Jan 22

Today’s News 22nd January 2020

  • Pope Francis Calls For Marxist Economic Summit
    Pope Francis Calls For Marxist Economic Summit

    Authored by Antonius Aquinas,

    As if there needs to be further evidence that the current occupant of St. Peter’s Chair in Rome is a Marxist, the announcement of an upcoming conference at Assisi entitled the “Economy of Francesco” should convince any skeptic otherwise.

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    In his invitation letter to “young economists and entrepreneurs worldwide,” Bergoglio sets the agenda for the Leftist confab quite clearly which is virulently anti-market, a call for massive redistribution of wealth, and a reordering of the current economic systems of the world with a healthy dose of climate change nonesense:

    …a different kind of economy: one that brings life not death, one that is inclusive and not exclusive, humane and not dehumanizing, one that cares for the environment and does not despoil it.

    While Bergoglio’s Marxist credentials have been firmly established, his blasphemous actions and words has a growing number outside of “sedevacantist circles” calling him a heretic.  The legitimacy of “Pope Francis,” however, is more fundamental than him being a manifest heretic, but his standing as a legitimate pope is invalid since his ordination as a priest and his consecration as a bishop came under the new rites of Holy Orders instituted in the wake of the Second Vatican anti-Council (1962-1965).

    The mastermind behind Bergoglio’s summit is professor Luigino Bruni and from his comments he sounds more radical than the Argentine Apostate, if that is possible.  Professor Bruni wants to use taxation as a weapon to “redistribute income and wealth from the rich to the poor.”

    Bruni, a professor of political economy at the Italian University, LUMSA, and the author of a number of books, basis his advocacy for redistribution of wealth on the Scriptures:

    [T]he Bible has many words to offer our economic life and ideas [with] the transformation of wealth into well-being.

    It appears that the good professor’s Bible is missing the Seventh Commandment of the Decalogue which solemnly states: THOU SHALL NOT STEAL!  In no legitimate commentary ever written on this Commandment is there an exception made for the confiscation of wealth from the well-to-do to be given to the poor.  Probably just an oversight on the Professor’s part.

    Because they are blinded by socialistic ideology, Bruni, Bergoglio, and the likes of Bernie Sanders cannot see that the growing wealth inequality which they complain about is not the result of “capitalism,” but is the outcome of the monetary policy of the world’s central banks.  This, along with tax policies which hamper innovation and shield the entrenched financial class from competition, is why financial elites are able to maintain and increase their power.

    Central bank policy of suppressing interest rates and of money printing allow banks and financial institutions to receive “free money” which they can invest and speculate with at zero cost.  The boom (actually a bubble) in asset prices on Wall Street is a demonstration of how wealth disparity takes place.

    If Bergoglio really meant to reform the present system, he would call for the abolition of central banking and a return to “hard money.”  Under such an order, banks and financial institutions become wealthy on their ability to make prudent investment decisions subjected to profit and loss.  A free market in banking is the antithesis of the current system of credit expansion and money printing.

    Not only have Bergoglio and his cohorts abandoned the Faith, but they have also overturned the Church’s long-held condemnation of socialism and have ignored many of its own outstanding thinkers on financial matters.  From the Scholastics to the School of Salamanca through the Jesuits and the great Cardinal Cajetan, who finally taught the proper doctrine on interest rates, the Church has produced scores of eminent economic thinkers in its long history.

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    School of Salamanca

    Ever since socialism reared its ugly head as a social system of thought, the Church has warned of its dangers even its more milder forms as Pope Pius XII wrote, “No Catholic could subscribe even to moderate socialism.” 

    Since Vatican II and especially under Bergoglio’s regime, however, Leftist ideas of all sorts have been warmly embraced.

    At the heart of socialism, be it Marxism or its equally pernicious variants, lies envy which became a part of the human condition with the fall of man.  While once condemned, envy has been turned into a virtue by the likes of Bergoglio.

    While such ideas may sound appealing to human sensibilities, they will not pass the Divine Judge who knows the thoughts and souls of all His creatures even those of supposed popes.


    Tyler Durden

    Wed, 01/22/2020 – 02:00

  • Did Google Assassinate Wife Of Whistleblower Who Exposed The Search Engine?
    Did Google Assassinate Wife Of Whistleblower Who Exposed The Search Engine?

    Via GreatGameIndia.com,

    A high-profile Google whistleblower who back in July testified before Congress that the search engine meddled in the 2016 presidential election on behalf of Hillary Clinton is now suggesting that the fatal car crash that killed his wife last month may not have been an accident.

    Did Google assassinate whistleblower’s wife who exposed the search engine?

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    Google Whistleblower Dr. Robert Epstein

    Robert Epstein is an American psychologist, professor, author, and journalist. He earned his Ph.D. in psychology at Harvard University in 1981, was editor in chief of Psychology Today, a visiting scholar at the University of California, San Diego, and the founder and director emeritus of the Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies in Concord, MA.

    Criticism of Google

    In 2013, Epstein wrote in Time magazine that Google had “a fundamentally deceptive business model”. In 2015, he said that Google could rig the 2016 US presidential election and that search engine manipulation was “a serious threat to the democratic system of government”.

    According to Epstein, “Perhaps the most effective way to wield political influence in today’s high-tech world is to donate money to a candidate and then to use technology to make sure he or she wins. The technology guarantees the win, and the donation guarantees allegiance, which Google has certainly tapped in recent years with the Obama administration.”

    In a 2017 article, Epstein criticized efforts by companies such as Google and Facebook to suppress fake news through algorithms, noting “the dangers in allowing big technology companies to decide which news stories are legitimate”.

    Other journalists and researchers have expressed concerns similar to Epstein’s. Safiya Noble cited Epstein’s research about search engine bias in her 2018 book Algorithms of Oppression, although she has expressed doubt that search engines ought to counter-balance the content of large, well-resourced and highly trained newsrooms with what she called “disinformation sites” and “propaganda outlets”.

    Ramesh Srinivasan, a professor of information studies at UCLA focusing on “the relationships between technology and politics”, agreed with Epstein that “the larger issue” of how search engines can shape users’ views is “extremely important”, but questioned how many undecided voters are using Google to them help decide who to vote for.

    Senate Judiciary Committee

    In July 2019, Epstein presented his research to the Senate Judiciary Committee, claiming that Google could manipulate “upwards of 15 million votes” in 2020 and recommending that Google’s search index be made public.

    In a clarification to a question asked by Ted Cruz he also said that “2.6 million is a rock bottom minimum” for how many votes Google might have swung towards Hillary Clinton in the 2016 US presidential election, and that “the range is between 2.6 million and up to 10.4 million votes”.

    Google dismissed Epstein’s research as “nothing more than a poorly constructed conspiracy theory”.

    Death of Misti Epstein

    In December, Epstein, 66, announced that his wife – 29-year-old Misti Vaughn – was killed when her car spun out of control in inclement weather in Escondido, Calif., located in San Diego County. The California Highway Patrol said Vaughn lost control of her Ford Ranger in the rain and careened into oncoming traffic, crashing into a big rig and an SUV, San Diego’s KNSD reported.

    Epstein also shared an image of the badly damaged vehicle his wife was driving at the time of the wreck. “#Misti’s awesome Ford Ranger was broadsided by a Freightliner semi towing 2 loads of cement. I had my ear to her heart for most of the last 100 minutes of her life. I heard her take her last breath, & heard the last beat of her heart. Mine is broken,” he tweeted on Jan. 11.

    Dr. Robert Epstein in a sensational tweet last Sunday suggested that the fatal car crash that killed his wife last month may not have been an accident. He said, “Last year, after I briefed a group of state AGs about #Google’s power to rig elections, one of them said, “I think you’re going to die in an accident in a few months,” he tweeted. “A few months later, my beautiful wife #Misti died a violent death. Makes you wonder.”

