried in the expansive budget, saying “It makes you wonder what else is not right. … When something like this happens, the trust factor gets eroded, and you lose confidence in what’s being provided to you.”  But, no matter the size of the various other “math errors” that come to light, we’re quite certain that California’s liberal legislators in Sacramento stand ready, willing and able to implement whatever tax hikes may be necessary to address such issues.

  

  

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• 58% of Americans Don’t Think Russian “Hacking” Changed Election … 56% Believe U.S. Should Improve Relations with Russia

  Despite the evidence–free drumbeat of propaganda and hysteria, a new CNN/ORC poll finds that Americans are remaining level-headed about the Russian hacking allegations:

  Majorities say that … that the outcome of the election would have been the same regardless of the information released (58% say that). Further, 56% say that despite this situation, the US ought to continue its efforts to improve relations with Russia rather than take strong economic and diplomatic steps against Russia.

  It’s almost enough to restore my faith in my fellow Americans …

   

  

• "Dull Draghi" – What Wall Street Expects From The ECB Tomorrow

  While ECB President Mario Draghi may sound slightly hawkish at tomorrow’s press conference after an unexpectedly strong acceleration in CPI in December and European economic growth modestly picking up, the ECB is set to argue on Thursday that its extra-easy policy stance is still needed to keep the recovery on course. As a result, it is all but certain to leave current monetary policy in place and maintain a promise for lengthy stimulus, having extended its bond-buying program just last month coupled with the tapering (just don’t call it a taper) of its bond purchases this year.

  ECB President Mario Draghi can argue the bank has done its part to mend growth, but he will also note the recovery is not self-sustaining, underlying inflation is weak and political risk from key elections weighs on the outlook. So turning down the ECB taps now is inappropriate, he is expected to say.

  According to Reuters, on the face of it, Draghi should be relaxed. Inflation hit a three year high of 1.1% last month (the ECB expects it to hit 1.7% in 2019), manufacturing activity is accelerating and confidence indicators are firming, all pointing to solid growth at the end of last year. Additionally, euro zone business growth was the fastest in more than five years in December, order books are surging on export demand, and consumption is holding up, despite rising energy costs, all pointing to the sort of resilience not seen since before the bloc’s debt crisis. Of course, it could all be transitory as the “Trump” effect shifts to Europe, but the answr won’t be known for a few more months.

  So what does Wall Street expect? According to a Bloomberg survey, the ECB will wait until at least its meeting on Sept. 7 to announce any new policy measures As a result, Bofa strategists expect Draghi to sound “as dull as possible” to keep the message sent at the previous meeting intact. Confirming this, ECB’s Yves Mersch said on Jan. 6 that improving euro-area economic numbers and a faster-than-forecast inflation pickup aren’t enough to warrant an immediate shift in the policy.

  Here is a summary breakdown of select outlooks:

  BofAML (Athanasios Vamvakidis, Gilles Moec)

  • Draghi will endeavor to be as dull as possible, so as not to generate too many expectations on any further change in stance any time soon
  • Any deviation from the December message on the inflation outlook and/or further delay in the implementation of the new QE parameters would create scope for bonds to underperform current forwards
  • Risk for euro small and balanced; any hawkish statements that strengthen the euro during the Q&A could be an opportunity to sell EUR/USD again

  JPMorgan (strategists including Fabio Bassi)

  • Don’t expect the ECB meeting to break much new ground; ECB will likely express satisfaction at the improvements in the growth and inflation outlook, at the same time stressing that there is no reason to think about tapering more quickly than the Dec. announcement

  NatWest Markets (Anna Tokar, Giles Gale)

  • Unlikely to give significant new clues to the ECB’s reaction function
  • Since the Dec. meeting, data has been solid; expect the Council’s economic assessment may be slightly more optimistic, in line with the assessment of the Eurozone growth outlook
  • However, policy debate should be unchanged and simply reference the decisions taken in Dec

  Citi (strategists including Harvinder Sian)

  • Meeting is too close to the policy moves enacted last month to warrant a material shift in ECB tone, even if data has been more buoyant than expected
  • Any change to the reference of growth risks being to the downside will have to await more data and perhaps even clarity on the new U.S. administration’s policies
  • Think that any further tapering risk starts from June meetings onwards, but the rise in oil prices and a drop in euro could see markets re-price from the March staff forecasts
  • Expect some focus on the 33% issue limit, with Draghi likely to repeat that there are legal issues in up- sizing the issuer limit on legal grounds; many investors don’t believe the limit is a hard line in the sand –- despite the fact Portuguese and Irish bond valuations already reflect a less supportive ECB backdrop

  UniCredit (economist Marco Valli)

  • ECB President Draghi will sound constructive, but dovish
  • He will probably acknowledge that risks in the short term are moving toward faster-than-expected headline inflation and more balanced growth assessment
  • Also expects Draghi to emphasize that uncertainty remains elevated and the medium-term outlook hasn’t changed much from last month
  • ECB still wants financial conditions to remain very loose

  Deutsche Bank (strategists including Francis Yared)

  • Next step for the ECB should be to shift to a neutral stance by removing reference that rates may go lower in the introductory statement; may be too early to do so in Jan. meeting, but the overall tone of the press conference should suggest that the policy stance is evolving in that direction

  ING (Carsten Brzeski)

  • The December decision has put the ECB on autopilot at least until the summer and until after the Dutch and French elections. This autopilot should also immunize the ECB against short-term volatility in macro data.

  Commerzbank

  • The lending channel is no longer clogged up, but it is not completely free either and progress has only been possible thanks to massive measures by the ECB. If monetary policy were to be tightened again, and the burdens from existing loans were to increase once more, the lending channel would close and the economic picture would worsen considerably again.

  

  

• Nothing Is Real: When Reality TV Programming Masquerades As Politics

  Submitted by John Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,

  “There are two ways by which the spirit of a culture may be shriveled. In the first – the Orwellian – culture becomes a prison. In the second – the Huxleyan – culture becomes a burlesque. No one needs to be reminded that our world is now marred by many prison-cultures…. it makes little difference if our wardens are inspired by right- or left-wing ideologies. The gates of the prison are equally impenetrable, surveillance equally rigorous, icon-worship pervasive…. Big Brother does not watch us, by his choice. We watch him, by ours…. When a population becomes distracted by trivia, when cultural life is redefined as a perpetual round of entertainments, when serious public conversation becomes a form of baby-talk, when, in short, a people become an audience, and their public business a vaudeville act, then a nation finds itself at risk; culture-death is a clear possibility.”— Professor Neil Postman

  Donald Trump no longer needs to launch Trump TV.

  He’s already the star of his own political reality show.

  Americans have a voracious appetite for TV entertainment, and the Trump reality show—guest starring outraged Democrats with a newly awakened conscience for immigrants and the poor, power-hungry Republicans eager to take advantage of their return to power, and a hodgepodge of other special interest groups with dubious motives—feeds that appetite for titillating, soap opera drama.

  After all, who needs the insults, narcissism and power plays that are hallmarks of reality shows such as Celebrity Apprentice or Keeping Up with the Kardashians when you can have all that and more delivered up by the likes of Donald Trump and his cohorts?

  Yet as John Lennon reminds us, “nothing is real,” especially not in the world of politics.

  Much like the fabricated universe in Peter Weir’s 1998 film The Truman Show, in which a man’s life is the basis for an elaborately staged television show aimed at selling products and procuring ratings, the political scene in the United States has devolved over the years into a carefully calibrated exercise in how to manipulate, polarize, propagandize and control a population.

  Indeed, Donald Trump may be the smartest move yet by the powers-that-be to keep the citizenry divided and at each other’s throats, because as long as we’re busy fighting each other, we’ll never manage to present a unified front against tyranny in any form.

  This is the magic of the reality TV programming that passes for politics today.

  It allows us to be distracted, entertained, occasionally a little bit outraged but overall largely uninvolved, content to remain in the viewer’s seat.

  The more that is beamed at us, the more inclined we are to settle back in our comfy recliners and become passive viewers rather than active participants as unsettling, frightening events unfold.

  Reality and fiction merge as everything around us becomes entertainment fodder.

  We don’t even have to change the channel when the subject matter becomes too monotonous. That’s taken care of for us by the programmers (the corporate media).

  For instance, before we could get too worked up over government surveillance, the programmers changed the channels on us and switched us over to breaking news about militarized police. Before our outrage could be transformed into action over police misconduct, they changed the channel once again to reports of ISIS beheadings and terrorist shootings. Before we had a chance to challenge what was staged or real, the programming switched to the 2016 presidential election.

  “Living is easy with eyes closed,” says Lennon, and that’s exactly what reality TV that masquerades as American politics programs the citizenry to do: navigate the world with their eyes shut.

  As long as we’re viewers, we’ll never be doers.

  Studies suggest that the more reality TV people watch—and I would posit that it’s all reality TV—the more difficult it becomes to distinguish between what is real and what is carefully crafted farce.

  “We the people” are watching a lot of TV.

  On average, Americans spend five hours a day watching television. By the time we reach age 65, we’re watching more than 50 hours of television a week, and that number increases as we get older. And reality TV programming consistently captures the largest percentage of TV watchers every season by an almost 2-1 ratio.

  This doesn’t bode well for a citizenry able to sift through masterfully-produced propaganda in order to think critically about the issues of the day, whether it’s fake news peddled by government agencies or foreign entities.

  Those who watch reality shows tend to view what they see as the “norm.” Thus, those who watch shows characterized by lying, aggression and meanness not only come to see such behavior as acceptable and entertaining but also mimic the medium.

  This holds true whether the reality programming is about the antics of celebrities in the White House, in the board room, or in the bedroom.

  It’s a phenomenon called “humilitainment.”

  A term coined by media scholars Brad Waite and Sara Booker, “humilitainment” refers to the tendency for viewers to take pleasure in someone else’s humiliation, suffering and pain.

  “Humilitainment” largely explains not only why American TV watchers are so fixated on reality TV programming but how American citizens, largely insulated from what is really happening in the world around them by layers of technology, entertainment, and other distractions, are being programmed to accept the brutality, surveillance and dehumanizing treatment of the American police state as things happening to other people.

  The ramifications for the future of civic engagement, political discourse and self-government are incredibly depressing and demoralizing.

