- "Russian" Hacker Guccifer 2.0 Publishes Complete Personal Information Of 200 Congressional Democrats
According to so-called experts, the Romanian (as he described himself) hacker Guccifer 2.0 is really a Russian (even though there is still not a shred of evidence to confirm this) who several weeks ago provided a trove of 20,000 emails to Wikileaks, which exposed the corruption at the Democratic National Committee as it rigged the primary election on behalf of Hillary, further revealing just how deeply in bed the DNC and the “independent” media were.
As of this afternoon, the “Russian” has made it possible for millions of American to contact their Democratic representative instantly, after he released an excel spreadsheet on his blog – obtained from hacking the DNCC – which includes the personal cell phone number, physical and email address as well as full personal information for some 200 congressional Democrats.
On his WordPress blog, Guccifer 2.0 says the following:
Hi all!
It’s time for new revelations now. All of you may have heard about the DCCC hack. As you see I wasn’t wasting my time! It was even easier than in the case of the DNC breach.As you see the U.S. presidential elections are becoming a farce, a big political performance where the voters are far from playing the leading role. Everything is being settled behind the scenes as it was with Bernie Sanders.
I wonder what happened to the true democracy, to the equal opportunities, the things we love the United States for. The big money bags are fighting for power today. They are lying constantly and don’t keep their word. The MSM are producing tons of propaganda hiding the real stuff behind it. But I do believe that people have right to know what’s going on inside the election process in fact.
In retrospect, what hs says is not far off from the truth; In any case, he leaves readers with the following message:
To make a long story short, here are some DCCC docs from their server. Make use of them.
In addition to the Excel file, the alleged Russian hacker also uploaded documents that include the account names and passwords for an assortment of subscription services used by the DCCC, from Lexis-Nexis to Glenn Beck’s web site (password: nutbag).
While “Guccifer 2.0” has claimed to be a foe of “all the illuminati and rich clans which try to rule the governments,” cyber investigators are busy trying to convince the American public that he is just serving as the media liaison for the Russian government hacking teams suspected of breaching the Democratic Party’s computer systems.
If that were indeed the case, this would be the first case ever of a government-sponsored spy (or liaison) using a WordPress platform to leak highly confidential and sensitive information. In fact, that would make him an idiot since authorities can find within minutes the physical location of any given individual who logs into WordPress. Which is also why biggest joke here is that the Russian government is behind the hack.
However, the facts don’t matter when propaganda is on the line, and as the WSJ reported citing Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer, “this is sensitive information and it could be used in a very detrimental way by a foreign government.” Because, supposedly, the same foreign government that hacked the DNCC would be otherwise unable to figure out what Steny’s cell phone number is.
Hoyer’s response: war.
“Mr. Hoyer said Congress, the White House and U.S. intelligence agencies should consider using “offensive measures” in response to the breach.“
Considering the overarching stupiidty of the American political class, he may very well get his wish.
- North American Life Insurers "Accidentally" Pile Up Massive Distressed Debt Holdings
Accommodative monetary policy by the Fed has crushed bond income for insurers. According to Bloomberg, 2015 investment income at North American insurers dropped below 2011 levels.
Unsurprisingly, in their stretch for yield, insurers added to energy bond positions in 2015 to offset the funding gap. Now, the collapse of oil prices has apparently left North American life insurers in a bit of a pickle with distressed debt holdings having doubled in a matter of 6 months as IG energy bonds turned to junk.
North American life insurers have accidentally doubled their distressed-debt holdings in just six months. In the future, they are poised to build on that mound by design.
Companies including Prudential Financial Inc. and MetLife Inc. held $1.32 billion of bonds that were in default, or close to it, at the end of the second quarter, their highest level since the middle of 2011, according to Bloomberg Intelligence data.
They did not intend to buy distressed debt: In many cases they bought investment-grade bonds from energy drillers and retailers that ended up heading south. Insurance companies’ trouble with these bonds underscores how even conservative investors have been hurt by plunging oil prices.