    Investigation against Google in India

    The Competition Commission of India (CCI) has launched a probe against Google for leveraging its dominant market position. If found guilty Google might be looking at a fine that could exceed Rs 136 crore (almost 10 million dollars).

    Google also had a role to play in 2008 Mumbai Attacks. One of the terrorist involved in Mumbai attacks closely monitored by British GCHQ was technology chief of Lashkar-e-Taiba Zarrar Shah. Top Secret US NSA document on Mumbai Attacks show that Mr. Shah, the technology chief of Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Pakistani terror group, and fellow conspirators used Google Earth to show militants the routes to their targets in the city. He set up an Internet phone system to disguise his location by routing his calls through New Jersey.

    It is no secret that technology giants Google, Microsoft and the likes works for the US military. Under the provisions of the USA Patriot Act, 2001 and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, 1978 the US Government and Intelligence Agencies can legally require a US based corporation to handover information that it either owns or has access to.

    And recently the CEO of Google, Sundar Pichai personally assured the US President Donald Trump about “Google’s commitment to the US military”. In the words of Snowden, “the rebranding of Surveillance as Social Media is the most successful deception since the Department of War became the Department of Defense.”


    Tyler Durden

    Wed, 01/22/2020 – 00:05

    Tags
    Technology Internet

  • Housing Affordability Crisis Sparks "Rise Of The Pod People" Across America
    Housing Affordability Crisis Sparks “Rise Of The Pod People” Across America

    The U.S. is facing an affordable housing crisis as the Federal Reserve continues to inflate home prices with easy money that is far outpacing wages. 

    Homes in 74% of the country, mostly the large metro areas, are unaffordable for the average worker. At least three-quarters of millennials will never own home as they’re drowning in student debt, auto loans, and credit card debt. 

    Renting has also become too costly for many in large metro areas like San Francisco. Millennials have already moved into campers and tent cities to escape rising rents, but there could be a new solution called “pod living.” 

    For about $1,000 to $1,375, a millennial could rent a 50 sq. Ft. pod per month in downtown San Francisco’s Mission District, reported SFGate. 

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    As of right now, developer Chris Elsey of Elsey Partners in Manhattan, Kansas, is planning to build two apartment buildings in the Mission District that will house tiny apartments and 88 pods. 

    “The contentious part is these below-grade sleeping pods,” said Elsey. “When you’re building something, the plans have to be approved by the Planning Department and the Building Department. These below-grade sleeping pods meet the building codes, but there’s this perception from the Planning Department that it’s not something any human being should be exposed to or allowed to do.”

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    SFGate reached out to San Francisco’s Department of Building about the project, who responded by saying: “At this point, we have not received any permit applications for the project. Until a developer applies for a building permit and submits building plans for DBI review, we are not in a position to say whether the proposed project will comply with San Francisco’s Building Code.”

    Elsey’s plan is to transform 401 S. Van Ness and 1500 15th St. into an eight-floor building with 161 200 sq. Ft. units. Then in the basement area, 88 pods will be housed, stacked up like a college dormitory. 

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    Elsey said pod life would have strict rules, including no pod sex and or pod parties. 

    He said the purpose of the pods are too give millennials a chance to live in a hip part of town for an affordable price, even if that means a 50 sq. Ft. space for about $1,000 per month. 

    “We’re trying to build the most affordable market-rate living arrangement,” said Elsey. “That’s been our main objective.”

    He added: “We’re trying to utilize this below-grade space that has traditionally been used for accessory uses such as bike parking. What’s more important, beds or bikes? I guess it’s up to everybody’s opinion, but my opinion is there’s an incredible housing shortage in San Francisco.”

    Elsey is not the first to develop pods for broke millennials – we noted last summer that PodShare had bunk beds for rent in San Diego, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. 

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    On the East Coast, we noted that  “capsule living” has become a popular trend among millennials as 350 sq. Ft. studios in NYC cost upwards of $645,000. 

    The fascination of tiny homes among millennials is the result of failed policies via the Fed and the government, who’ve allowed home prices to hyperinflate out of the reach of millennials. 

    We’ve even documented millennials buying shipping container homes on Amazon that cost around $37,000. 

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    The pod life trend is increasing on both coasts – the American Dream is quickly reversing – a sign that wealth inequality in the “greatest economy ever” continues to soar. 

    The new American dream explained: 

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    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 01/21/2020 – 23:45

  • The End Of US Military Dominance: Unintended Consequences Forge A Multipolar World Order
    The End Of US Military Dominance: Unintended Consequences Forge A Multipolar World Order

    Authored by Federico Pieraccini via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

    Starting from the presidency of George W. Bush to that of Trump, the U.S. has made some missteps that not only reduce its influence in strategic regions of the world but also its ability to project power and thus impose its will on those unwilling to genuflect appropriately.

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    Some examples from the recent past will suffice to show how a series of strategic errors have only accelerated the U.S.’s hegemonic decline.

    ABM + INF = Hypersonic Supremacy

    The decision to invade Afghanistan following the events of September 11, 2001, while declaring an “axis of evil” to be confronted that included nuclear-armed North Korea and budding regional hegemon Iran, can be said to be the reason for many of the most significant strategic problems besetting the U.S..

    The U.S. often prefers to disguise its medium- to long-term objectives by focusing on supposedly more immediate and short-term threats. Thus, the U.S.’s withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM Treaty) and its deployment of the Aegis Combat System (both sea- and land-based) as part of the NATO missile defense system, was explained as being for the purposes of defending European allies from the threat of Iranian ballistic missiles. This argument held little water as the Iranians had neither the capability nor intent to launch such missiles.

    As was immediately clear to most independent analysts as well as to President Putin, the deployment of such offensive systems are only for the purposes of nullifying the Russian Federation’s nuclear-deterrence capability. Obama and Trump faithfully followed in the steps of George W. Bush in placing ABM systems on Russia’s borders, including in Romania and Poland.

    Following from Trump’s momentous decision to withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF Treaty), it is also likely that the New START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) will also be abandoned, creating more global insecurity with regard to nuclear proliferation.

    Moscow was forced to pull out all stops to develop new weapons that would restore the strategic balance, Putin revealing to the world in a speech in 2018 the introduction of hypersonic weapons and other technological breakthroughs that would serve to disabuse Washington of its first-strike fantasies.

    Even as Washington’s propaganda refuses to acknowledge the tectonic shifts on the global chessboard occasioned by these technological breakthroughs, sober military assessments acknowledge that the game has fundamentally changed.

    There is no defense against such Russian systems as the Avangard hypersonic glide vehicle, which serves to restore the deterrence doctrine of mutually assured destruction (MAD), which in turn serves to ensure that nuclear weapons can never be employed so long as this “balance of terror” exists. Moscow is thus able to ensure peace through strength by showing that it is capable of inflicting a devastating second strike with regard regard for Washington’s vaunted ABM systems.

    In addition to ensuring its nuclear second-strike capability, Russia has been forced to develop the most advanced ABM system in the world to fend off Washington’s aggression. This ABM system is integrated into a defensive network that includes the Pantsir, Tor, Buk, S-400 and shortly the devastating S-500 and A-235 missile systems. This combined system is designed to intercept ICBMs as well as any future U.S. hypersonic weapons

    The wars of aggression prosecuted by George W. Bush, Obama and Trump have only ended up leaving the U.S. in a position of nuclear inferiority vis-a-vis Russia and China. Moscow has obviously shared some of its technological innovations with its strategic partner, allowing Beijing to also have hypersonic weapons together with ABM systems like the Russian S-400.