  This not only explains how a candidate like Donald Trump with a reputation for being rude, egotistical and narcissistic could get elected, but it also says a lot about how a politician like Barack Obama—whose tenure in the White House was characterized by drone killings, a weakening of the Constitution at the expense of Americans’ civil liberties, and an expansion of the police state—could be hailed as “one of the greatest presidents of all times.”

  This is what happens when an entire nation—bombarded by reality TV programming, government propaganda and entertainment news—becomes systematically desensitized and acclimated to the trappings of a government that operates by fiat and speaks in a language of force.

  Ultimately, as I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, the reality shows, the entertainment news, the surveillance society, the militarized police, and the political spectacles have one common objective: to keep us divided, distracted, imprisoned, and incapable of taking an active role in the business of self-government.

  If “we the people” feel powerless and apathetic, it is only because we have allowed ourselves to be convinced that the duties of citizenship begin and end at the ballot box.

  Marching and protests have certainly been used with great success by past movements to foment real change, but if those marches and protests are merely outpourings of discontent because a particular politician won or lost with no solid plan of action or follow-through, then what’s the point?

  Martin Luther King Jr. understood that politics could never be the answer to what ailed the country. That’s why he spearheaded a movement of mass-action strategy that employed boycotts, sit-ins and marches. Yet King didn’t march against a particular politician or merely to express discontent. He marched against injustice, government corruption, war, and inequality, and he leveraged discontent with the status quo into an activist movement that transformed the face of America.

  When all is said and done, it won’t matter who you voted for in the presidential election. What will matter is where you stand in the face of the injustices that continue to ravage our nation: the endless wars, the police shootings, the overcriminalization, the corruption, the graft, the roadside strip searches, the private prisons, the surveillance state, etc.

  Will you tune out the reality TV show and join with your fellow citizens to push back against the real menace of the police state, or will you merely sit back and lose yourself in the political programming aimed at keeping you imprisoned in the police state?

  

  

• DOJ Ordered To Preserve Gmail Records Of Clinton-Colluding Assistant AG Peter Kadzik

  A Judicial Watch lawsuit seeking records related to potential collusion between the Justice Department and Hillary Clinton operatives during her email investigation has resulted in a federal judge issuing a rare order instructing the DOJ to preserve the Gmail records of the now infamous Assistant Attorney General Peter Kadzik.  The order came from U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan, a Clinton appointee, and gave the DOJ until this morning to report back on steps taken to preserve the personal email accounts of Kadzik.  Per Politico:

  “Defendant shall take all necessary and reasonable steps to ensure the preservation of all agency records and potential agency records between the dates of December 1, 2014 and November 7, 2016 in any personal email account of Assistant Attorney General for Legislative Affairs Peter Kadzik. Any question about whether a record is an agency record shall be resolved in favor of it being an agency record.”

  Of course, as we pointed out back in the fall, various emails provided by WikiLeaks exposed Kadzik repeatedly colluding with the Clinton campaign by providing campaign manager, and long-time friend, John Podesta with inside information on the DOJ’s investigation of Hillary’s email scandal.  Moreover, proving just how close they were, in a Sept. 2008 email, Podesta emailed an Obama campaign official to recommend Kadzik for a supportive role in the campaign saying that Kadzik was a “fantastic lawyer” who “kept me out of jail”…now that’s a bond that lasts.

  

   

  Of course, in response to Judge Sullivan’s order, the DOJ promptly noted that Mr. Kadzik was unable to locate any work-related emails on his Gmail account…well how convenient.

  “It is the government’s understanding that Mr. Kadzik has located no agency records or potential agency records in his Gmail account and that, therefore, there are no such documents to preserve. Nevertheless, out of an abundance of caution and consistent with the preservation order that Judicial Watch seeks, the government has instructed Mr. Kadzik to preserve any potential agency records in his Gmail account, should any exist, and Mr. Kadzik has agreed to do so,” the Justice Department filing said.

  And since we have no doubt that Kadzik performed a thorough, impartial scan of his Gmail account while resisting the urge to delete “inconvenient” records, we assume that he simply overlooked this email which provided a very timely “Heads up” to John Podesta regarding confidential information about DOJ hearings and FOIA requests.  Simple, honest mistake, no doubt.
  

  

   

  How long can this farce continue on before government officials are finally forced to do what private corporations have been forced to do for years, namely requiring that their employees use secured, archived email systems for official communications and impose stiff penalties for non-compliance.  Seems simple enough.

  

  

• China On Alert For "Death Of Night" Trump Tweets

  Submitted by Saxo Bank's Martin O'Rourke via TradingFloor.com,

  • Donald Trump's inauguration to take place on Friday
  • China's relationship with president-elect off to difficult start
  • Trump angered China by fielding call from Taiwanese counterpart after victory
  • Trump's anti-supranationalism might favour China if TPP is abandoned — Wei Li
  • Currency manipulation attacks not borne out by long term — Wei Li
  • Anti-trade rhetoric difficult to sustain in intricate global trade chain — Wei Li
  • Trumpflation trade may boost commodity exporters out of China
  • Geopolitical risk possible but markets have been adept at absorbing pain — Wei Li

  Read more on Saxo's page dedicated to Trump's inauguration

  

  Chinese investors will keep a close eye on developments around Donald Trump's inauguration on Friday.

  Among many strands that are worrying investors in the run up to the inauguration of Donald Trump on January 20, the president-elect's foreign policy pivot towards Moscow and intensely confrontational stance towards China lurks as a deeply disturbing seismic-shift in geopolitics.

  Trump's been going after China for some time now. If that looked like just a good bit of old-fashioned scapegoating in the US presidential campaign designed to create sweet music with his highly disaffected hinterland, there has, if anything, been a ratcheting up of the rhetoric ever since his victory was confirmed on November 8.

  When he fielded that call from Taiwanese president Tsai Ing-wen in December, Beijing offered him a diplomatic path out of the maze by trying to suggest Tsai had lured the president-elect into a trap. Trump not only snubbed the lifeline, he reinforced the point a few days later by questioning the whole One-China approach that has defined US policy since 1979 and then lambasting China for the seizure of a US drone in disputed waters before Christmas.

  The tone mirrors Trump's pre-election mantra that China manipulated its currency to help its export sector and stole US manufacturing jobs and has seemingly set Washington on a collision course with Beijing that could emerge as one of the fundamental themes of the next four years. We are, after all, talking about the two biggest economies in the world.

  It's certainly got Beijing on red alert, says Wei Li, iShares head of investment strategy EMEA, in interview with TradngFloor this week.

  "There are some really unexpected things happening with the Trump administration and there are no doubt a lot more people paying attention to Twitter at 2am in the night," Wei Li says, in reference to Trump's liking for an unguarded tweet or two in the dead of night. "We are operating in a very different environment where markets are reacting and adapting to changes that have not been seen for a good decade or more."

  Wei Li says that it is important to put Trump's criticisms under the microscope and see if they stand up to scrutiny. The currency manipulation charge is once such hotspot.

  "It's actually quite difficult to say where the Chinese offshore yuan should be trading so labelling it as 'currency manipulation' is quite a statement," she says. "The Chinese yuan devaluation fear started becoming a mainstream rhetoric in the past couple of years but in years prior to that the Chinese yuan had been appreciating."

  USDCNH at the end of 2016 came within a whisker of breaking through the key 7.0 handle before concerted efforts including intervention by the People's Bank of China and slowing capital outflows stabilised dragging the pair back to the 6.800 zone.

  USDCNH was at 6.8575 at 1341 GMT, January 16, according to SaxoTraderGO.

  USDCNH came within a whisker of breaking 7.0 at the end of 2016 and the steady devaluation of the offshore yuan has given Trump fuel for a pernicious campaign
  

  Source: SaxoTraderGO

  "The choice in China was seen as one in which you are either dealing with a businessman like trump where the focus is around profit and figures and the alternative of Hillary Clinton, the continuation effectively of the status quo and a more classic and experienced politician," says Chinese-native Wei Li. "There are still a lot of details as to how the relationship will pan out…but if the anti-trade rhetoric were to continue, you could see that hitting growth potential."

   

  "But it's hard to see the rhetoric continuing on the same scale because of the very intricate nature of the global supply chain," says the London-based analyst. "You can't just write off one aspect of the chain and not consider the impact on the rest so there are a lot of nuanced factors at play and it is probably too early to say what the impact will be on the Sino-US trade relationship."

  

   Wei Li: 'If the US walks away from TPP, then this could create an opportunity for China.'

  China, says Wei Li, could even benefit from Trump's clear anti-internationalism stance if he sees through his promise to abandon the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

  "It's clear that if the US walks away from TPP, then this could create an opportunity for China in the global trade picture if it leaves a gap," she says. "TPP was a deal that included many countries but [not] China so if that deal does not happen in its original scale, then it may not be a bad thing for China in terms of its market share of global trade."

   

  "There has to be more room to go in the reflation trade, which could also provide quite a stimulus to Chinese commodity exports if consumer goods come under demand," she adds. "We track US data and factor in other content through our in-house GPS growth monitor and we were ahead of consensus in 2016 and continue to be for 2017 even though there has been some catch up recently."

   

  The monitor still points to upside growth."

  Certainly, the run up in global equities in the last two months that took the Dow Jones Index to within a point of cracking 20,000 seems to indicate that markets are relatively benign about the ongoing Sino-US relationship.

  "The way that markets have reacted and investor positioning seems to show that any tailrisk of a political nature is not fully priced in," says Wei Li.

   

  "Investors have found selling volatilities via Vix futures has been profitable because they have seen vols spikes don't last and this has been a good strategy," she adds.

   

  ""Markets have already shown they are adept and resilient at handling Brexit, Trump's election and the Italian referendum."

   

  "The nature of geopolitical tail risk is it is hard to predict ahead of when it happens but what we have seen is that risk volatility has not been prolonged."

  

  China – mysterious, inscrutable and beyond Donald Trump's grasp.

  

  

• Lockheed Agrees To Cut F-35 Price Below $100 Million In Latest Victory For Trump

  Less than a month after president-elect Trump first tweeted about the F-35's high costs, and a week after he brought up the F-35 in his first press conference, Reuters reports that The U.S. Department of Defense and Lockheed Martin are close to deal for a contract worth almost $9 billion as negotiations are poised to bring the price per F-35 below $100 million for the first time.