Per a portfolio manager at Prudential, energy bonds appeared cheap back in 2014 due their conservative debt-to-asset ratios. Well, that's probably true if you just assume that prevailing market prices for commodities are right and ignore long-term supply/demand fundamentals.
Energy bonds looked fairly safe to many insurers because oil and gas companies had high levels of assets relative to their debt, according to Mike Collins, a portfolio manager at Prudential’s fixed income unit, which oversees $652 billion for external investors. But as oil prices have plunged, so has the value of the assets, and the bonds have proven to be far riskier than they appeared, Collins said. He was speaking generally and not about Prudential in particular.
“I don’t think anybody expected oil to fall as much as it did,” Collins said, referring to the price of a barrel of oil, which plunged from more than $100 in 2014 to less than $26 in February. “That caught a lot of people by surprise, and a lot of companies have gone from looking like they’re in great shape to distressed very quickly."
But don't worry about the rising risk of bond portfolios at the insurers. Regulators are already working on a plan to relax capital requirements to accommodate increasing risk appetites at America's insurers. Guess moving down the quality curve is one way to combat a low-interest rate environment.
Even if distressed holdings are largely accidental now, regulators are considering proposals that could ease the amount of capital life insurers can use to fund junk bonds, which makes it more profitable for the companies to increase their investment risk. Life insurance companies are seeking more income as low bond yields globally corrode their investment returns.
Under current rules from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, which sets standards for the U.S. industry, a bond with a rating four steps below junk needs to be funded with capital equal to at least 10 percent of the bond’s value before taxes. The NAIC is considering a proposal to lower that to around 6 percent.
- The Birth Of Cultural Marxism: How The "Frankfurt School" Changed America
Submitted by David Galland via GarretGalland.com,
The 1950s were a simple, romantic, and golden time in America.
California beaches, suburbia, and style. Atlas Shrugged was published, NASA was formed, and Elvis rocked the nation. Every year from 1950–1959 saw over 4 million babies born. The nation stood atop the world in every field.
It was an era of great economic prosperity in The Land of the Free.
So, what happened to the American traits of confidence, pride, and accountability?
The roots of Western cultural decay are very deep, having first sprouted a century ago. It began with a loose clan of ideologues inside Europe’s communist movement. Today, it is known as the Frankfurt School, and its ideals have perverted American society.
When Outcomes Fail, Just Change the Theory
Before WWI, Marxist theory held that if war broke out in Europe, the working classes would rise up against the bourgeoisie and create a communist revolution.
Well, as is the case with much of Marxist theory, things didn’t go too well. When war broke out in 1914, instead of starting a revolution, the proletariat put on their uniforms and went off to war.
After the war ended, Marxist theorists were left to ask, “What went wrong?”
Two very prominent Marxists thinkers of the day were Antonio Gramsci and Georg Lukács. Each man, on his own, concluded that the working class of Europe had been blinded by the success of Western democracy and capitalism. They reasoned that until both had been destroyed, a communist revolution was not possible.
Gramsci and Lukács were both active in the Communist party, but their lives took very different paths.
Gramsci was jailed by Mussolini in Italy where he died in 1937 due to poor health.
In 1918, Lukács became minister of culture in Bolshevik Hungary. During this time, Lukács realized that if the family unit and sexual morals were eroded, society could be broken down.
Lukács implemented a policy he titled “cultural terrorism,” which focused on these two objectives. A major part of the policy was to target children’s minds through lectures that encouraged them to deride and reject Christian ethics.
In these lectures, graphic sexual matter was presented to children, and they were taught about loose sexual conduct.
Here again, a Marxist theory had failed to take hold in the real world. The people were outraged at Lukács’ program, and he fled Hungary when Romania invaded in 1919.
The Birth of Cultural Marxism
All was quiet on the Marxist front until 1923 when the cultural terrorist turned up for a “Marxist study week” in Frankfurt, Germany. There, Lukács met a young, wealthy Marxist named Felix Weil.