    No JCPOA? Here Comes Nuclear Iran

    In addition to the continued economic and military pressure placed on Iran, one of the most immediate consequences of the U.S. withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA, better known as the Iran nuclear deal) has been Tehran being forced to examine all options. Although the country’s leaders and political figures have always claimed that they do not want to develop a nuclear weapon, stating that it is prohibited by Islamic law, I should think that their best course of action would be to follow Pyongyang’s example and acquire a nuclear deterrent to protect themselves from U.S. aggression.

    While this suggestion of mine may not correspond with the intentions of leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the protection North Korea enjoys from U.S. aggression as a result of its deterrence capacity may oblige the Iranian leadership to carefully consider the pros and cons of following suit, perhaps choosing to adopt the Israeli stance of nuclear ambiguity or nuclear opacity, where the possession of nuclear weapons is neither confirmed nor denied. While a world free of nuclear weapons would be ideal, their deterrence value cannot be denied, as North Korea’s experience attests.

    While Iran does not want war, any pursuit of a nuclear arsenal may guarantee a conflagration in the Middle East. But I have long maintained that the risk of a nuclear war (once nuclear weapons have been acquired) does not exist, with them having a stabilizing rather than destabilizing effect, particularly in a multipolar environment.

    Once again, Washington has ended up shooting itself in the foot by inadvertently encouraging one of its geopolitical opponents to behave in the opposite manner intended. Instead of stopping nuclear proliferation in the region, the U.S., by scuppering of the JCPOA, has only encouraged the prospect of nuclear proliferation.

    Trump’s short-sightedness in withdrawing from the JCPOA is reminiscent of George W. Bush’s withdrawal from the ABM Treaty. By triggering necessary responses from Moscow and Tehran, Washington’s actions have only ended up leaving it at a disadvantage in certain critical areas relative to its competitors.

    The death of Soleimani punctures the myth of the U.S. invincibility

    I wrote a couple of articles in the wake of General Soleimani’s death that examined the incident and then considered the profound ramifications of the event in the region.

    What seems evident is that Washington appears incapable of appreciating the consequences of its reckless actions. Killing Soleimani was bound to invite an Iranian response; and even if we assume that Trump was not looking for war (I explained why some months ago), it was obvious to any observer that there would be a response from Iran to the U.S.’s terrorist actions.

    The response came a few nights later where, for the first time since the Second World War, a U.S. military base was subjected to a rain of missiles (22 missiles each with a 700kg payload). Tehran thereby showed that it possessed the necessary technical, operational and strategic means to obliterate thousands of U.S. and allied personnel within the space of a few minutes if it so wished, with the U.S. would be powerless to stop it.

    U.S. Patriot air-defense systems yet again failed to do their job, reprising their failure to defend Saudi oil and gas facilities against a missile attack conducted by Houthis a few months ago.

    We thus have confirmation, within the space of a few months, of the inability of the U.S. to protect its troops or allies from Houthi, Hezbollah and Iranian missiles. Trump and his generals would have been reluctant to respond to the Iranian missile attack knowing that any Iranian response would bring about uncontrollable regional conflagration that would devastate U.S. bases as well as oil infrastructure and such cities of U.S. allies as Tel Aviv, Haifa and Dubai.

    After demonstrating to the world that U.S. allies in the region are defenseless against missile attacks from even the likes of the Houthis, Iran drove home the point by conducting surgical strikes on two U.S. bases that only highlights the disconnect between the perception of U.S. military invincibility and the reality that would come in the form of a multilayered missile conflict.

    Conclusion

    Washington’s diplomatic and military decisions in recent years have only brought about a world world that is more hostile to Washington and less inclined to accept its diktats, often being driven instead to acquire the military means to counter Washington’s bullying. Even as the U.S. remains the paramount military power, its ineptitude has resulted in Russia and China surpassing it in some critical areas, such that the U.S. has no chance of defending itself against a nuclear second strike, with even Iran having the means to successfully retaliate against the U.S. in the region.

    As I continue to say, Washington’s power largely rests on perception management helped by the make-believe world of Hollywood. The recent missile attacks by Houthis on Saudi Arabia’s oil facilities and the Iranian missile attack a few days ago on U.S. military bases in Iraq (none of which were intercepted) are like Toto drawing back the curtain to reveal Washington’s military vulnerability. No amount of entreaties by Washington to pay no attention to the man behind the curtain will help.

    The more aggressive the U.S. becomes, the more it reveals its tactical, operational and strategic limits, which in turn only serves to accelerate its loss of hegemony.

    If the U.S. could deliver a nuclear first strike without having to worry about a retaliatory second strike thanks to its ABM systems, then its quest for perpetual unipolarity could possibly be realistic. But Washington’s peer competitors have shown that they have the means to defend themselves against a nuclear first strike by being able to deliver an unstoppable second strike, thereby communicating that the doctrine of mutually assured destruction (MAD) is here to stay. With that, Washington’s efforts to maintain its status as uncontested global hegemon are futile.

    In a region vital to U.S. interests, Washington does not have the operational capacity to stand in the way of Syria’s liberation. When it has attempted to directly impose its will militarily, it has seen as many as 80% of its cruise missiles knocked down or deflected, once again highlighting the divergence between Washington’s Hollywood propaganda and the harsh military reality.

    The actions of George W. Bush, Obama and Trump have only served to inadvertently accelerate the world’s transition away from a unipolar world to a multipolar one. As Trump follows in the steps of his predecessors by being aggressive towards Iran, he only serves to weaken the U.S. global position and strengthen that of his opponents.


    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 01/21/2020 – 23:25

    Tags
    Politics
    War Conflict

  • Cross-Country Storm To Dump Snow And Rain From West To Plains, Midwest And Northeast This Weekend
    Cross-Country Storm To Dump Snow And Rain From West To Plains, Midwest And Northeast This Weekend

    The next big storm is expected to develop on the West Coast early this week with lower-elevation rain and mountain snow. The storm will then move across the West to the Plains, Midwest, and Northeast by the weekend, reported The Weather Channel. 

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    The storm will begin to develop in the West on Tuesday, dumping rain on lower-elevations and unleashing accumulating mountain snow in the Pacific Northwest, Northern California, and the Four Corners. 

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    Crossing the Central Plains and Midwest by Wednesday, the storm will bring snow, a wintery mix, and or rain across eastern Oklahoma and western Arkansas. Rain in the South is guaranteed.

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    The Central Plains, upper Mississippi Valley, and western Great Lakes could see accumulating snow on Thursday. 

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    The storm will track northeastward on Friday and into the weekend. Accumulating snow is expected through the upper and mid-Mississippi valleys to the northern and western Great Lakes. Mostly rain in the Southeast and a mix of wintery precipitation for Ohio Valley and the central Appalachians.

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    Mid-Atlantic and Northeast states could see snowfall in the interior while coastal regions get a wintery mix to rain. Snow or rain will continue into Sunday, and it’s still too early to predict snowfall totals or where the 32-degree line will reside.

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    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 01/21/2020 – 23:05

    Tags
    Weather

  • Life After Putin
    Life After Putin

    Authored by Dmitry Orlov via Club Orlov blog,

    Last week Vladimir Putin delivered his annual address before the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation, and since then I have received a flurry of emails and comments from people asking me to explain what he meant. I don’t want to make assumptions about the depth of your interest in Russian affairs, and so, to save you time, let me start by providing a very short executive summary:

    Putin will step down as president after his current term, which will end in 2024 unless an early election is held, but the system he has put in place will stay in place.

    Essentially, life after Putin will be more Putin under a different name. If that’s all you care about, you can stop reading now.