  

  The Washington Post notes that in recent months, the president-elect has not been shy about taking to social media to criticize or heap praise on individual companies and military programs.

  A Dec. 6 tweet bashed Chicago-based Boeing for what he referred to as the “out of control” cost of the Air Force One presidential airplane. Weeks later he turned in Boeing’s favor at the expense of Lockheed, tweeting that he had asked the company to “price out a comparable F-18 Super Hornet” because of the F-35’s high costs.

  Based on the tremendous cost and cost overruns of the Lockheed Martin F-35, I have asked Boeing to price-out a comparable F-18 Super Hornet!

  — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 22, 2016

  He also briefly brought up the F-35 in a Wednesday news conference intended to clarify his business conflicts, saying he would “do some big things” with the program and find a way to trim costs and improve the plane.

  

  And then, after emerging from a meeting with President-elect Donald Trump at Trump Tower in New York last Friday, Lockheed Martin chief executive Marillyn Hewson told reporters that the Bethesda, Md.-based defense giant is close to a new contract deal that would cut the cost of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program and also create jobs.

  “We had the opportunity to talk to [Trump] about the F-35 program, and I certainly share his views that we need to get the best capability to our men and women in uniform and we have to get it at the lowest possible price,” Hewson said.

   

  “So I’m glad I had the opportunity to tell him that we are close to a deal that will bring the cost down significantly from the previous lot of aircraft to the next lot of aircraft and moreover it’s going to bring a lot of jobs to the United States.”

  Which leads to tonight's news, via Reuters, that they are close to deal for a contract worth almost $9 billion as negotiations are poised to bring the price per F-35 below $100 million for the first time, people familiar with the talks said Wednesday.

  Talks are still ongoing for the tenth batch of stealthy fighter jets with a deal for 90 planes expected to be announced by the end of the month, three people said on condition of anonymity.

   

  A Lockheed representative declined to comment and a representative for the fighter program said negotiations are ongoing.

   

  The U.S. Defense Department expects to spend $391 billion in the coming decades to develop and buy 2,443 of the supersonic warplanes. Though the F-35 program has been criticized by Trump as too expensive, the price per jet has already been declining. Lockheed, the prime contractor, and its partners have been working on building a more cost-effective supply chain to fuel the production line in Fort Worth, Texas.

   

  The overtures from the incoming administration may have had some effect, but Lockheed's F-35 program manager Jeff Babione said last summer that the price of the F-35A conventional takeoff and landing version of the jet would drop to under $100 million per plane in this contract for the 10th low-rate production batch.

  *  *  *

  Another victory for Trump? Or as John Harwood would say, this would probably have happened anyway…

  

  

• Pittsburgh Mall Once Worth $190 Million Sells For $100

  We have frequently noted the precarious state of the U.S. mall REITs (see “Myopic Markets & The Looming Mall REITs Massacre” and “Is CMBS The Next “Shoe To Drop”? GGP Sales Suggest Commercial Real Estate Crashing“), but the epic collapse of the Galleria at Pittsburgh Mills paints a uniquely horrific outlook for mall operators.  The 1.1 million square foot mall, once valued at $190 million after being opened in 2005, sold at a foreclosure auction this morning for $100 (yes, not million…just $100).  According to CBS Pittsburgh, the mall was purchased by its lender, Wells Fargo, which credit bid it’s $143 million loan balance, which was originated in 2006, to acquire the property.

  Pittsburgh Mills mall auctioned off for a hundred bucks. Bid by Wells Fargo which is holding 149 Mill. Debt on mall.

  — PAUL D. MARTINO (@PMARTKDKA) January 18, 2017

   

  Like many malls around the country, Pittsburgh Mills has suffered the consequences of weak traffic amid tepid demand from the struggling U.S. consumer resulting in massive tenant losses.  According to the Pittsburgh Tribune, the mall is only 55% occupied and was last appraised for $11 million back in August. 

  The value of the mall has been plummeting since it opened in July 2005. Once worth $190 million, it was appraised at $11 million in August.

   

  The mall has lost a number of key tenants over the years, including a Sears Grand store. The mall’s retail space is nearly half empty, with about 55 percent occupied.

   

  

   

  Of course, New York Fed President Bill Dudley laid out a very compelling case for retailers yesterday if he can just convince American homeowners to commit the same mistakes they made back in 2006 by repeatedly withdrawing all of the equity in their homes to fund meaningless shopping sprees.  So it’s probably safe to keep buying those mall REITs…afterall those 3% dividend yields are amazing alternatives to Treasuries and you’re basically taking the same risk…assuming you overlook the billions of property-level debt that ranks senior to your equity position.  

  

  

  

• China Central Bank Injects A Record 1.035 Trillion In Bank Liquidity This Week

  Heading into the Chinese Lunar New Year, local banks are suddenly starved for liquidity like never before. On Tuesday China’s benchmark money-market rate jumped the most in two years, with unprecedented cash injections by the central bank being overwhelmed by demand before the Lunar New Year holidays.

  Demand for cash in China tends to increase before the Lunar New Year holidays, when households withdraw money to pay for gifts and get-togethers. Month-end corporate tax payments are adding to the pressure this time, with the break running from Jan. 27 through Feb. 2. At that point the PBOC usually steps in with liquidity “injections” in the form of reverse repos. However, what it has done this year is literally off the charts.

  On Wednesday, the People’s Bank of China put in a net 410 billion yuan ($60 billion) through open-market operations, the biggest daily “injection” on record. Despite this massive boost in liquidity, the interbank seven-day repurchase rate still jumped 35 basis points, the most since December 2014, to 2.76 percent, according to weighted average prices. Yesterday, the overnight repo rate rose 10 basis points to 2.50 percent, the highest since April 2015, according to weighted average prices.

  So, with liquidity still scarce, moments ago on Thursday morning, the PBOC added another net injection of 190 billion consisting of 100Bn in 7-day repo and 150BN in 28-day repos, offset by 60bn yuan in previous loans maturing.

  As a result, the PBOC has injected a net of 1.035 trillion yuan via reverse repos so far this week, an all time high.

  

  It was unclear if the rise in 7-day interbank repo rate had continued to rise.

  “The PBOC aims to ensure that the liquidity situation remains adequate, while the 28-day reverse repo is apparently targeted at covering the holidays,” said Frances Cheung, head of rates strategy for Asia ex-Japan at Societe Generale SA. “There could also be preparation for any indirect tightening impact from potential outflows.”

  Liquidity conditions are under pressure also because loans are due to mature under the Medium-term Lending Facility, according to Long Hongliang, a trader at Bank of Hebei Co. in Beijing. There are 216.5 billion yuan of MLF contracts maturing this week, data compiled by Bloomberg show. The PBOC offered 305.5 billion yuan of loans to lenders using the tool on Jan. 13, compared with 105.5 billion yuan due that day.

  As Bloomberg notes, China’s central bank has been offering more 28-day reverse repos than one-week loans in the past two weeks, while curbing the injection of cheaper, short-term funds amid efforts to lower leverage in the financial system. It drained a net 595 billion yuan in the first week of January, before switching to a net injection of 100 billion yuan last week as the seasonal funding demand started to emerge. However, this week’s injection so far of over CNY 1 trillion suggests that there may be something more to the banks’ liquidity needs than simple calendar action.

   

  

  

• Neither Intelligent Nor Wise, But Definitely Dangerous

  Submitted by Robert Gore via StraightLineLogic.com,

  The one adjective that best describes the Deep State is “soulless.”

  

  If you stay up with current events and read widely enough, especially non-mainstream media, you can often detect the Deep State and its works. Precise delineation is impossible, but the Deep State is the top ranks of the intelligence agencies, military, Departments of State, Homeland Security, Defense, Treasury, and Justice, the Federal Reserve, a myriad of banks, corporations, law firms, foundations, universities, and powerful behind-the-scenes string-pullers. When SLL talks about the Deep State, it is from the same vantage point as the blindfolded Indians describing the elephant: an admittedly limited and ignorant view of an amorphous entity that does its best to obscure itself to outsiders. Deep Staters often hide what they’re doing even from other Deep Staters.

  The Deep State may have had its genesis in the late 1800s, when powerful business, financial, and political figures came together to push passage of the income tax amendment and the Federal Reserve Act, essentials for their desire to dramatically expand the power of the federal government. By the end of the second world war, it had coalesced around two unwavering convictions: the Deep State should run the United States government, and the United States government should run the world. These were not the whispers and murmurs of a super-secret cabal, they were openly discussed by policy makers, the media, and academia in the United States and Great Britain, the junior member of a world-dominating Anglo-American axis.

  For over four decades, the Deep State depicted the Soviet Union as an existential threat, justifying their consolidation of power, US government global intervention, and repression at home. It gave itself a moral Get Out of Jail Free card: dastardly Soviet tactics had to be fought with dastardly American tactics. Despite ritualistic expressions of regret: “It’s a damn shame we have to do this, but such is the nature of our enemy,” many in the military and intelligence services relished that aspect of their jobs. Few were called to account for their reprehensible deeds, many of which will remain forever unexposed.

  While it was Republican Dwight Eisenhower who warned of the “military-industrial complex” in his farewell address, most of what little public opposition that complex and the intelligence agencies have received since then has come from Democrats. After the Bay of Pigs fiasco, President Kennedy fired CIA chief Allen Dulles, reportedly vowing to shatter the agency into a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds. The debate rages as to whether his vow had anything to do with his assassination, but the possibility cannot be dismissed. (Oddly, Dulles was on the Warren Commission and by most accounts stage-managed its investigation.)

  Democratic senator Frank Church led a Senate select committee investigation on intelligence in 1975. His investigation gave most Americans their first glimpse into the CIA’s dirty laundry, notably assassinations and attempted assassinations of various foreign leaders. (The practice was supposedly outlawed by an executive order issued by President Gerald Ford, which was replaced by one issued by President Ronald Reagan. That order didn’t prevent US acquiescence to and complicity in the murder of Muammar Gaddafi. “We came, we saw, he died!”) Also revealed was the CIA and FBI’s interception, opening, and photographing of domestic mail. Senator Church publicly expressed grave misgivings about the government’s nascent electronic surveillance capabilities. He must be rolling in his grave over what it does now.