Until Lukács showed up, classical Marxist theory was based solely on the economic changes needed to overthrow class conflict. Weil was enthused by Lukács’ cultural angle on Marxism.
Weil’s interest led him to fund a new Marxist think tank—the Institute for Social Research. It would later come to be known as simply The Frankfurt School.
In 1930, the school changed course under new director Max Horkheimer. The team began mixing the ideas of Sigmund Freud with those of Marx, and cultural Marxism was born.
In classical Marxism, the workers of the world were oppressed by the ruling classes. The new theory was that everyone in society was psychologically oppressed by the institutions of Western culture. The school concluded that this new focus would need new vanguards to spur the change. The workers were not able to rise up on their own.
As fate would have it, the National Socialists came to power in Germany in 1933. It was a bad time and place to be a Jewish Marxist, as most of the school’s faculty was. So, the school moved to New York City, the bastion of Western culture at the time.
Coming to America
In 1934, the school was reborn at Columbia University. Its members began to exert their ideas on American culture.
It was at Columbia University that the school honed the tool it would use to destroy Western culture: the printed word.
The school published a lot of popular material. The first of these was Critical Theory.
Critical Theory is a play on semantics. The theory was simple: criticize every pillar of Western culture—family, democracy, common law, freedom of speech, and others. The hope was that these pillars would crumble under the pressure.
Next was a book Theodor Adorno co-authored, The Authoritarian Personality. It redefined traditional American views on gender roles and sexual mores as “prejudice.” Adorno compared them to the traditions that led to the rise of fascism in Europe.
Is it just a coincidence that the go-to slur for the politically correct today is “fascist”?
The school pushed its shift away from economics and toward Freud by publishing works on psychological repression.
Their works split society into two main groups: the oppressors and the victims. They argued that history and reality were shaped by those groups who controlled traditional institutions. At the time, that was code for males of European descent.
From there, they argued that the social roles of men and women were due to gender differences defined by the “oppressors.” In other words, gender did not exist in reality but was merely a “social construct.”
A Coalition of Victims
Adorno and Horkheimer returned to Germany when WWII ended. Herbert Marcuse, another member of the school, stayed in America. In 1955, he published Eros and Civilization.
In the book, Marcuse argued that Western culture was inherently repressive because it gave up happiness for social progress.
The book called for “polymorphous perversity,” a concept crafted by Freud. It posed the idea of sexual pleasure outside the traditional norms. Eros and Civilization would become very influential in shaping the sexual revolution of the 1960s.
Marcuse would be the one to answer Horkheimer’s question from the 1930s: Who would replace the working class as the new vanguards of the Marxist revolution?
Marcuse believed that it would be a victim coalition of minorities—blacks, women, and homosexuals.
The social movements of the 1960s—black power, feminism, gay rights, sexual liberation—gave Marcuse a unique vehicle to release cultural Marxist ideas into the mainstream. Railing against all things “establishment,” The Frankfurt School’s ideals caught on like wildfire across American universities.
Marcuse then published Repressive Tolerance in 1965 as the various social movements in America were in full swing. In it, he argued that tolerance of all values and ideas meant the repression of “correct” ideas.
It was here that Marcuse coined the term “liberating tolerance.” It called for tolerance of any ideas coming from the left but intolerance of those from the right. One of the overarching themes of the Frankfurt School was total intolerance for any viewpoint but its own. That is also a basic trait of today’s political-correctness believers.
To quote Max Horkheimer, “Logic is not independent of content.”
Recalling the Words of Winston (Not That One)
The Frankfurt School’s work has had a deep impact on American culture. It has recast the homogenous America of the 1950s into today’s divided, animosity-filled nation.
In turn, this has contributed to the undeniable breakdown of the family unit, as well as identity politics, radical feminism, and racial polarization in America.
It’s hard to decide if today’s culture is more like Orwell’s 1984 or Huxley’s Brave New World.
Never one to buck a populist trend, the political establishment in America has fully embraced the ideas of the Frankfurt School and has pushed them on American society through public miseducation.
Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, the beacons of progressivism, are both disciples of Saul Alinsky, a devoted cultural Marxist.
And so we now live in a hyper-sensitive society in which social memes and feelings have overtaken biological and objective reality as the main determinants of right and wrong.
Political correctness is a war on logic and reason.
To quote Winston, the protagonist in Orwell’s dystopia, “Freedom is the freedom to say that 2+2=4.”
Today, America is not free.
- "Expert" Says Rising Rapes In Sweden Due To Global Warming Not Soaring Muslim Immigration
Psychotherapist and “expert on sexual criminals,” Börje Svensson, has finally figured out the mystery behind rising sexual assaults in Sweden. Want to guess where he places the blame? Well, if you guessed ManBearPig then you’re absolutely right! And we thought it might have something to do with the massive spike in refugees flooding into Sweden from countries that don’t really share the same “respect” for women as the Western world.
Now we just feel awful for misplacing the blame. Still sometimes we feel like ManBearPig probably carries more than his fair share of the blame for the problems of the world (see “Bernie Sanders ‘Reveals’ The Real Cause Of Terrorism… Climate Change“).
Per an article published by Breitbart London:
Providing the perfect reason that absolves the Swedish establishment of all responsibility, Svensson described how we have been a bit unlucky with the weather this year. Hopefully we will have a colder summer next year and sexual crimes will then be an old memory linked to that one hot Swedish summer. If by any chance, there are still rapes during a colder summer, our experts will simply find another scapegoat rather than looking straight at the imported criminals.
Just in case you’re not the type to blindly accept the wisdom of our educated elites we thought we’d share some silly statistics with you just for fun. Does seem odd that rising sexual assaults happen to overlap with a massive spike in asylum applications from the predominantly Muslim countries of the Middle East and Northern Africa.
Obviously, the rape epidemic in Europe is no laughing matter with new reports of violent sexual assaults being reported daily. The crisis is something we’ve discussed on numerous occasions recently (see “Germany’s Migrant Rape Crisis Spirals Out Of Control” and “Sweden’s Migrant Rape Epidemic Explained“). Unfortunately, it’s difficult to combat a problem like this when elected officials find it “inconvenient” to admit the true root of the crisis.
- Farmland Bubble Bursts As Ag Credit Conditions Crumble
Aside from a brief pause during the "great recession" of 2009, Midwest farmland prices have been bubbling up for over a decade with annual price increases of 15%-30% in many years. Private Equity and low interest rates no doubt played a role in creating the farmland bubble as "excess cash on the sidelines" sought out investments in hard assets (see "Is TIAA-CREF Investing In Farmland A Harbinger Of The Next Asset Bubble?"). No matter the cause, data continues to indicate that the farmland bubble is bursting.
2Q 2016 agricultural updates from the Federal Reserve Banks of Chicago, Kansas City and St. Louis indicate continued income, credit and farmland price deterioration for Midwest farmers. Lender surveys also suggest that as many as 30% of Midwest farmers are having problems paying loan balances. Declining asset values and incomes have also caused banks to tighten lending standards which has only served to accelerate the decline.
In Kansas' 10th District (which includes MO, OK, KS, NE), values of non-irrigated and irrigated cropland declined 3% and 5%, respectively, in 2Q 2016. In fact, 2Q 2016 marks the 6th consecutive quarter of YoY declines for irrigated cropland values. Between 2002 to 2014, the value of both irrigated and non-irrigated cropland declined in only one other time in 3Q 2009.
Farmland prices in Chicago's 7th District (IL, IN, IA, MI, WI) paint a similar picture. Before price declines in 2014 and 2015, farmland prices in the 7th District had only declined YoY in 4 other years since 1965.
Any supply cuts that might be expected in this type of environment aren't having an impact on commodity prices at this point with wheat and corn prices both trading at multi-year lows.