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    To delve deeper, we need to draw a distinction between Putin the man and the system of governance he has built over the past 20 years. There is always plenty to complain about, but overall it has been quite effective. During Putin’s period in power, Russia has solved the problems of separatism and domestic terrorism, reigned in the predatory oligarchy, paid off virtually all of its foreign debts including ones it inherited from the USSR, grew its economy by a factor of six (vs. China’s five and USA’s one), regained Crimea (which had been part of Russia since 1783), rebuilt its armed forces to a point where international security is no longer a major concern, and achieved an overall level of societal well-being that is unparalleled in all of Russian history.

    The system of governance he has built has worked well with him as the head of government, but it will require some adjustments in order to work well under future presidents, who may not be equally gifted. Recognizing this fact, on Wednesday Putin has launched a limited overhaul of the Russian Constitution. In addition to an entire raft of minor tweaks that will limit the powers of the President and give more powers to the Parliament, to provide for better checks and balances and a more democratically responsive system, there are a few proposed changes that stand out:

    • The word “consecutive” is going to be struck from Article 81.3: “The same person may not be elected President of the Russian Federation for more than two consecutive terms.” This wording created a loophole, which Putin duly exploited: after serving two terms, he sat out a term and then got elected for two more. This loophole will now be closed.

    • Article 14.4 is a rather curious one. It reads, in part: “If an international treaty or agreement of the Russian Federation imposes rules that are contrary to [Russian] law, the international rules shall be applied.” This creates a hole in Russian sovereignty which allows foreign bodies to overrule Russian law. This hole will now be closed.

    • Dual citizens and holders of foreign residency permits will now be barred from holding official positions within the Russian Federation. In addition, 25 years of Russian residency will be required of anyone running for President instead of the current 10. This may seem like a minor change, but it is causing Russia’s fifth-columnists and members of the liberal opposition to tear their hair out while gnashing their teeth because most of the current ones will be automatically disqualified from holding office while any future ones will be forced to choose between serving Russia and having a bug-out plan. More specifically, given their new outsider status, their Western masters will consider them useless and will no longer funnel funds to them or offer them free regime change training. This approach is sure to be more effective than the current, more labor-intensive one of playing whack-a-mole with foreign-financed NGOs and foreign agents attempting to infiltrate Russia’s government. Personally, I’ll miss having some of these miscreants around. They have provided quite a bit of entertainment, adding an element of stark raving lunacy to what is otherwise a rather stolid and detail-oriented political process.

    • The State Council, which until now has been an extraconstitutional advisory body, will now be written into the Constitution and endowed with certain constitutional prerogatives. Perhaps that is where Putin will move to once his current term as President expires, there to serve as an elder statesman and an arbiter between various levels and branches of government. The State Council could plug a major gap that currently exists between the federal and the regional levels. There are numerous problems that cannot be addressed effectively at the regional level but, given the vastness of the land, cannot be addressed effectively at the federal level either. It may also provide for a smoother transition to life after Putin, similar to what Kazakhstan has recently achieved, with Nursultan Nazarbayev stepping down as president and moving to the Security Council.

    • Other bits and pieces to be written into the Russian Constitution have to do with fleshing out the definition of the Russian Federation as a “social state.” Russia, as a sovereign entity, has a specific purpose: to serve and insure the welfare of its citizens, as already enshrined in Article 7: “1. The Russian Federation is a social state whose policy is aimed at creating conditions for a worthy life and the free development of the population. 2. The labor and health of population shall be protected, guaranteed minimum wages and salaries shall be established, state support ensured to the family, maternity, paternity and childhood, to disabled persons and the elderly, a system of social services developed, and state pensions, allowances and other social security guarantees shall be established.”

    So far so good, but a bit vague.

    Proposed changes will insure that incomes and pensions are such that everybody has decent living conditions. There are also proposed legislative changes to what’s called “maternal capital” to make having more than two children financially attractive. The demographic situation in Russia is not as dire as it was in the 1990s, and certainly a lot less dire than in Western Europe whose native populations are rapidly going extinct, but the fact remains that to achieve its stated goals Russia is going to need a lot more Russians. The Russian government has the money to spend on these initiatives, and getting the job done is largely a matter of lighting a fire under the federal and regional bureaucracies. Spelling out the social guarantees right in the Constitution is a good way to make that happen.

    Putin proposed that the constitutional changes be voted for in a referendum. Beyond the procedural nicety and the legitimizing effect of this exercise, it is sure to stimulate a lot more public interest and civic participation, making it more likely that the ever foot-dragging Russian bureaucrats (in the more remote regions especially) will be prevailed upon to act swiftly to enact the changes.

    This is all quite positive, yet, as you might have suspected, there is still something left for me to criticize.

    There are three elements which I believe are missing from the proposed constitutional changes:

    1. titular nation status for Russians,

    2. their right of return,

    3. and right of self-determination for long-term de facto independent regions.

    First, Russians are a nation without a homeland. If this sounds bizarre, that’s because it is. Within the Russian Constitution, there are just two uses of the word “Russian”: “Russian Federation” (which is defined as a “multinational state,” and “Russian language,” which is its official language alongside numerous others, but there is no mention of “Russian people.” Ethnic Russians make up roughly two-thirds of the population, yet no part of the Russian Federation, nor the entirety of it, is properly theirs.

    Compare that to the Jews: not only do they have the State of Israel, which is defined as a “Jewish state,” but they also have the Jewish Autonomous Region within the Russian Federation to return to if the Israeli experiment doesn’t work out (again). Birobidzhan (the capital of the Jewish Autonomous Region) is a whole lot nicer than Babylon, and its ruler, Alexander Levintal, an economics professor and a native son, is a whole lot nicer than King Nebuchadnezzar was.

    Part of this dismissive attitude toward Russians is a legacy of the Russian Revolution. The communist revolutionaries, Lenin and Trotsky especially, saw the Russian people as a pile of kindling to throw under the bonfire of world revolution, were biased in favor of various other ethnic groups and battled against “Russian chauvinism.” Stalin swiftly fell off the world revolution bandwagon, but then Bolshevist Russophobia raised its ugly head again under Khrushchev and Brezhnev. Since a lot of the Russian leadership from the 1990s, when the current constitution was drafted, got their start in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, this same attitude prevailed.

    Another aspect that influenced the decision to exclude all mention of Russians from the Russian Constitution has to do with well-founded fear of Russian ethnic nationalism. Nationalism is indeed an ugly and fantastically destructive phenomenon, as evidenced by the extreme nationalistic chauvinism currently on display in a number of former East Block countries, including the Ukraine, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland. The Ukraine, with its Nazi parades, is beyond horrible, but even Belarus, whose population is pretty much just plain Russian, has its lunatic fringe of nationalist extremists doing their best to muddy the waters. Within the Russian Federation there was once a nationalist movement, but it was quashed. Last I checked, some of its more radicalized members were still serving out long prison sentences for extremist activities.

    With the communist internationalist ideology dead as a doornail, and the nationalist threat within Russia now very much under control, it is perhaps time to address the bizarre problem of Russians being a nation without a homeland—by writing the Russians as the titular nation of the entire Russian Federation into the Russian Constitution. Some mention of Russian culture would be helpful as well. Russian is recognized as the common, official language, but without being informed by Russian culture, developed over a thousand years, it is bound to become just a bunch of Cyrillic characters, and the resulting level of common discourse is going to be rather low.

    With that done, the next natural step is to recognize, directly within the Russian Constitution, the right of return, which is a principle recognized in international law and enshrined in international conventions. Within Russian law it is currently provided for in an ad hoc manner by a combination of administrative laws and direct presidential orders—for instance, granting special privileges to Russians within the Ukraine or Belarus while denying those same rights to Russians living elsewhere. Sure enough, half a million people from these two countries have received Russian passports since these privileges were enacted.