  It was also the “Democratic” press, primarily the New York Times and The Washington Post, that took the lead in exposing scandals with intelligence angles and opposing some of America’s military interventions, notably Vietnam. Unfortunately, in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks the Democratic-dominated mainstream media climbed into bed with the Republican administration. The weapons of mass destruction and the Saddam Hussein-al Qaeda stories, based on doctored and phony intelligence, were sold to the American people as the justifications for the regime-change invasion of Iraq. There were almost no editorial objections to that or subsequent regime-change operations, the Patriot Act’s assault on the Bill of Rights, or to the muddled, impossible to define or limit concept of a global, preemptive war on terror. Although that war has been a predictable failure, the mainstream press will not even acknowledge it’s two most obvious consequences: the further spread of terrorism and the refugee flows from Middle Eastern and Northern African war zones.

  The problem at the heart of intelligence agencies and their oversight is the information they collect. It invariably includes dirt that can be used against those who might question or oppose them. There is not a person on the planet who doesn’t have some aspect of his or her life they want to remain private. It’s no mystery why a former KGB agent runs Russia, why all the retirement rules were waived so J. Edgar Hoover could stay on as head of the FBI until his death, how a former head of the CIA and then his son acquired the power base that got them both elected president (and they were trying for number three). Threatened or actual blackmail is a powerful weapon, except for that .000000001 percent who lead unblemished, exemplary lives. That weapon renders a secret intelligence function incompatible with civil liberties and popular control of the government.

  The recent election was a revolt by the electorate against their incompetent, corrupt rulers. Hillary’s Clinton’s nomination was the exclamation point on the Democratic party’s moral bankruptcy, a final repudiation of the party and its aligned media’s attempts, however incomplete and compromised, to check the Deep State. Given that abdication, its embrace of the intelligence agencies’ perpetration of fake news, support of an increasingly confrontational stance with Russia in hopes of provoking a war, and tacit endorsement of violence during Donald Trump’s inauguration come as no surprise. Grasping for the power they’ve been denied, they’ll try anything.

  There has been much talk of a Deep State “coup” during its battle against Donald Trump, but how can those who control the government stage a coup? What they are doing is taking action against an opponent who has ripped away the facade of popular control and may pose a threat to their power and position. Deep State rule has been neither intelligent nor wise. However, it would be unintelligent and unwise to therefore conclude it’s not dangerous. That it would try to deny the duly elected choice of the American people the presidency bespeaks arrogance completely disconnected from morality. That it would try to provoke violence from nuclear-armed Russia and inauguration “demonstrators” in American cities bespeaks a disregard of extreme risks and potentially catastrophic consequences, not just to the citizenry they despise, but to themselves as well.

  They must be opposed, stopped, and scattered to the winds (which would, in a perfect world, blow some of them into prison). Donald Trump may be the last, best hope. The intelligent and wise will be on full alert, prepared for the risks and dangers…should he fail or succeed.

  

  

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• Chinese New Home Prices Soar by 12.4% in December — Higher by 25% in Tier One Cities

  What can go wrong, after all? The Chinese government has already informed us their real estate market, which is being driven by records amount of debt, is NOT in a bubble, so relax, chill and enjoy a large overflowing bowl of wanton soup.

  Take Larry Hu, for example, economist from Macquarie. He posited, back in October, that the +25% year over year price jumps for Chinese property wasn’t indicative of a bubble…because MUH lack of supply. Perfectly normal stuff.

  Source: BBG

   

  Big cities like Shanghai are experiencing net immigration with only limited blocks of land coming on the market. “If Shanghai sells only one parcel of land in a year, the price of the land must be extremely high – this is not a bubble; this is a shortage of supply,” Hu said.

  We can revisit a litany of smug remarks by any number of US economists before the US housing market collapsed — almost mocking those who warned against unchecked gains in property prices.

  Take, for example, the missives of Jonathan McCarthy and Richard W. Peach — senior economists at the NY Fed.

  “Home prices have been rising strongly since the mid-1990s, prompting concerns that a bubble exists in this asset class and that home prices are vulnerable to a collapse that could harm the U.S. economy.
   
  “A close analysis of the U.S. housing market in recent years, however, finds little basis for such concerns. The marked upturn in home prices is largely attributable to strong market fundamentals: Home prices have essentially moved in line with increases in family income and declines in nominal mortgage interest rates.”

   
  Or, we can look back at the advice of Chris Flanagan, head of ABS Research, JP Morgan — and laugh at how stupid he was.
   

  “Based on what we know and see in terms of employment and interest rates, it is extremely difficult to see how five years from now we could be looking back and observing a historical 5-year growth rate of, say, less than 5%. That should be more than adequate to support the continued good credit performance of sub-prime mortgage pools.
   
  “It is important to understand — we can contemplate home price growth rates declining, albeit modestly, but we do NOT envision home prices declining!”

   
  This out of China tonight — record home prices.
   

  Source: Beijing Monitoring Desk
  Average new home prices in China’s 70 major cities rose 12.4 percent in December from a year earlier, slowing slightly from a 12.6 percent increase in November, an official survey showed on Wednesday.
   
  Compared with a month earlier, home prices rose 0.3 percent nationwide, slowing from November’s 0.6 percent, according to Reuters calculations from data issued by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). Shenzhen, Shanghai and Beijing prices rose 23.5 percent, 26.5 percent and 25.9 percent, respectively, from a year earlier.
   
  Monthly growth in Shanghai and Shenzhen slowed but was unchanged in Beijing as local governments’ tightening measures took effect. China relied heavily on a surging real estate market and government stimulus to help drive economic growth in 2016, but policymakers have grown concerned that the property frenzy will fuel price bubbles and risk a market crash, with serious consequences for the broader economy. Soaring home prices have prompted more than 20 Chinese cities to tighten lending requirements on house purchases, while regulators have told banks to strengthen their risk management on property loans.

   
  Hindsight is 20/20 and it’s never easy to time tops or bottoms. But this is child’s play. None of these gains are due to some grass roots renaissance, thanks to some technological breakthrough or keystone event that caused prices to jump. The price jumps in China are due to record levels of debt, leverage, greed, avarice, and wanton chicanery.
   
  It’s most definitely a bubble — whether it cracks this year or not is anyone’s guess.

  Content originally generated at iBankCoin.com

  

• A Violent Inauguration? A Call For Peace On Inauguration Day

  Submitted by David Battistella

   A Violent Inauguration? A Call For Peace On Inauguration Day

  Now that all attempts to delegitimize President Elect Trump to this point including failed recounts, the constant drum beating about popular vote victory, intimidation, bullying and desperate pleas to the Electoral college and the attempt at cold War 2.0 have failed, will inauguration day be the last stand? Now even millionaire Catholic socialist filmmaker Michael Moore is leveraging a Trump presidency to catapult himself back into relevance while his home state is already feeling the benefits of the Trump effect.

  Moore has already shown up to Trump tower with his trademark (and tired) Roger and Me shtick and he is a leading voice in calling for civil disobedience protests, a whole hundred days of them, starting on inauguration day. While this is probably a key way to gather material for his next film about how awful America is, he left out a key word in his call to action – peaceful.

  While Michael Moore is calling for civil disobedience, many signs are pointing to the possibility of violent protests. All this while President Elect Trump is already putting jobs back into Moore’s home state of Michigan and the country is already seeing some signs of being hit with the Trump’s economic defribulator. What a sad pair Moore and Rosie O’Donnell make, leading the charge!

  I’m sure Mr. Moore would be on his soap box had Obama done anything this useful for Michigan in the last eight years, but alas, we seem to have become so attached to identity politics that we can no longer celebrate the good even when it directly impacts issues like jobs, the one issue Michael Moore staked his entire career on back before his net worth took him into the one percent.

  Meanwhile at DNC headquarters, Donna Brazile has it backwards, it’s Democrats who have a great chance to move back toward their roots and embrace Americana again by getting behind proposed initiatives that might help the American worker and stimulate a browbeaten economy.

  In any case, it seems definite that there will be a wave of protests on January 20th as Americans who oppose this presidency rightly should exercise their right to free speech. The larger question though is whether those protests will turn violent and turn inauguration day into an international spectacle. This might not have a desired effect on the rest of the world.

  Violence is a line, which when crossed, catapults the violent aggressor into another category beyond how civilized democracies should operate. When it comes to debate and protest I can listen to and follow any discourse, weigh the arguments and always respect a peaceful protest process. The moment that process turns to violence, looting, destruction of property, injury to peace officers and civil unrest; (to me at least) the messenger is no longer playing by the rules of a peaceful democracy. They have, in effect, suspended some of the rights afforded them and their expression of free speech.

  When mired in violence respect for any cause is lost or eroded. Engaging in violence, violent behaviour and destruction of property is the moment where we move out of the realm of what civilized, peaceful democratic process is about. Think Gandhi when trying to understand how much power lies in peaceful, well reasoned, organized protest movements. Think bullying and terrorism when this important step is bypassed and a violent mob rule takes over. Smashing property is not going to garner respect. It might make a good news hit for CNN, who most probably will be looking for the violence at every turn and rebroadcasting it as the main story.

  One thing is almost certain, that if there are violent outbursts during the Trump inauguration, there is a high degree of probability that the violence will be blamed squarely on Donald Trump. The logic for this might be that somehow Donald Trump, by just being Donald Trump, is enough of a reason to become violent and in some twisted form of reason, that violence would become acceptable under the circumstances. Perhaps they are mad at Russia too.

  The real threat of violence is not purely blowing smoke. Check out Carl Rove talking about inauguration day security threats in 2008 and how staff security clearances played an important role with a serious threat. Zoom up to the 6 minute mark.

  But I’d like to offer another suggestion though, and I know I am speaking in hypotheticals here, but any violence around inauguration day speaks squarely to the current lack of top leadership. President Obama’s passive-aggressive, fence-sitting, double-speak stance, through both his words and his omission, lends quiet support and encouragement and has contributed to creating a climate where violent protest is acceptable behavior. How well off would we all be if The outgoing President would renounce violence nearly as fast as Democrats demand renouncements and retractions on any number of issues.

  Obama said at a joint news conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. “And I suspect that there’s not a president in our history that hasn’t been subject to these protests. So, I would not advise people who feel strongly or who are concerned about some of the issues that have been raised during the course of the campaign, I wouldn’t advise them to be silent.”
   