Meanwhile farmer credit conditions continued to weaken in 2Q, per the Kansas City Fed:
Respondents to the Tenth District Survey of Agricultural Credit Conditions indicated farm income in the quarter continued to tighten. Nearly 75 percent of surveyed bankers reported farm income was less than a year ago, although the percent of bankers that reported weaker farm income declined slightly from the first quarter (Chart 1). Respondents also noted that agricultural producers continued to reduce capital and household spending as profit margins generally remained weak.
Bankers also indicated they expect farm income to remain weak in the third quarter. Similar to last year, a significant number of bankers in each District state expect farm income in the third quarter to be less than a year earlier (Chart 2). They also expect the rate of decline to be sharpest in the Mountain States and Oklahoma, which are relatively more dependent on income from wheat, cattle and energy production than other parts of the District. As the outlook in these three sectors has become increasingly downbeat, more bankers in those regions expect farm income to decline further.
Persistent declines in farm income in the District have continued to affect agricultural credit conditions. Demand for non-real estate farm loans and loan renewals continued to climb in the second quarter with additional increases expected in the third quarter (Chart 5). As noted in the Kansas City Fed’s most recent Agricultural Finance Databook, the rising demand for farm loans has been driven primarily by the need to finance short-term operating expenses as profit margins have remained weak.
Evidence of repayment problems also has surfaced at the state level. The share of farm loans with identified repayment problems has increased to at least 18 percent in all states (Chart 7). In the Mountain States, more than 30 percent of farm loans had some type of repayment problem, a jump of 17 percentage points from the 2011-13 average. Loan repayment problems also increased in other District states from the 2011-13 average, reflecting the effects of prolonged weakness in farm income throughout the District.
In response to a weakening farm economy and increased problems with loan repayments, bankers reported an increase in the share of loan applications that were denied in the second quarter. In 2016, almost 15 percent of bankers reported that they denied more than 10 percent of applications for farm operating loans (Chart 8). By comparison, only 5 percent of bankers indicated they had denied loan applications at this rate in 2015. Although District bankers continued to report that ample credit was available for borrowers who are in a strong financial position, the higher rate of loan denials suggests the number of farm borrowers who are less creditworthy has increased over the past year.
Time to stop all that silly farming… don't these people know we are in the 'new services economy' – pave all the fields and make Pokemon Go gyms…
- FBI Mutiny? Feds Said To Launch Clinton Foundation Corruption Probe Despite DoJ Objections
Having detailed Clinton-appointee Loretta Lynch's DoJ push-back against the FBI's Clinton Foundation probe, it seems Director Comey has decided to flex his own muscles and save face as DailyCaller reports, multiple FBI investigations are underway involving potential corruption charges against the Clinton Foundation, according to a former senior law enforcement official.
As we previously noted, a US official has told CNN…
At the time, three field offices were in agreement an investigation should be launched after the FBI received notification from a bank of suspicious activity from a foreigner who had donated to the Clinton Foundation, according to the official.
FBI officials wanted to investigate whether there was a criminal conflict of interest with the State Department and the Clinton Foundation during Clinton's tenure.
But…
The Department of Justice had looked into allegations surrounding the foundation a year earlier after the release of the controversial book "Clinton Cash," but found them to be unsubstantiated and there was insufficient evidence to open a case.
As so as a result…
DOJ officials pushed back against opening a case during the meeting earlier this year.
Some also expressed concern the request seemed more political than substantive, especially given the timing of it coinciding with the investigation into the private email server and Clinton's presidential campaign.
However, as DailyCaller reports, The FBI is undertaking multiple investigations involving potential corruption changes against The Clinton Foundation…
The investigation centers on New York City where the Clinton Foundation has its main offices, according to the former official who has direct knowledge of the activities.
Prosecutorial support will come from various U.S. Attorneys Offices — a major departure from other centralized FBI investigations.
The New York-based probe is being led by Preet Bharara, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York.
The official said involvement of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of New York “would be seen by agents as a positive development as prosecutors there are generally thought to be more aggressive than the career lawyers within the DOJ.”