    This ad hoc approach is warranted given the dire situation of Russians in Eastern Ukraine, but in general the right of return should be granted based on who people are, not on where they happen to reside. Granting this right to the entirety of the huge Russian diaspora, which was partly created when the USSR broke up, stranding many Russians on the wrong side of some entirely artificial Soviet administrative boundary that instantly became an international border, and partly as a result of a huge outflow of emigrants during the economically and socially disastrous 1990s, would help solve Russia’s demographic deficit.

    The last, and perhaps the most controversial suggestion I would like to make is to consider defining lawful, constitutional procedures for political self-determination, which is likewise an internationally recognized legal principle. The borders of the Russian Federation are, in some cases, the end product of a series of errors made during the Soviet era. During the post-Soviet era some of these have been remedied, after a fashion, and the regions in question have become de facto independent: Transnistria split off from Moldova and has been de facto independent for 28 years; Abkhazia from Georgia for 26 years; South Ossetia from Georgia for 12; Donetsk and Lugansk from the Ukraine for six. In many ways they have already been functioning as parts of the Russian Federation. But there is no constitutional mechanism for resolving this situation de jure by allowing them to determine their status in accordance with international law and to petition the Russian Federation for incorporation.

    When it comes to questions of self-determination, double standards abound. When Kosovo seceded from Serbia, no specific democratic procedures were followed, yet no questions were asked or even allowed. But when Crimea voted overwhelmingly to secede from the Ukraine and rejoin Russia, this was considered to be illegal and resulted in international sanctions that are in place to this day. Given the extreme level of rancor on this issue internationally, this may be an extreme stretch goal, but at some point a solution will have to be arrived at for adjudicating the status of territories that have been de facto independent for decades, and for their subsequent entirely voluntary inclusion in the Russian Federation.


    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 01/21/2020 – 22:45

  • China Is Already Blaming A Slowdown In 2020 On The Coronavirus Epidemic
    China Is Already Blaming A Slowdown In 2020 On The Coronavirus Epidemic

    So much can change in just 24 hours.

    It was just yesterday that China’s top twitter troll and Beijing propaganda voice to the west, Global Time Editor in Chief Hu Xijin was downplaying the risk from the coronavirus outbreak, comparing it to the SARS epidemic in 2003, and saying that “during SARS epidemic, even many medical staff contracted virus and died of it. It doesn’t look the same this time.”

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    Oops, because just a few hours later, we got confirmation that at least 15 medical staff had in fact contracted the virus which now appears to be spreading human-to-human, as six people have died among 291 confirmed cases in China, eliminating any attempts to further downplay the significance of the coronavirus epidemic which has reportedly infected hundreds of people across China.

    So in a dramatic 180-degree reversal, the same twitter troll now had an entirely different message to the word: not only is “the epidemic expanding” and “concerns are mounting”, but more importantly, “It is inevitable that people will cut their trips during Spring Festival and holiday consumption will be hit.“

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    So what happened? It appears Beijing decided to not let a perfectly good crisis go to waste, and just as “trade war” was used as a 2019 scapegoat on which to blame the slowdown in the economy, an economy which is rapidly slowing down for vastly different reasons, it will now blame the coronavirus epidemic on the ongoing slowdown of the Chinese economy.

    The reason reason for the slowdown? China’s ghastly debt load of over 300% of GDP…

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    … while in turn makes it impossible for the country to inject substantial new debt into the economy to kickstart a new, and much-needed reflationary episode.

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    And since every attempt at deleveraging in the past decade has proven catastrophic, expect many more Chinese “exogenous” events which will be blamed for the country’s continued GDP shrinkage from 7% to 6% and now to a 5-handle.

     


    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 01/21/2020 – 22:25

  • Chemical Weapons Inspector Gives Rare Testimony On Douma Before UN Security Council
    Chemical Weapons Inspector Gives Rare Testimony On Douma Before UN Security Council

    Authored by Dave DeCamp via The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity,

    The UN Security Council met in New York on Monday to discuss the investigation by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) into an alleged chemical attack that was said to have taken place in April 2018 in Douma, Syria. The alleged attack was blamed on the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, and the US, UK, and France responded with an airstrike against Syrian government targets.

    A former OPCW employee spoke to the UN Security Council and accused OPCW management of ignoring and suppressing findings of the investigative team that was deployed to Douma.

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    Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons engineer and inspector Ian Henderson.

    The OPCW released their final report on the Douma attack in March 2019, the report concluded that a chlorine chemical attack likely occurred. Two cylinders were found at two separate locations in Douma that were said to be the source of the chlorine gas. The idea that these cylinders were dropped from an aircraft is central to the allegation that the Syrian government was responsible.

    An unreleased OPCW engineering assessment was leaked to the Working Group on Syria, Propaganda and Media and published in May 2019. The report was prepared by Ian Henderson, a long-time OPCW employee who was tasked with analyzing the cylinders. Henderson’s assessment concluded, “observations at the scene of the two locations, together with subsequent analysis, suggest that there is a higher probability that both cylinders were manually placed at those two locations rather than being delivered from aircraft.” Henderson’s findings were excluded from the final OPCW report.

    Since November 2019, WikiLeaks has released multiple OPCW documents and internal emails that not only support Henderson’s claims but also deal with discrepancies in levels of chlorine found in the area of the alleged attack. Another OPCW employee that goes by the pseudonym “Alex” spoke with journalist Jonathan Steele more about the traces of chlorine. Other leaks address inconsistencies between the victims observed symptoms and a chlorine gas attack.

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    Ian Henderson addressed the UN Security Council by video on Monday. Henderson presented himself as a non-political professional who is concerned with the integrity of the organization he worked with for many years.

    Henderson described himself as a “former OPCW inspection team leader who served for about 12 years.” Henderson said he was invited by the Chinese Minister Counselor to the UN to attend the Security Council meeting, but due to “unforeseen circumstances” with Visa waiver status, he was unable to attend. Henderson provided the council with a written statement, along with his video statement.

    Henderson said, “I hold the OPCW in the highest regard, as well as the professionalism of the staff members that work there, the organization is not broken I must stress that. However, the concern I have does relate to some specific management practices in certain sensitive missions. The concern of course relates to the FFM investigation into the alleged chemical attack on the 7th of April in Douma, Syria.”

    Henderson explained that there were two teams deployed to investigate the alleged attack, “One team, which I joined shortly after the start of field deployments, was to Douma in Syria, the other team deployed to Country X.” WikiLeaks, and others, have speculated that “Country X” is Turkey, since OPCW investigators were deployed there to interview alleged witnesses.

    Most of the information in Henderson’s statement has been revealed in the documents released by WikiLeaks over the past few months. One of the main gripes Henderson had was that the team only deployed to “Country X” had the most say in the final report, while the team deployed to Douma was largely ignored.

    Henderson said, “The Findings in the FFM (Fact Finding Mission) report were contradictory, were a complete turnaround with what the team had understood collectively, during and after the Douma deployments.”

    The OPCW published their interim report on the investigation in July 2018. WikiLeaks released the original version of the interim report last month, which drew a vastly different conclusion than the one the OPCW decided to publish. Henderson said, “By the time of the release of the interim report in July 2018, we had serious misgivings that a chemical attack had occurred.”

    Henderson went on, “The (final FFM) report did not make clear what new findings facts, information, data, or analysis in the fields of witness testimony, toxicology studies, chemical analysis, engineering and/or ballistic studies had resulted in a complete turnaround in the situation from what was understood by the majority of the team, and the entire Douma team in July 2018.”

    “In my case, I had followed up with a further six months of engineering and ballistics studies into the cylinders. The results of which had provided further support for the view that there had not been a chemical attack. This needs to be properly resolved through the wringers of science and engineering. In my situation, it’s not a political debate.”