  The President of the United States would not advise them to be silent? Really? So what is the take-away here when this prevailing attitude come straight from the top of the alt-left.

  It’s precisely this kind of murky messaging that well funded and radical organizations use as a battle cry and even permission to turn civil disobedience and peaceful protest into intimidating, violent outburst ultimately designed not to be heard but really designed to silence others. Do these protesters not have to be extremely careful in not becoming exactly what they oppose? Folks who engage in violence need to take a very hard look not only at what they are fighting for, but exactly how they are fighting for it.

  I’ve never heard the current President clearly (I mean in non wishy washy terms) renounce the use of violence, rioting, looting and destruction of property after recent cop killing and protests in major US cities. This includes the murder of Police officers (remember when we used to call them “peace” officers). His is more a conciliatory tone, an understanding of the frustrations of what arrises, but saying nothing firmly to denounce violence and encourage a deeper thinking and peaceful way forward. This kind complacency might lead to things like dead police officers in Dallas and riots in other US cities.

  Obama said, “In a movement like Black Lives Matter, there is always going to be some folks who say things that are stupid or imprudent, or over-generalize, or are harsh (edit) and I don’t think that you can hold well-meaning activists who are doing the right thing and peacefully protesting responsible for everything that is uttered at a protest.”

  This opinion is dangerous, more dangerous than saying nothing at all. Essentially it is saying, go ahead and organize and if something happens so be it, the leadership is not responsible for anything done, said or perhaps for violence that “breaks out”.

  Should violence occur on inauguration day, a story which will emerge and quickly spread internationally will be one of a divided America, an inauguration with a violent and extreme reaction to a “divider president”, Donald Trump. But it is not Donald Trump who has been sitting in the seat of power over the past eight years using veiled encouraging statements like this to his SJW audience;  that one falls squarely into the lap of the sitting president.

  But in the end would violence and disruption amount to Trump’s violent entrance? Or would this be Obama’s violent exit, a stain on his scandal-free war-time Presidency?

  It’s an important narrative to watch and one the MSM will ultimately need to take a great deal of responsibility for. If the MSM want to restore their place in the public trust, perhaps they should be the first to renounce any violence around the Inauguration, rather that rebroadcast it ad nauseum.

  To me, any story which emerges which is not a peaceful transition and inauguration of newly democratically elected Donald Trump, (if things turn violent and we pray it does not) falls at the feet of the outgoing President and his slurping lapdog, aka the MSM.

  President Bush had eggs hurled at his limo on inauguration day, which of course made it into a Michael Moore film. However, as the Obama’s have expressed, the Bush family were nothing but gracious and welcoming when their time in the White House had come to a close. Can we really say the same now while every possible barrier has been put up by a sore loser campaign a party and a President who struggles with narrative and his legacy by planting the protest seeds in the form of executive orders and last minute actions and disruptions designed as trip wires to the front door of the White House?

  Cue the next narrative, “we tried real hard and we forced laws through” by abusing Presidential executive orders with “a pen”, but now Trump and the Republicans (who happened organize themselves well enough to to win power across the important houses of government at every level) just want to change all the good we tried to impose through executive action.

  While Obama has professed a peaceful transition his actions speak much louder. Pushing American troops the the Russian border, looking the other way on Isreal, giving himself and his VP presidential medals, last minute actions on monuments and National Parks, that pen sure has been busy Mr. Constitution. It does not seem that the Obama’s are exiting with the same kind of grace of presidents past and if Washington, NYC or any other major city do turn violent on inauguration day you could chalk it up to inaction and statements that do nothing to encourage a peaceful process. Michelle Obama’s loss of hope is a great example. Maybe she is being honest, but gracious, classy, supporting peaceful process, um, no.

  Add to this the whole Russian spy narrative as a reason Hillary Clinton failed (not that she was outworked or anything). Now that this narrative is being embarrassingly debunked and turned into another colossal failure the next narrative/target is the FBI through a DOJ probe. It’s not into Hillary Clinton’s fast-and-loose home server, open for the world’s lamest hackers to access top state secretes by not going through official channels, but rather, the FBI departments who wanted to investigate her while she was Secretary of State selling off bits of America to the highest donor to CGI and the Clinton foundation.

  What message does this all of this ultimately send?

  With January 20th days away this is just a heads up to what the world hopes for out of days like this in American politics. The world looks to America to promote and preserve peace and stability.

  America must represent a proactive attitude of peace, hope and prosperity. America needs to project this to to the world and be the leaders of a new global movement. No person knows how this Presidential term will turn out, but it can start on a correct path with a peaceful transition and the peaceful inauguration of a new Presidency.

  Americans owe a peaceful transition to themselves, to the world and to its tattered Democratic party. However bruised, the Democrats are Americans, who with their fellow Americans, need to roll up their sleeves and get back to a work within balanced and fair democracy based on principles and ideas established in America and based on its constitution which is admired the world over.

  This week and the entire lead up to the transition needs to be about peace and prosperity.

  Peace is in your hands America, and that non-violent peace starts with the American people participating in a peaceful process.

  

  

• Trader Warns: The "Cure-Through-Greater-Inequality" Paradigm Just Snapped

  Investors won’t be able to trade markets if they can’t settle on a base-case scenario, and, as Bloomberg's Richard Breslow warns, they have to accept that some unknowns are less unknown than others.

  Every tweet that restates what Donald Trump has been saying consistently for many months shouldn’t come as a surprise to traders and send global asset prices into a tizzy.

   

  The same goes for today’s speech by U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May.

   

  If people are on edge waiting for the next installment on protectionism or a hard Brexit, it should be because their positions would be affected on the chance that the messages are reversed, not reiterated.

  There seems to be this enduring tendency for market participants to believe that these politicians will “come to their senses” and this will all have been campaign or negotiating tactics.

  A bad dream. It’s why his election night victory speech had such a profound affect.

  But whether you like what’s going on or not, you need to position for the most likely scenarios and what you think it means for markets. On the latter, opinions may differ and that’s all right. But don’t feign being surprised that some pretty remarkable things are being said and proposed — regularly.

  For years, post-financial crisis policy was conducted on the self-serving belief that it works best by propping up asset (especially equity) prices, which will then cause some of the goodies to trickle down… known in the non-official journals as “cure through greater inequality”.

  Traders, and I guess the clever people who program computers, can’t get this out of their heads…

  Of course we’ll eventually get market-friendly prescriptions.

   

  So we’ll always price for that outcome.

   

  It’s a big part of why geopolitical events have notoriously had such little affect on markets.

   

  There was always more liquidity in the bag.

  It really isn’t profound to point out that if global politics turn decidedly ugly, it could act as a drag on world growth…

  

  Unless you assume you're owed a policy response just as soon as it happens. Now that’s an assumption that should be weighed carefully!

  

  

• "Common Sense" – Addressed To The Inhabitants Of 2017 America

  Submitted by Jim Quinn via The Burning Platform blog,

  “Without the pen of the author of Common Sense, the sword of Washington would have been raised in vain.” – John Adams

  

  Thomas Paine was born in 1737 in Britain. His first thirty seven years of life were pretty much a series of failures and disappointments. Business fiascos, firings, the death of his first wife and child, a failed second marriage, and bankruptcy plagued his early life. He then met Benjamin Franklin in 1774 and was convinced to emigrate to America, arriving in Philadelphia in November 1774. He thus became the Father of the American Revolution with the publication of Common Sense, pamphlets which crystallized opinion for colonial independence in 1776.

  The first pamphlet was published in Philadelphia on January 10, 1776, and signed anonymously “by an Englishman.” It became an instantaneous sensation, swiftly disseminating 100,000 copies in three months among the two and a half million residents of the 13 colonies. Over 500,000 copies were sold during the course of the American Revolution. Paine published Common Sense after the battle of Lexington and Concord, making the argument the colonists should seek complete independence from Great Britain, rather than merely fighting against unfair levels of taxation. The pamphlets stirred the masses with a fighting spirit, instilling in them the backbone to resist a powerful empire.

  It was read aloud in taverns, churches and town squares, promoting the notion of republicanism, bolstering fervor for complete separation from Britain, and boosting recruitment for the fledgling Continental Army. He rallied public opinion in favor of revolution among layman, farmers, businessmen and lawmakers. It compelled the colonists to make an immediate choice. It made the case against monarchy, aristocracy, tyranny and unfair taxation, offering Americans a solution – liberty and freedom. It was an important precursor to the Declaration of Independence, which was written six months later by Paine’s fellow revolutionaries.

  Paine’s contribution to American independence 241 years ago during the first American Fourth Turning cannot be overstated. His clarion call for colonial unity against a tyrannical British monarch played a providential role in convincing farmers, shopkeepers, and tradesmen reconciliation with a hereditary monarchy was impossible, and armed separation was the only common sense option. He made the case breaking away from Britain was inevitable, and the time was now. Armed conflict had already occurred, but support for a full-fledged revolution had not yet coalesced within the thirteen colonies. Paine’s rhetorical style within the pamphlets aroused enough resentment against the British monarchy to rally men to arms, so their children wouldn’t have to fight their battles.

  “I prefer peace, but if trouble must come, let it be in my time that my children may know peace.” – Thomas Paine

  Paine did not write Common Sense or The American Crisis pamphlets for his contemporaries like John Adams, Samuel Adams, Jefferson, Madison, or Franklin. These intellectual giants were already convinced of the need to permanently break away from the British Empire and form a new nation. Paine wrote his pamphlets in a style understandable to the common man, rendering complex concepts intelligible for the average citizen. Paine seized this historic moment of crisis to provide the intellectual basis for a republican revolution. To inspire his citizen soldiers, George Washington had Paine’s pamphlets read aloud at their encampments.

  “These are the times that try men’s souls: The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like Hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives everything its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as freedom should not be highly rated.” – Thomas Paine – The American Crisis

  The wealthy landowners and firebrands who comprised the Continental Congress leadership were not the audience Paine was trying to sway. They were focused on how a Declaration of Independence would affect the war effort. They were deficient in making their case to the less informed populace.

  Without public support and volunteers to fight the Redcoats, the revolution would have failed. Paine’s indispensable contribution to our country’s independence was initiating a public debate and disseminating ideas about independence among those who would need to do the fighting and dying if independence was to be achieved.