…
The former official said the investigation is being coordinated between bureau field offices and FBI managers at headquarters in Washington, D.C. The unusual process would ensure senior FBI supervisors, including Director James Comey, would be kept abreast of case progress and of significant developments.
The reliance on U.S. attorneys would be a significant departure from the centralized manner in which the FBI managed the investigation of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s use of a private server and email addresses.
That investigation was conducted with agents at FBI headquarters, who coordinated with the Department of Justice’s National Security Division (NSD).
While Nicholas Biase, a spokesman for Bharara, said he would “decline comment," and FBI spokeswoman Samantha Shero said, “we do not have a comment on investigative activity,” we wonder if the unusual procedures and the tone of that comment suggests a mutinous FBI standing up to the politicized DoJ?
- Is Trump Deliberately Throwing The Election To Clinton?
"There is an adage in politics: Don't get in the way of a train wreck," said Democratic strategist Bob Shrum, a top campaign aide to presidential candidates Al Gore in 2000 and John Kerry in 2004. And, as Reuters reports, Clinton's advisers say they see little benefit in her going toe-to-toe with Trump over every personal accusation, generating sound bites that would dominate cable news broadcasts. Rather, they are happy for him to be embroiled in controversy while Clinton focuses on policy.
Her national press pool, which seldom gets to question the candidate, often waits as she conducts interviews with local news outlets.
She has granted few recent interviews to national outlets and rarely holds press conferences, a strategy her critics say is calculated to avoid questions about her use of a private email server during her time as secretary of state, and the relationship between her family's global charity, the Clinton Foundation, and the State Department.
If you haven't heard a lot about what Hillary Clinton thinks of a string of controversial comments by Donald Trump that have generated round-the-clock coverage on cable news broadcasts, there is a reason – it's by design.
Since becoming the Democratic nominee last month, Clinton has been touring toy manufacturers, visiting tie makers and dropping in on public health clinics, where if she mentions Trump at all, it is usually to contrast their policies.
Her swift condemnation at a Wednesday campaign rally of Trump's remark that gun rights activists could stop her from nominating liberal U.S. Supreme Court justices was a rare instance where she has directly engaged her Republican rival in the 2016 race for the White House.
Aides say Clinton's strategy is simple: let Trump be Trump.
And perhaps there is more to that 'strategy' than means the eye. As Brent Budowsky asks at The Hill – Is Trump deliberately throwing the election to Clinton?
In August 2015, I wrote a column for The Hill titled "Is Trump a Clinton plant?" At the time, I wrote that I was not seriously suggesting that Donald Trump is running as a Hillary Clinton plant for the purpose of bringing a second Clinton to the White House, but noted some facts.
For many years Trump, has heaped high praise on both Bill and Hillary Clinton throughout their tenures at every major office they have held since the 1992 campaign. I also noted that Trump has offered praise and campaign donations that continued for many years to prominent liberals and Democratic leaders such as Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (Nev.), Sen. Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.).
A year after my tongue-in-cheek column asking whether Trump is running as a plant to elect Hillary Clinton, I will now raise the possibility, much more seriously, that one way to explain Trump's repeatedly self-destructive behavior could be that deep down Trump does not want to win the election and is clumsily throwing the game.
I am not stating that I believe that Trump wants to lose to Clinton, but I am suggesting there is at least some possibility that this is the case.
Why might Trump, in theory, want to lose the election?
Perhaps Trump originally decided to run to get some publicity for his business, or satisfy his ego, but never expected he had a real chance to win. Perhaps it suddenly dawned on Trump that he did have some chance to win, and was petrified at the thought of filing the detailed financial disclosures that presidents are required by law to file, for the same reason he is hiding his tax returns and which, I predict, he will never willfully release. Perhaps Trump suddenly realized he did not really want his finger on the nuclear button. Perhaps he just concluded that he did want to do the work that the presidency requires.
Think about it. If a candidate genuinely wants to become president, would he repeatedly insult the giant wave of Hispanic voters? Would he insult veterans who were heroic prisoners of war by saying that he "like[s] people who weren't captured"? Would he repeatedly insult the 2008 GOP nominee and great war hero, Sen. John McCain (Ariz.)?