    Henderson added a closing comment and said he led a “highly intrusive” investigation into the Barzah Syrian Scientific Research Center (SSRC), a laboratory outside of Damascus that was suspected of producing chemical weapons. The Barzah SSRC was the target of the coalition airstrike in April 2018 against the Syrian government in retaliation for the alleged Douma attack. Henderson said he wrote two reports on the SSRC before the attack and one report after. But Henderson said that “is another story all together,” and went on to end his video statement.

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    After Henderson’s comments were aired to the Security Council, the representative for the Russian Federation mentioned that they invited the OPCW Director-General, and other OPCW officials to attend the meeting, but they chose not to participate.

    Much of the blame for the lack of pressure on OPCW management after all these leaks, lies on the media outlets that refuse to report on it. Bellingcat – the investigative firm that receives grants from the US government-funded National Endowment for Democracy – bears most of the blame, since many mainstream outlets parrot what they say on Syria. Just a few days before this Security Council meeting, Bellingcat published a smear job on Ian Henderson.

    As of the writing of this story, the only major news outlets that covered this Security Council meeting are RT and Sputnik, so of course, it will be dismissed by many as Russian propaganda. Eliot Higgins, the founder of Bellingcat, even accused Henderson of appearing at the UN on “behalf of the Russians.” But through his work, his words, and his modesty, Henderson proves to be a sincere and honest professional who is concerned about a supposedly neutral international body being used to promote a false narrative.


    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 01/21/2020 – 22:05

    Tags
    Politics

  • Netanyahu Rival Benny Gantz Calls For Annexation Of Jordan Valley Ahead Of Election
    Netanyahu Rival Benny Gantz Calls For Annexation Of Jordan Valley Ahead Of Election

    Candidates are trying to woo the Israeli right ahead of the country’s upcoming March 2 legislative elctions for the 23rd Knesset — the third round in less than a year — after in prior April and September 2019 elections parties continually failed to form the next government.  

    Toward that end Blue and White coalition chairman Benny Gantz evoked controversy Tuesday with a shock declaration that he’ll annex the Jordan Valley if he becomes prime minister in the next election. The centrist lawmaker did this while on tour of the region which lies at the eastern edge of the occupied West Bank and which makes up some 20% of the Palestinian territory. 

    Gantz called it “an inseparable part of the State of Israel” and the Jewish state’s “eastern defensive wall in any future scenario.” But right wing politicians, especially his top rival Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu scoffed, saying everyone sees through what is essentially a desperate “bluff” to peel off more support from across the aisle in what’s coalesced on each side into a stalemated standoff. 

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    Blue and White chairman Benny Gantz in prior visit to Jordan Valley settlement in the West Bank, AFP via Getty. 

    Gantz vowed: “After the elections, we will work to apply [Israeli] sovereignty on the Jordan Valley, [and] we will do this in a nationally agreed upon manner and in coordination with the international community.”

    And on the left and within the political alliance of the main Arab-majority parties, the declaration was slammed as irresponsible and destructive to democracy. The Arab unity group, Joint List, called it “a pathetic attempt to gather a few votes on the right,” and noted that any attempt of Israel to annex the Jordan Valley would “destroy any chance democracy and peace.”

    Netanyahu pounced in an effort to either call the bluff or pressure his rival to move immediately on the controversial initiative, urging Gantz to right away implement the annexation through the Knesset. 

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    “Benny, I expect your answer by this evening, unless [Joint List MK] Ahmad Tibi vetoes you,” said Netanyahu. Gantz hit back on Twitter by referencing the embattled prime minister’s recent indictment and looming legal battle: “first let us discuss [your] immunity, later we will manage claiming sovereignty [in the Jordan valley],” he wrote.

    Despite this latest declaration of desiring to annex what the international community recognizes as 20% of Palestinian West Bank territory, in reality such a move would prove explosive both on the ground among Palestinians and surrounding Arab states, and within international politics. 

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    Map via Deutsche Welle 

    On this note, America’s potentially weighing in on these issues could have huge impact on the March elections. Multiple recent media reports have suggested the US administration is set to release the much-hyped ‘Trump Mideast peace plan’ just ahead of the key election.

    The Blue and White coalition has recently said such a move would constitute an “interference” in the election, especially given it’s expected to given Netanyahu a major boost, considering it’s likely to line up with his vision and he can chalk it as a ‘political win’. 


    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 01/21/2020 – 21:45

    Tags
    Politics

  • "Sit This One Out": FBI Slammed for Social Media Shoutout To MLK
    “Sit This One Out”: FBI Slammed for Social Media Shoutout To MLK

    Authored by Jessica Corbett via CommonDreams.org,

    After the FBI took to Twitter Monday with a message that allegedly aimed to honor “the life and work” of Martin Luther King Jr., a chorus of critics promptly urged the bureau to “sit this one out,” pointing to its history of spying on King and trying to convince the civil rights leader to kill himself.

    Each year on the national holiday dedicated to King, progressives criticize and work to counter the whitewashed public narrative of a man who, particularly in the years leading up to his April 1968 assassination, passionately condemned the “evils” of capitalism, militarism, and racism.

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    A mugshot of Martin Luther King Jr. was taken following his 1963 arrest in Birmingham, Alabama. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

    The FBI, during both the Obama and Trump administrations, has provoked a wave of criticism for posting shoutouts to King on social media, given the bureau’s past treatment of him. Monday was no different.

    Writer and radio host Richard “RJ” Eskow — who detailed King’s radical vision and activism in a piece for the People’s Action blog Monday — shared the FBI’s 2020 tweet dedicated to MLK along with his own interpretation.

    “FBI, translated: Of all the people we have wiretapped, blackmailed, and tried to drive to their deaths through suicide, there are none we think more highly of than Dr. King,” Eskow tweeted.

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    Some critics expressed anger and disbelief. Rewire.News senior legal analyst Imani Gandy wrote in response to the FBI, “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

    Journalist David Corn posed “a sincere question,” asking: “Has the FBI ever apologized to King’s family for wiretapping King, blackmailing him, and trying to get him to commit suicide?”

    Others posted an unsigned letter from 1964 that the FBI, then under the direction of J. Edgar Hoover, sent to King in an attempt to use evidence of his extramarital affairs to compel him to kill himself.

    The unredacted letter was published by Yale University American history professor Beverly Gage in the New York Times in 2014.

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    As Vox reported in 2018:

    According to Enemies, journalist Tim Weiner’s history of the FBI, [the bureau’s domestic intelligence chief William Sullivan] “had a package of the King sex tapes prepared by the FBI’s lab technicians,” and sent it along with this letter to King’s home. The package was opened by King’s wife.

    ACLU social media manager Emily Patterson declared on Twitter that “the FBI social media manager continues to prove we really, really need to do a better job of teaching kids history in this country.”

    Acknowledging the bureau’s track record of posting about MLK, Patterson added, “Do y’all think there’s anyone over at FBI marketing who at least *tries* to get them not to do this annually?”

    The official ACLU account warned that “if we let the government whitewash history, we risk letting abuses repeat themselves.”

    The civil liberties group linked to a piece that Kade Crockford, director of the Technology for Liberty Program at the ACLU of Massachusetts, published in Rolling Stone on MLK Day last year—detailing “Hoover’s obsession with King,” which Crockford concluded “bordered on the fanatical,” and the consequences of that obsession, including the letter.

    Crawford also noted that “the FBI’s surveillance of black Americans isn’t just history. [In 2018], we learned the FBI has been spying on black activists, labeling them ‘Black Identity Extremists.’ The feds also use powers obtained through national security laws like the Patriot Act to target people in the racially biased drug war.”

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    “More disturbing: The FBI that spied on King and today classifies Black civil rights activists as ‘extremists,'” Crockford continued, “is now partnering with Big Tech to amass unprecedented surveillance powers that history has taught us will be used to target communities of color, religious minorities, dissidents, and immigrants.”