  Paine was able to synthesize philosophical enlightenment concepts about human rights into common sense ideas understood by ordinary folks. Paine was not a highly educated intellectual and trusted the common people to make sound assessments regarding major issues, based upon wisdom dispensed in a common sense way. He used common sense to refute the professed entitlements of the British ruling establishment. He used common sense as a weapon to de-legitimize King George’s despotic monarchy, overturning the conventional thinking among the masses.

  Paine was able to fuse the common cause of the Founding Fathers and the people into a collective revolutionary force. Even though their numbers were small, Paine convinced them they could defeat an empire.

  “It is not in numbers, but in unity, that our great strength lies; yet our present numbers are sufficient to repel the force of all the world” – Thomas Paine, Common Sense

  Paine didn’t know he was propelling the American Revolution Fourth Turning towards its successful climax when he wrote those pamphlets. His use of the term Crisis as the title to his second group of pro-revolutionary pamphlets displayed his grasp of the mood in the colonies toward the existing social order. The majority of the 2.5 million people living in the 13 colonies in 1776 were native born. Their loyalty to a distant monarch, treating them with contempt and taxing them to support his far flung empire, had been waning as time progressed. They were ready to shed the cloak of oppression and Paine gave them the rationale for doing so.

  The American Revolution Crisis was ignited by the fiery Prophet Generation leader Samuel Adams with the provocative Boston Tea Party in 1773. The colonial tinderbox was ignited as Adams’ committees of correspondence rallied resistance against the Crown and formed a political union among the 13 colonies. After the battles of Lexington & Concord, arming of militias and the formation of the Continental Army under command of George Washington, the regeneracy was at hand.

  Paine, as a Liberty Generation nomad, did what his generation was born to do – be a hands on, pragmatic, get it done leader. His vital contribution to the revolution was rousing the colonists with the toughness, resolution, and backbone to withstand the long difficult trials ahead. He, along with other members of his generation – George Washington, John Adams, and Francis Marion, did the heavy lifting throughout the American Revolution.

  They knew they would hang if their labors failed, but the struggle for liberty against a tyrannical despot drove them forward against all odds. Paine’s pamphlets, followed shortly thereafter by the Declaration of Independence, marked the regeneracy of the first American Fourth Turning, as solidarity around the cause of liberty inspired by brave words and valiant deeds, propelled history towards its glorious climax at Yorktown.

  When you’re in the midst of a Fourth Turning it is hard to step back and assess where you are on a daily basis. This Fourth Turning began in September 2008, with the global financial implosion created by the Fed and their Wall Street puppet masters. We have just achieved the long awaited regeneracy as Trump has stepped forth as the Grey Champion to lead a revolution against the corrupt tyrannical establishment.

  The election of Trump did not mark the end for the Deep State, but just the beginning of the end. Just as Paine’s Common Sense and the Declaration of Independence denoted the beginning of a long string of bloody trials and tribulations, Trump’s ascendency to the presidency has marked the beginning of a battle – with the outcome dependent upon our response to the clashes ahead.

  

  The regeneracy spurred by Thomas Paine and the nation’s Founding Fathers in 1776 was followed by five years of ordeal, misery, misfortune, bloody routs, and numerous junctures where total defeat hung in the balance. Lesser men would have abandoned the cause during the dark bitter winter at Valley Forge in 1778.

  The shocking victory by Trump has revealed the depth of corruption among the corporate mass media, both political parties, surveillance agencies, and shadowy Deep State moneyed players behind the scenes. The ivory tower D.C. politicians, their entitlement culture, blatant corruption, vile disregard for the Constitution, and complete disregard for the plight of average Americans living outside their bastions of liberal elitism (NYC, L.A., S.F., D.C., Chicago), have shown their true colors since November 8.

  

  Trump utilized the same populist messaging invoked by Paine in his Common Sense pamphlets during his unorthodox presidential campaign. He mobilized the large alienated silent majority who has been left behind as the globalists, corporatists, and militarists reaped the rich rewards of a growing corporate fascist surveillance state. Average Americans in flyover country watched as the fetid swamp creatures in the mainstream media, along with debased political establishment hacks, Hollywood elites, left wing billionaires, and so called social justice warriors coalesced behind a criminal establishment candidate. The out of touch elite have controlled the government for decades, treating the country and its people like a two dollar whore.

  Just as Paine hit a nerve among the great unwashed masses, Trump united blue collar workers, small business owners, family men, working mothers, guns rights champions, disaffected conservatives, realistic libertarians, disaffected millennials and various anti-establishment types sick and tired of the status quo. He gave voice to the little man with his in your face populist rhetoric against the corrupt dominant elites.

  His plain spoken, aggressive, no holds barred, pugnacious approach to crushing his enemies rallied millions to his cause. The Make America Great Again revolution has only just begun and the violent, vitriolic pushback from the vested interests are only the opening volleys in this Second American Revolution. The entrenched Deep State establishment will concede nothing. Tyranny will not be defeated without bloodshed.

  “Power concedes nothing without demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue until they are resisted with either words or blows or both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.” – Thomas Paine

  The same common sense Paine used to argue against a tyrannical, oppressive hereditary monarchy applies today when judging our corrupt, authoritarian, co-opted government. His themes of society as a blessing, government as evil, and revolution as inevitable are as applicable today as they were 241 years ago. As we approach Trump’s inauguration it has become clear the ruling elite feel threatened and are using their control of the media, intelligence services, military, and financial system to try and undermine his presidency before it begins.

  As their fake news propaganda falls on the deaf ears of disgusted Americans, their next ploy will be violence, war or assassination. The vested interests have no intention of relinquishing their power and wealth, just as King George and his Parliament had no intention of allowing the colonies to form an independent republic.

  If you thought voting Trump into the office of the president constituted a victory, you are badly misreading historical precedent and the inevitable paths of Fourth Turnings. The fight is just beginning. The leftist social justice warriors, their wealthy elite puppeteers, the neo-con military industrial complex warmongers, globalists, multi-culturists, and surveillance state apparatchiks have all made it clear they will violently and rhetorically, through their corporate media mouthpieces, resist Trump and his common man revolution.

  I don’t know if the normal people who supported Trump realize how abnormal, deviant, and despicable their opponents are. Blood will be spilled. Violence will beget violence. The country is already split and the divide will only grow wider. Someone will win and someone will lose. Our choices will matter.

  

  “The seasons of time offer no guarantees. For modern societies, no less than for all forms of life, transformative change is discontinuous. For what seems an eternity, history goes nowhere – and then it suddenly flings us forward across some vast chaos that defies any mortal effort to plan our way there. The Fourth Turning will try our souls – and the saecular rhythm tells us that much will depend on how we face up to that trial. The saeculum does not reveal whether the story will have a happy ending, but it does tell us how and when our choices will make a difference.”  – Strauss & Howe – The Fourth Turning

  In Part Two of this article I will try to show how Paine’s Common Sense, even though written three generations ago, has essential pertinence during these troubled times of our current Fourth Turning.

  

  

• US F-16 Photographed In Mock Dogfight With Russian Su-27 Above Area 51

  A curious sight was observed in the skies above Area 51 in Nevada, on November 8, the day Donald Trump was elected President, by vacationing air traffic controller Phil Drake. According to Drake, the photographs below all taken by him, show a Russian-built Su-27P fighter jet taking on a US Air Force F-16 engaged in a mock dogfight training mission.

  
  The moment a US F-16 was caught in a mock dogfight with a Russian SU-27 fighter

  Drake, a 42-year-old enthusiast from Hampshire in the UK, told the Mail he was visiting the desert surrounding Area 51 on the day of the Presidential election, and hoped to see some fast jets involved in a training mission. Instead, what he photographed appears to have been Russian Su-27 involved in a combat training with a US fighter jet.

  Drake said the Russian jet was a Su-27P Flanker-B, which has never been officially imported into the United States.

  
  Drake said the aircraft was a Russian SU-27P Flanker-B with Soviet style camouflague

  
  The jets performed a series of high-speed passes during an intense training mission

  “This aircraft was anonymous and unidentifiable, apart from the Soviet style camouflage it wore,” he said. “After they finished their mission they flew into Groom Lake’s highly restricted airspace.” Shooting from Tikaboo Valley, near Groom Lake (Area 51’s official name), Drake had to push his camera zoom to the limit to document the incident.
  

  Drake’s location outside Area 51
  

  He said: “The planes were operating above 20,000 feet, and a couple of miles east of me, so the distance between me and the planes was at least six miles. They were literally specks in the sky, but of course that’s the reason that no-one has photographed them before.

  Drake believes these are the first pictures of a single-seat Sukhoi Su27 Flanker – on a training mission or otherwise – inside the United States.

  

  ‘Initially, during the mission, the aircraft were just outside of Area 51 airspace.
  

  “The Americans practice air to air combat with Russian aircraft to give them an advantage in combat. They also try out new weapons systems on aircraft to test their effectiveness against a bona fide Russian-built target.”

  According to Drake, “the Flanker is rumoured to have been flying from Groom Lake for nearly 20 years, but no-one has ever managed a definitive photograph to prove it does exist. This sequence of photos is the first proof that the Americans are flying this aircraft, which is the premier Air Defence Fighter in use with the Russian and Chinese Air Forces.”

  He continued: “Things went quiet around 1300. Very quiet. Nothing moved for two hours and I was thinking of moving to another vantage point, such as Queen City Summit, or maybe the Powerlines Overlook. Then the sound of jet noise caught my attention and that’s when I got my first sight of a Groom Lake Su-27 Flanker.”

  

  “Flying NE at around 30,000 feet leaving an intermittent contrail. The time was 1500 and the sun was moving to the west as the Flanker and a F-16 gave me a private 25 minute air display. The pair seemed to perform a series of head on intercepts at descending altitudes from 30,000 feet to around 20,000 feet, only a mile or two to the east of me. This meant they were beautifully illuminated by the afternoon sun. After the head on intercept, the pair would break into a turning dogfight, with the Flanker using it tremendous maneuverability to try and get behind the F-16. “

  

  “I took a long series of photographs, but as the aircraft were fairly high my autofocus couldn’t cope. I had to shoot in manual mode, constantly moving the focusing ring to attempt to get some reasonable images. The Su-27 was clearly a single seater, a Su-27P Flanker-B.”