If a candidate actually wants to become president, would he and his advisers plan a strategy that includes praising the mass-murdering communist dictator of North Korea? Which voters did Trump believe he would win with that one? If a candidate truly wants to become president, would he and his foreign policy advisors plan a strategy that repeatedly praises Vladimir Putin, the strongman dictator of Russia, and say he is not sure he would defend Europe nations from a Russian invasion? Does Trump believe there is a pro-Putin vote in America?
Or, as Trump often says, perhaps there is something happening here. Some people might say he does these things because he wants to lose the election and is throwing the game to Clinton.
I have been to many rodeos in national politics, and literally every single major player in politics that I know expected Trump to "pivot" after the conventions to appear to take more responsible positions and say fewer irresponsible and self-destructive things.
Republicans believed Trump would pivot with hope; Democrats believed he would pivot with dread.
Nobody I know believed that Trump would pivot in the opposite direction, becoming even more irresponsible and self-destructive after the conventions.
Did Trump and his campaign managers develop a strategy to attack a Gold Star mother and father? Could any presidential candidate who wants to be elected seem to publicly support Russian espionage against America, and take positions so extreme that a former acting CIA director calls him "an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation"? Would any candidate who actually wants to win make comments about the Second Amendment and a political opponent so that the Secret Service is not happy, the same kind of comments that helped Harry Reid pulverize his Republican opponent into dust in his last reelection campaign?
I predict that Trump will never release his tax returns because there is something in those returns he intensely fears being revealed. Shall we speculate about what could be so devastating in his undisclosed tax returns? Is it not possible, possibly even likely, that he might dread the thought, for similar reasons, of filing his financial disclosure papers if he is elected president?
There has been some speculation in GOP circles about whether Trump might drop out of the campaign. This is possible, but I doubt it. The more likely scenario, if Trump does not want to be elected president, is that he will keep saying and doing things that any freshman political science student in college would know will doom his candidacy, and that after he loses a potential landslide to Hillary Clinton, will shout from the rooftops: "I was robbed!"
I am not saying that I believe Donald Trump is trying to throw the election to Hillary Clinton, but I am saying this is a prospect that is now worth seriously considering if the endless series of Trump blunders and gaffes continues.
As we concluded a year ago when the topic of Trump's false-flag presidential run came up…
Trump has been playing the media with his supposed presidential ambitions for years, but it was clear then that it was just The Donald doing what he does best – promoting himself. So why now has he suddenly turned “serious”? I give that word scare quotes because 1) Serious is not a word one associates with a clown, and 2) It’s not at all clear that, for all his megalomania, he really thinks he can win the White House. He may be a lunatic but he’s far from stupid.
And so the question jumps out at us: Why now?
Although I have no concrete proof of my theory, there’s plenty of circumstantial evidence. His ties to the Clintons, his past pronouncements which are in such blatant contradiction to his current fulminations, and the cries of joy from the Clintonian gallery and the media (or do I repeat myself) all point to a single conclusion: the Trump campaign is a Democratic wrecking operation aimed straight at the GOP’s base.
Donald Trump is a false-flag candidate. It’s all an act, one that benefits his good friend Hillary Clinton and the Democratic party that, until recently, counted the reality show star among its adherents. Indeed, Trump’s pronouncements – the open racism, the demagogic appeals, the faux-populist rhetoric – sound like something out of a Democratic political consultant’s imagination, a caricature of conservatism as performed by a master actor.
Now I realize this is a “conspiracy theory,” and, as we all know, there are no conspiracies in politics. In that noble profession, everything is completely aboveboard and on the level – right?
Like hell it is.
If this becomes the case then all is lost America as The Deep State's control is more complete than anyone could have imagined.
- Meet The Real Lords Of War: How The World Goes Shopping For Death
There are movies, and then there is real life.