    FBI director Christopher Wray testified before Congress in July 2019 that the bureau has stopped using the term “black identity extremism.” However, some groups and individuals on Monday shared critiques of the FBI’s current practices alongside denunciations of the bureau’s past behavior.

    The London-based advocacy group CAGE, which works to empower communities impacted by the War on Terror, tweeted Monday that the FBI still tries “to suppress dissent” and uses “dirty tactics that would make Edgar Hoover proud. But [is] happy now to co-opt MLK to try to cover up the above.”

    CAGE also shared the FBI’s letter to King and, like many other critics, referenced COINTELPRO, the domestic counterintelligence program under which the FBI spied on King and many other activists and organizations, including the Black Panthers and protesters of the Vietnam War.


    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 01/21/2020 – 21:25

    Tags
    Politics

  • Lawyers Claim Some Weinstein Accusers "Bragged About Having Sex With Him"
    Lawyers Claim Some Weinstein Accusers “Bragged About Having Sex With Him”

    President Trump’s impeachment isn’t the only major trial that Americans will be following in January.

    Now that the jury has been picked (sadly, Gigi Hadid didn’t make the cut, much to the disappointment of the New York Post) and the defense has succeeded in limiting the number of young, white women on the jury to just 2, it’s time for what some are hyping as the next trial of the century.

    Harvey Weinstein, the Hollywood studio head and kingmaker whose fall from grace inspired the #MeToo movement, is facing a criminal trial in Manhattan on charges of rape and assault. I convicted, it’s extremely likely that the 67-year-old Weinstein will be sentenced to life in prison, while civil suits and penalties eat away whatever is left of his fortune.

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    With opening statements about to begin next week, Weinstein’s legal team has started laying out its defense in the press.

    According to ABC News, Weinstein’s team is pushing to include a trove of “intimate email correspondence” between the former mogul and his accusers – emails that they say would paint a wildly different picture of their relationships with the defendant.

    Some of the emails even show that some of the very same women accusing Weinstein of rape once bragged to friends about being in a sexual relationship with the mogul. Given Weinstein’s stature in the industry, many of his accusers are women who wanted or needed a favor from him, even if it was merely a small role in one of his films.

    Though Weinstein’s reputation has been thoroughly sullied in a way that makes it impossible to portray him as a victim (except inside his own head), the lawyers could argue that this evidence weakens the witnesses’ credibility, suggesting that they might have reluctantly consented to Weinstein’s advances.

    Conveniently, Weinstein’s health has apparently deteriorated over the last two years – or at least that’s what his lawyers want the public to believe.

    The trial is moving ahead in Manhattan as Weinstein’s lawyers have so far failed in their push to change the venue outside of New York City, where hatred for Weinstein is likely at its highest. 

    Considering the number of celebrities and the circus like atmosphere that engulfs everything in NYC, Weinstein’s lawyers argued that he would never received a fair trial. But the judge rejected those claims.

    In December, he underwent a bilateral laminectomy, a back surgery that was allegedly vital to repair damage from a one-car crash. Weinstein said he swerved off the road trying to avoid a deer. That must have been some deer.


    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 01/21/2020 – 21:05

    Tags
    Law Crime

  • Migrants Waiting For Dems To Win Election Because "It Would Make Things Easier To Get In"
    Migrants Waiting For Dems To Win Election Because “It Would Make Things Easier To Get In”

    Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,

    Migrants in central America say they are waiting for President Trump to be voted out of office and for Democrats to reopen the borders so they can cross illegally into the US without the fear that authorities will ‘throw them back.’

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    The Center for Immigration Studies reports that many migrants are sitting in wait in Mexico, praying for a Trump defeat.

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    “I’ll wait for that because it would make things easier to get in.” Honduran Katherine Cabrera told researchers, adding “I want Trump out!”

    Another told CIS that many are not attempting to illegally gain entry to the country “until Trump leaves,” because the prevailing expectation is that “right now, the Americans will throw you back” to Mexico.

    “A lot of people in El Salvador believe he (Trump) is the reason all this is happening, that he is selfish and cruel and doing everything he can to make us suffer,” another migrant commented, adding “But once Trump is defeated and the Democrats take over, things are going to get better.”

    Other groups of migrants are attempting to cross in greater numbers, believing that it will give them a better chance of evading capture:

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    On Monday, Thousands of migrants stormed a bridge over the Suchiate River from Guatemala to Mexico, attempting and failing to move further north.

    The scenes were chaotic with Mexican National Guard troops confronting the migrants:

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    The CIS reports that apprehensions of illegal crossers are down from about 144,000 last May to 40,000 in December, owing to new reinforcements on the US side of the border, and the asylum agreement made by the US government with Mexican authorities that allows migrants to wait in Mexico.

    Further reports suggest that President Trump wants to divert billions in funding to the border wall:

    Meanwhile, Democratic Presidential candidate Joe Biden, the “moderate” opposition to Trump, declared Monday that he will seek to end all illegal immigration detention “across the board”.

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    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 01/21/2020 – 20:45

    Tags
    Politics
    Social Issues

  • In Response To "Completely False" NHTSA Unintended Acceleration Petition, Tesla Blames Short Sellers
    In Response To “Completely False” NHTSA Unintended Acceleration Petition, Tesla Blames Short Sellers

    Just days ago we reported that the NHTSA was evaluating a petition claiming that 500,000 Tesla vehicles are subject to “unintended acceleration” incidents. In response to the petition, the NHTSA said it was going to be considering an investigation, but there has been no final word on any action (or lack thereof) yet.

    But over the weekend, we were finally treated to Tesla’s perfunctory and predictable “official” response to the news, which has of course been to blame short sellers.

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    In a blog post posted on Monday titled “There is no ‘unintended acceleration’ in Tesla vehicles“, Tesla claims that the problem is just a figment of everyone’s imagination and that evil short sellers are to blame.

    “This petition is completely false and was brought by a Tesla short-seller,” the post says. “We investigate every single incident where the driver alleges to us that their vehicle accelerated contrary to their input, and in every case where we had the vehicle’s data, we confirmed that the car operated as designed. In other words, the car accelerates if, and only if, the driver told it to do so, and it slows or stops when the driver applies the brake.”

    Well that makes us feel better…

    The company also claims that Autopilot sensors (because they’ve worked so well) and company owned and managed data about its vehicles support its defense.

    Unique to Tesla, we also use the Autopilot sensor suite to help distinguish potential pedal misapplications and cut torque to mitigate or prevent accidents when we’re confident the driver’s input was unintentional. Each system is independent and records data, so we can examine exactly what happened.

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    But then, despite trying to place the blame on shorts, Tesla seems to backhandedly admit that there are customer complaints about the very same issue.

    The blog post concludes: “We are transparent with NHTSA, and routinely review customer complaints of unintended acceleration with them. Over the past several years, we discussed with NHTSA the majority of the complaints alleged in the petition. In every case we reviewed with them, the data proved the vehicle functioned properly.”

    Hopefully, the next body we hear from with regard to this petition is the NHTSA.

    Although, judging by Tesla’s past success in swiping away extremely serious issues and sweeping them under the rug of blaming short sellers without addressing key issues, we’re not optimistic about the outcome. 

    The NHTSA petition news came just days after we reported that the NTSB would be investigating a fatal Tesla Model X crash in February. 


    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 01/21/2020 – 20:25

  • Ron Paul: How Expansive Is FBI Spying?
    Ron Paul: How Expansive Is FBI Spying?

    Authored by Ron Paul via The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity,

    Cato Institute Research Fellow Patrick Eddington recently filed several Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to find out if the Federal Bureau of Investigation ever conducted surveillance of several organizations dealing with government policy, including my Campaign for Liberty. Based on the FBI’s response, Campaign for Liberty and other organizations, including the Cato institute and the Reason Foundation, may have been subjected to FBI surveillance or other data collection.