  “This Flanker was in the classic 1990’s two-tone blue colour scheme, with white nose and white fin tips. A very different aeroplane. There had been rumours that the US had obtained two single seat Flankers from Belarus in 1996 or 1997, so I figured it should have been one of them.”

  “After the final dogfight, when I was lucky enough to catch on camera the F-16 flashing directly in front of the Flanker, the pair climbed back to 30,000 feet or so, and headed SW back into Groom Lake restricted airspace. Interestingly the Flanker left a solid contrail, while the F-16 left none despite being at a similar altitude.”

  * * *

  There has been no official statement from either the US Air Force, the Dept of Defense or Dept of Energy, on these curious, perhaps historic, photographs emanating from one of the most secretive US army bases in the world.

  

  

• Liberal Preppers Are "Tired Of Being Perceived As Wusses" – Stock Up On Guns, Food As Trumpocalypse Looms

  Submitted by Shane Dixon Kavanaugh via Vocativ

  With Trump on the horizon, the survivalist movement — long a pastime of the right — is picking up progressive converts fast.

  Colin Waugh bought a shotgun four weeks before November’s election.

  An unapologetic liberal, he was no fan of firearms. He had never owned one before. But Waugh, a 31-year-old from Independence, Missouri, couldn’t shake his fears of a Donald Trump presidency — and all of the chaos it could bring. He imagined hate crimes and violence waged by extremists emboldened by the Republican nominee’s brash, divisive rhetoric. He pictured state-sanctioned roundups of Muslims, gays, and outspoken critics.

  “I kept asking myself, ‘Do I want to live under tyranny?’” said Waugh, who supported Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary and later backed Hillary Clinton. “The answer was absolutely not.”

  With Trump now days away from assuming the White House, Waugh’s preparing for the worst. He’s made “bug-out bags” stuffed with ammo, energy bars, and assorted survival gear for his wife and their three cats. He’s begun stowing water and browsing real estate listings in Gunnison County, Colorado, which he’s determined to be a “liberal safe-haven.” Last month, Waugh added a 9mm handgun to his arsenal.

  His advice to others on the left fearful of the next four years? “Get ready. Pay attention. Keep your wits about you.”

  Waugh’s not alone. He is among a new cadre embracing extreme self-reliance in the wake of Trump’s surprising victory. Long a calling among conservatives spooked by big government boogymen and calamitous natural disasters, the so-called prepper movement is gaining a decisively liberal following.

  “We’re tired of being perceived as wusses who won’t survive when shit hits the fan,” said Stacy, a Texas Democrat who recently caught the prepper bug. She spoke with Vocativ on the condition we not publish her last name. “I, for one, don’t like to be thought of as some precious snowflake.”

  After years cast as a fringe survival group, preppers entered a kind of golden age during the Obama presidency. A horrific housing crash and the spectacle of Hurricane Sandy helped give rise to reality television shows like Doomsday Preppers and Doomsday Bunker, and fueled a multi-billion dollar survival industry. Branded by some as a foreign-born, gun-grabbing socialist, Obama aroused deep suspicion among the patriot groups, right-wing conservatives, and apocalyptic Christians at the center of the growing movement.

  Trump’s provocative posturing and unpredictability is now inspiring a fresh wave of panic on the left. Those who spoke with Vocativ have envisioned scenarios that could lead to military coups led by loyalists of the president-elect and internment camps packed with political opponents, bloody social unrest and an all-out civil or nuclear war. Sound bonkers? Perhaps. But, for many, so was the prospect of a President Trump.

  “It’s the nature of the political beast,” said Kevin O’Brien, a conservative prepper and realtor who specializes in off-the-grid properties in eastern Tennessee. “Obama had many on the right really wound up. Now it’s the left’s turn.”

  

   

  The signs of change are surely in the air. Groups that cater to gun-toting bleeding hearts — such as the aptly named Liberal Gun Club — say they’ve seen a surge in paid membership since the election. Candid talk of disaster preparedness among progressives is showing up on social media. Even companies that outfit luxury “safe rooms” — which protect their wealthy owners from bombs, bullets, and chemical attacks — attribute recent boosts in business to the incoming administration.

  “I don’t think we’d have the same level of interest if Hillary had been elected president,” Tom Gaffney, whose fortified home shelters at Gaffco Ballistics run as high as $400,000, told Vocativ in an interview.

  Looking for likeminded folks to weather the Trumpocalypse, Waugh started a private Facebook group called the Liberal Prepper shortly after the election. In nine weeks, it’s drummed up more than 750 members, all of whom are individually screened and vetted, Waugh said. Dozens more flock to it daily.

  Few are wasting precious time. They trade tips on survival swag and solicit recommendations for solar panels, firearms, and raising chickens. There are discussions on homesteading and home safety. Links to news stories about the president-elect or signs of instability around the globe are never in short supply.

  Occasionally, posts on the Liberal Prepper seem to veer close to parody. One debate thread last week centered around the merits of stocking up on recycled toilet paper rolls versus buying Angel Soft, a brand produced by Koch industries, a notorious climate change foe. And in another discussion, vegetarian and vegan members talked about the best meat- and dairy-free food supplies to have during a sustained crisis.

  In a smaller Facebook group, Progressive Liberal Preppers, members who blacksmith, bow hunt, and operate ham radios are eager to teach their skills with others, said one the site’s administrators, who goes by the name of Blythe Bonnie. “The next thing we’re going to do is a class on home brewing and winemaking,” said Bonnie, a lifelong Democrat and 70-year-old now living in Arkansas.

  While most of these liberal preppers say they are readying for any disaster — natural, manmade, or even zombie —  a doomsday scenario at the hands of a President Trump continues to be a primary concern.

  “With the new administration I worry about Nazi-style camps that would include my wife, our twins and myself,” said Melissa Letos, who lives with her family on a five-acre spread near Portland, Oregon. In a recent interview, she said she raises chickens, strives to keep a year’s supply of canned food, and is able to hold her own with a firearm. She and her family plan to a build a bunker-style basement in the future.

  Even as Letos and other liberals brace for bedlam, some longtime preppers worry that others in the movement have let their guard down. Michael Snyder, author of The Economic Collapse blog, recently warned against those on the right who seemed overly optimistic about a Trump presidency. “Everyone is feeling so good about things, very few people still seem interested in prepping for hard times ahead,” he wrote, raising the specter of financial instability in Europe and a potential trade war with China. “It is almost as if the apocalypse has been canceled and the future history of the U.S. has been rewritten with a much happier ending.”

  For Waugh and his liberal peers, the apocalypse may have just begun. “Fear is an unfortunate catalyst for a lot of folks,” he said. “But there are still too many caught up in the idea that the system is infallible and that it will persevere and prevail.”

  

  

• Julian Assange Responds Amid Growing Extradition Speculation

  Five days ago, Wikileaks' Founder Julian Assange agreed to US extradition if Chelsea Manning was granted clemency by President Obama…

  If Obama grants Manning clemency Assange will agree to US extradition despite clear unconstitutionality of DoJ case https://t.co/MZU30SlfGK

  — WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) January 12, 2017

  This evening we got confirmation that Obama has indeed granted Manning clemency.

  By way of background, we noted previously, Assange has been living in the Ecuadoran embassy in London since June 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden to face sexual assault allegations. The Australian former computer hacker said he fears Stockholm will in turn extradite him to the US, where he angered Washington over WikiLeaks' publication of thousands of US military and diplomatic documents leaked by former US soldier Manning. The full details of which can be found here…

  VICTORY: Obama commutes Chelsea Manning sentence from 35 years to 7. Release date now May 17. Background: https://t.co/HndsbVbRer

  — WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) January 17, 2017

  Interestingly, Assange's offer comes just days after his uncharacteristically emotional interview with Sean Hannity…

  "I have been detained illegally, without charge for six years, without sunlight, lots of spies everywhere. It's tough… but that's the mission I set myself on. I understand the kind of game that's being played – big powerful actors will try and take revenge...it's a different thing for my family – I have young children, under 10 years old, they didn't sign up for that… and I think that is fundamentally unjust… my family is innocent, they didn't sign up for that fight."

  And it is clear from the initial response from Wikileaks that Assange's biggest fear – and perhaps rightly so – was receiving a fair trial under an Obama/Lynch justice system…

  Assange is confident of winning any fair trial in the US. Obama's DoJ prevented public interest defense & fair jury. https://t.co/Mb6gXlz7QS

  — WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) January 17, 2017

  Mr Assange added:

  Assange: "Thank you to everyone who campaigned for Chelsea Manning's clemency. Your courage & determination made the impossible possible."

  — WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) January 17, 2017

  Followed by a full statement.

  Statement from Mr. Julian Assange

  I welcome President Obama's decision to commute the sentence of Ms. Chelsea Manning from 35 years to time served, but Ms. Manning should never have been convicted in the first place. Ms. Manning is a hero, whose bravery should have been applauded not condemned. Journalists, publishers, and their sources serve the public interest and promote democracy by distributing authentic information on key matters such as human rights abuses, and illegal acts by government officials. They should not be prosecuted. In order for democracy and the rule of law to thrive, the Government should immediately end its war on whistleblowers and publishers, such as Wikileaks and myself.

  Mr. Assange's lawyers also made a statement

  Mr. Assange welcomes President Obama's decision to commute Chelsea Manning's sentence. Whistleblowers like Chelsea Manning serve the public interest. She should never have been prosecuted and sentenced to decades in prison. She should be released immediately. Likewise, publishers of truthful information serve the public interest, promote democracy, and should not be prosecuted. The war on whistleblowers should end now and should not be continued in the new Administration. For many months, I have asked the DOJ to clarify Mr. Assange's status. I hope it will soon. The Department of Justice should not pursue any charges against Mr. Assange based on his publication of truthful information and should close its criminal investigation of him immediately."

  So, to sum up, it appears that US extradition is on the cards for Julian Assange as he is "confident" of a fair trial under President Trump – a very different situation to Obama's Justice Department which "prevented a fair jury."

  We wish him luck.