Global military spending rose to $1.68 trillion in 2015, making up about 2.3 percent of the world’s gross domestic product, according to Bloomberg. To document a small portion of it, over the past four years, photographer Guillaume Herbaut has been traveling to Jordan, Qatar, France, and India to look beyond the glossy veneer of the world’s weapons markets.
This is what he found.
* * *
Qatari delegate with the Turkish-made 9 mm semi-automatic Pistom MKE T 94K and the 9 mm submachine gun MP5-K at the Milipol regional event in defense and internal security in Doha, Qatar.
A Chinese People’s Liberation Army officer tests an American-made rifle at the Special Operations Forces Exhibition & Conference (Sofex) in Amman, Jordan.
Delegates inspect the Main Battle Tank MBT, manufactured by the German company Rheinmetall, at the Eurosatory International Weapons Show in France.
Detail of the VBCI casevac (Véhicule Blindé de Combat d’infanterie) on the Nexter display during the Eurosatory International Weapons Show in France.
Delegate from Belerus (center) and others during the opening ceremony of Defexpo: Land, Naval, and Internal Security Systems Exhibition in New Dehli, India.
The display of the Spanish company Radete at the Milipol regional event in defense and internal security in Doha, Qatar.
Riot gear made by the French company Protecop during an outdoor demonstration at the Eurosatory International Weapons Show in France.
Hostesses at the OFB (Ordnance Factory Board) display at Defexpo: Land, Naval, and Internal Security Systems Exhibition in New Dehli, India.
Chemical protective suit on display at the Matisec booth at Eurosatory International Weapons Show in France.
Delegates at the Sig Sauer display at the Defexpo: Land, Naval, and Internal Security Systems Exhibition in New Dehli, India.
A demonstration by the Wolf security company from France, specializing in security training, at the Milipol regional event in defense and internal security in Doha, Qatar.
The Tommanikin trauma manikin designed by U.S. Security Assistance for classroom settings and field training scenarios, at the Eurosatory International Weapons Show in France.
Masaku Paul Mutul of the Kenyan defense forces at the Arsenal Bulgarian display at the Defexpo: Land, Naval, and Internal Security Systems Exhibition in New Dehli, India.
The fuel tanker truck Carapace developed by the French Army during an outdoor demonstrations, at the Eurosatory International Weapons Show in France.
* * *
And remember, if you want to grow GDP when all else fails, you start using what you bought above.
- Connect Just Two Dots, See All The Rest
Submitted by Jeffrey Snider via Alhambra Investment Partners,
It’s not an exact fit or correlation, but that’s not the point. One follows the other, though the manner in which they relate is outside of any view. The point here is common sense, unclouded by the increasing absurdity with which this simple relationship is denied:
Repo fails are an indication of collateral “tightness.” Dealer net long inventory is an indication of collateral hoarding.
How and when one becomes the other is a matter for the markets themselves. Why and what it means is what this is all about.
There is a lot more than LIBOR going on (subscription required).
You really don’t need to know much about the repo market or its technical operations and conditions to figure this out. There are only two dots to connect – high levels of dealer holdings of coupons and repo fails.
The correlation is as obvious in the charts above as it is in plain common sense.
Dealers, the bedrock of the global monetary system, are hoarding collateral and it shows. That, however, doesn’t fit within the recovery narrative, so the media resorts to the easy and absurd to obscure what “should” not be happening.
The Bank of England yesterday, on the second day of restarted QE, failed to find enough offers to complete its purchase allotment of UK government bonds. Mainstream observers are left scratching their heads because, we are told incessantly, there is nothing wrong anywhere in the economy or financial system.
Who might not want to sell UK gilts who also might have enough of them to fill BoE order tapes? Perhaps global banks and money dealers who in “dollars” are already proved unwilling to part with UST’s? We already know there is heavy foreign demand from unspecified counterparties for UST collateral access under the Federal Reserve’s foreign reverse repo accommodation…
Rising LIBOR couldn’t possibly mean anything other than money market “reform”, right?
Other dots already connected:
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