  

  

• 56 Years Ago Today, Eisenhower Warned Americans Of "The Unwarranted Influence" Of The Deep State

  In his farewell address to the nation 56 years ago, President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned the American people for the first time to keep a careful eye on what he called the "military-industrial complex" that had developed in the post-World War II years. Fiscally conservative Eisenhower had been concerned about the growing size and cost of the American defense establishment since he became president in 1953, and as History.com notes, in his last presidential address to the American people, he expressed those concerns in terms that shocked many of his listeners.

  Eisenhower began by describing the changing nature of the American defense establishment since World War II. No longer could the U.S. afford the “emergency improvisation” that characterized its preparations for war against Germany and Japan. Instead, the United States was “compelled to create a permanent armaments industry” and a huge military force. He admitted that the Cold War made clear the “imperative need for this development,” but he was gravely concerned about “the acquisition of unwarranted influence…by the military-industrial complex.” In particular, he asked the American people to guard against the “danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.”

   

  Eisenhower’s blunt language stunned some of his supporters. They believed that the man who led the country to victory in Europe in World War II and guided the nation through some of the darkest moments of the Cold War was too negative toward the military-industrial complex that was the backbone of America’s defense. For most listeners, however, it seemed clear that Eisenhower was merely stating the obvious. World War II and the ensuing Cold War resulted in the development of a large and powerful defense establishment. Necessary though that development might be, Eisenhower warned, this new military-industrial complex could weaken or destroy the very institutions and principles it was designed to protect.

  From January 17th 1961… ("unwarranted influence" begins at 8:41)

   

  Full – frighteningly prophetic – Speech:

  Good evening, my fellow Americans.

  First, I should like to express my gratitude to the radio and television networks for the opportunities they have given me over the years to bring reports and messages to our nation. My special thanks go to them for the opportunity of addressing you this evening.

  Three days from now, after half century in the service of our country, I shall lay down the responsibilities of office as, in traditional and solemn ceremony, the authority of the Presidency is vested in my successor. This evening, I come to you with a message of leave-taking and farewell, and to share a few final thoughts with you, my countrymen.

  Like every other — Like every other citizen, I wish the new President, and all who will labor with him, Godspeed. I pray that the coming years will be blessed with peace and prosperity for all.

  Our people expect their President and the Congress to find essential agreement on issues of great moment, the wise resolution of which will better shape the future of the nation. My own relations with the Congress, which began on a remote and tenuous basis when, long ago, a member of the Senate appointed me to West Point, have since ranged to the intimate during the war and immediate post-war period, and finally to the mutually interdependent during these past eight years. In this final relationship, the Congress and the Administration have, on most vital issues, cooperated well, to serve the nation good, rather than mere partisanship, and so have assured that the business of the nation should go forward. So, my official relationship with the Congress ends in a feeling — on my part — of gratitude that we have been able to do so much together.

  We now stand ten years past the midpoint of a century that has witnessed four major wars among great nations. Three of these involved our own country. Despite these holocausts, America is today the strongest, the most influential, and most productive nation in the world. Understandably proud of this pre-eminence, we yet realize that America’s leadership and prestige depend, not merely upon our unmatched material progress, riches, and military strength, but on how we use our power in the interests of world peace and human betterment.

  Throughout America’s adventure in free government, our basic purposes have been to keep the peace, to foster progress in human achievement, and to enhance liberty, dignity, and integrity among peoples and among nations. To strive for less would be unworthy of a free and religious people. Any failure traceable to arrogance, or our lack of comprehension, or readiness to sacrifice would inflict upon us grievous hurt, both at home and abroad.

  Progress toward these noble goals is persistently threatened by the conflict now engulfing the world. It commands our whole attention, absorbs our very beings. We face a hostile ideology global in scope, atheistic in character, ruthless in purpose, and insiduous [insidious] in method. Unhappily, the danger it poses promises to be of indefinite duration. To meet it successfully, there is called for, not so much the emotional and transitory sacrifices of crisis, but rather those which enable us to carry forward steadily, surely, and without complaint the burdens of a prolonged and complex struggle with liberty the stake. Only thus shall we remain, despite every provocation, on our charted course toward permanent peace and human betterment.

  Crises there will continue to be. In meeting them, whether foreign or domestic, great or small, there is a recurring temptation to feel that some spectacular and costly action could become the miraculous solution to all current difficulties. A huge increase in newer elements of our defenses; development of unrealistic programs to cure every ill in agriculture; a dramatic expansion in basic and applied research — these and many other possibilities, each possibly promising in itself, may be suggested as the only way to the road we wish to travel.

  But each proposal must be weighed in the light of a broader consideration: the need to maintain balance in and among national programs, balance between the private and the public economy, balance between the cost and hoped for advantages, balance between the clearly necessary and the comfortably desirable, balance between our essential requirements as a nation and the duties imposed by the nation upon the individual, balance between actions of the moment and the national welfare of the future. Good judgment seeks balance and progress. Lack of it eventually finds imbalance and frustration. The record of many decades stands as proof that our people and their Government have, in the main, understood these truths and have responded to them well, in the face of threat and stress.

  But threats, new in kind or degree, constantly arise. Of these, I mention two only.

  A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction. Our military organization today bears little relation to that known of any of my predecessors in peacetime, or, indeed, by the fighting men of World War II or Korea.

  Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense. We have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security alone more than the net income of all United States cooperations — corporations.

  Now this conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence — economic, political, even spiritual — is felt in every city, every Statehouse, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet, we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources, and livelihood are all involved. So is the very structure of our society.

  In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

  Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades. In this revolution, research has become central; it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.

  Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers. The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present — and is gravely to be regarded.

  Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.

  It is the task of statesmanship to mold, to balance, and to integrate these and other forces, new and old, within the principles of our democratic system — ever aiming toward the supreme goals of our free society.

  Another factor in maintaining balance involves the element of time. As we peer into society’s future, we — you and I, and our government — must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering for our own ease and convenience the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow.

  During the long lane of the history yet to be written, America knows that this world of ours, ever growing smaller, must avoid becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate, and be, instead, a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect. Such a confederation must be one of equals. The weakest must come to the conference table with the same confidence as do we, protected as we are by our moral, economic, and military strength. That table, though scarred by many past frustrations — past frustrations, cannot be abandoned for the certain agony of disarmament — of the battlefield.

  Disarmament, with mutual honor and confidence, is a continuing imperative. Together we must learn how to compose differences, not with arms, but with intellect and decent purpose. Because this need is so sharp and apparent, I confess that I lay down my official responsibilities in this field with a definite sense of disappointment. As one who has witnessed the horror and the lingering sadness of war, as one who knows that another war could utterly destroy this civilization which has been so slowly and painfully built over thousands of years, I wish I could say tonight that a lasting peace is in sight.

  Happily, I can say that war has been avoided. Steady progress toward our ultimate goal has been made. But so much remains to be done. As a private citizen, I shall never cease to do what little I can to help the world advance along that road.

  So, in this, my last good night to you as your President, I thank you for the many opportunities you have given me for public service in war and in peace. I trust in that — in that — in that service you find some things worthy. As for the rest of it, I know you will find ways to improve performance in the future.

  You and I, my fellow citizens, need to be strong in our faith that all nations, under God, will reach the goal of peace with justice. May we be ever unswerving in devotion to principle, confident but humble with power, diligent in pursuit of the Nations’ great goals.

  To all the peoples of the world, I once more give expression to America’s prayerful and continuing aspiration: We pray that peoples of all faiths, all races, all nations, may have their great human needs satisfied; that those now denied opportunity shall come to enjoy it to the full; that all who yearn for freedom may experience its few spiritual blessings. Those who have freedom will understand, also, its heavy responsibility; that all who are insensitive to the needs of others will learn charity; and that the sources — scourges of poverty, disease, and ignorance will be made [to] disappear from the earth; and that in the goodness of time, all peoples will come to live together in a peace guaranteed by the binding force of mutual respect and love.

  Now, on Friday noon, I am to become a private citizen. I am proud to do so. I look forward to it.

  Thank you, and good night.

  h/t Jim Quinn's Burning Platform blog

  

  

• North Dakota Lawmakers Want To Legalize Running Over Protesters

  Submitted by Nadia Prupis via TheAntiMedia.org,

  

  Running over protesters may soon be legal in North Dakota, if conservative lawmakers are successful in advancing legislation introduced last week.

  House Bill Number 1203 (pdf) states that, “Notwithstanding any other provision of law, a driver of a motor vehicle who unintentionally causes injury or death to an individual obstructing vehicular traffic on a public road, street, or highway, is not guilty of an offense.”

  The bill is slated to be heard by the North Dakota’s House Transportation Committee on Friday.

  Rep. Keith Kempenich (R-Bowman), one of the bill’s co-sponsors, told the Bismarck Tribune on Wednesday, “[The roads are] not there for the protesters. They’re intentionally putting themselves in danger.”

  “It’s shifting the burden of proof from the motor vehicle driver to the pedestrian,” Kempenich said.

  Tara Houska, an Indigenous water protector and attorney who has resided at the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) resistance camps since August, told NBC News that the bill was “a direct violation of our First Amendment rights.”

  “It’s shocking to see legislation that allows for people to literally be killed for exercising their right to protest in a public space,” said Houska, who also serves as the national campaigns director for Honor the Earth, an Indigenous-focused environmental nonprofit.

  Water protectors at times blocked roads leading to DAPL construction sites as part of the resistance to the pipeline. Blocking traffic is also an occasional tactic of various environmental and human rights movements.

  Houska also criticized another bill in the legislative lineup that would require North Dakota’s attorney general to sue the federal government to recoup some of the cost of policing the months-long DAPL protests.

  “These [bills] are meant to criminalize the protests with no real concern for constitutional law,” she said.

  Standing Rock Sioux Chairman Dave Archambault II added, “The state claims they want to work closely with the tribe on repairing our relationship with them. Clearly that is not happening when legislation that impacts us is being drafted without consultation, consent, or even basic communication.”

  Allison Renville, an activist from the Lakota nation, saw the bills as an insult to sovereign Native American communities, and expressed concern about the recent naming of Republican Sen. John Hoeven, a supporter of the DAPL pipeline and fossil fuel industry, as chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs.

  “This is a really scary time for Indian Country,” Renville told NBC News. “To have such an avid supporter of the oil industry who has consistently stated his support for extractive industry projects on Native lands named to the position as chairman is akin to stepping on our sovereignty.”

   

  

  

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