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    I say “may have been” because the FBI gave Mr. Eddington a “Glomar response” to his FOIA requests pertaining to these organizations. A Glomar response is where an agency says it can “neither confirm nor deny” involvement in a particular activity. Glomar was a salvage ship the Central Intelligence Agency used to recover a sunken Soviet submarine in the 1970s. In response to a FOIA request by Rolling Stone magazine, the CIA claimed that just confirming or denying the Glomar’s involvement in the salvage operation would somehow damage national security. A federal court agreed with the agency, giving federal bureaucrats, and even local police departments, a new way to avoid giving direct answers.

    The Glomar response means these organizations may have been, and may still be, subjected to federal surveillance. As Mr. Eddington told Reason magazine, “We know for a fact that Glomar invocations have been used to conceal actual, ongoing activities, and we also know that they’re not passing out Glomars like candy.”

    Protecting the right of individuals to join together in groups to influence government policy is at the very heart of the First Amendment. Therefore, the FBI subjecting such groups to surveillance can violate the constitutional rights of everyone involved with the groups.

    The FBI has a long history of targeting Americans whose political beliefs and activities threaten the FBI’s power or the power of influential politicians. The then-named Bureau of Investigation participated in the crackdown on people suspected of being communists in the post-World War I “Red Scare.” The anti-communist crackdown was headed by a young agent named J. Edgar Hoover who went on to become FBI director, a position he held until his death. Hoover kept and expanded his power by using the FBI to collect blackmail material on people including politicians.

    In the 1930s and 1940s, the FBI spied on supporters of the America First movement, including several Congress members. Two of the most famous examples of FBI targeting individuals based on their political activities are the harassment of Martin Luther King Jr. and the COINTELPRO program. COINTELPRO was an organized effort to spy on and actively disrupt “subversive” organizations, including antiwar groups.

    COINTELPRO officially ended in the 1970s. However, the FBI still targets individuals and organizations it considers “subversive,” including antiwar groups and citizen militias.

    Congress must hold hearings to determine if the FBI is currently using unconstitutional methods to “monitor” any organizations based on their beliefs. Congress must then take whatever steps necessary to ensure that no Americans are ever again targeted for surveillance because of their political beliefs and activities.


    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 01/21/2020 – 20:05

    Tags
    Politics
    War Conflict

  • US Informs Haftar: Resume Libya's Blocked Oil Exports "Immediately"
    US Informs Haftar: Resume Libya’s Blocked Oil Exports “Immediately”

    Days after Benghazi-based General Khalifa Haftar and his rebel LNA forces blocked all oil under their control from leaving Libyan ports (the LNA currently controls territory which includes some 90% of the nation’s oil facilities), the United States has demanded the immediate resumption of oil exports.

    “The suspension of National Oil Corporation (NOC) operations risks exacerbating the humanitarian emergency in Libya and inflicting further needless suffering on the Libyan people,” the US embassy in Tripoli said in a Twitter statement Tuesday.

    “NOC operations should resume immediately,” it said. Haftar had previously issued the order, which immediately resulted in condemnations from some Western capitals, on Saturday just ahead of the Berlin peace conference on Libya. The action blocked several key export terminals, notably Brega, Ras Lanuf and Al-Sidra ports.

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    Oil terminal file image, via Al Jazeera.

    Bloomberg reported Saturday that pro-Haftar foces “blocked oil exports at ports under his control, slashing output by more than half and posing a potential setback for an international conference on Sunday that aims to broker an end to a civil war in the OPEC nation.”

    The move is seen as aimed at protesting Turkey’s increased military intervention in the conflict which has raged for much of the past two years. Turkey has recently sent both national troops and Syrian ‘rebel’ mercenaries to defend the Tripoli Government of National Accord (GNA). Haftar has in turn declared any Turkish vessel or aircraft a target to be destroyed. 

    The oil stoppage also has military implications on the ground, given the GNA’s national army relies on the country’s oil revenue to purchase weapons via Tripoli’s central bank.

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    Libya’s Tripoli-based National Oil Company said Monday: “The storage capacity of these ports is limited and the NOC will be obliged to put a complete halt to crude production once maximum capacity has been reached.” 

    S&P Global Platts has warned the country’s oil sector could enter a “tailspin”: 

    Libya’s oil sector could go into a tailspin with two-thirds of its total crude oil production of around 1.20 million b/d at risk after its key oil ports were suspended Saturday by the Libyan National Army…

    Haftar has vowed repeatedly to not give up his military offensive until he has control of the Libyan capital, despite fighting for months staying at a relative stalemate, and despite multiple failed ceasefire efforts. His dramatic move to cut off the nation’s vital oil lifeline was widely interpreted additionally as an effort toward gaining “veto” leverage over any ‘ceasefire deal’ attempt in Berlin at the start of this week.

    The LNA’s response to the US urging that oil exports must resume “immediately” will be interesting. Although for years Washington and the State Department has “officially” recognized the UN-backed government in Tripoli, President Trump starting last Spring verbalized his support for Gen. Haftar, who Trump said has “secured the oil” and is a stabilizing force. 

    Oil exports make up over 90% of Libya’s national revenue and as the below 2019 Stratfor map demonstrates, Haftar has long held the majority of the nation’s oil fields.

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    It should also be noted that Haftar has been described by many analysts as “the CIA’s man in Libya” — given he spent a couple decades living in exile a mere few minutes from CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia during Gaddafi’s rule.

    An April 2019 White House statement which described a phone call between Haftar and Trump said: the president “recognized Field Marshal Haftar’s significant role in fighting terrorism and securing Libya’s oil resources, and the two discussed a shared vision for Libya’s transition to a stable, democratic political system.”


    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 01/21/2020 – 19:45

    Tags
    Politics
    Business Finance
    War Conflict

  • Chinese Officials Warn Of "Virus Mutation Spreading" – 440 Cases Confirmed, 9 Dead
    Chinese Officials Warn Of “Virus Mutation Spreading” – 440 Cases Confirmed, 9 Dead

    Update (2130ET): North Korea has temporarily closed its borders to foreign tourists, two major operators of tours to the isolated country said, in an apparent effort to seal itself off from a new virus causing global health worries.

    *  *  *

    Update (2115ET): Chinese officials have just held a press conference that was anything but the usual CDC “everything’s ok” statement. The particularly ominous warning that the virus is mutating and spreading is perhaps due to the poor handling of the SARS breakout in 2002/3 which was marked by cover-ups and official reluctance to share information.

    Li Bin, vice head of China’s National Health Commission, confirmed there are 440 confirmed coronavirus cases in this new outbreak and there have been 9 deaths. Some 1,394 patients are under medical observation.

    Officials also confirmed Wuhan airport will have screening equipment (and Wuhan citizens have been asked to limit travel) and a nationwide monitoring system is being put in place (one wonders if the social credit score will go down if a citizen contracts the deadly disease).

    Finally, the officials said that they will disclose information in a timely and public way and are doing their best to curb the spread of the disease.

    And all of this is happening as hundreds of millions prepare to travel for the New Year’s celebrations.

    “A wave of panic has struck,” said Zhuang Jiapeng, a fund manager at Shenzhen JM Capital Co. “People may feel the urge to bolt after northbound saw its largest selling in months — foreign buying has been perceived as something of a safety valve. With the virus spreading, there may be a real impact on consumption during the holidays.”

    Long facemasks; Short rats (2020 is year of the rat).

    *  *  *

    Update (1920ET): Just like we saw during past outbreaks of disease in China, a panicked population has bought up face-masks at such a frantic rate that several of their unscrupulous countrymen have resorted to gouging.

    American brand 3M, a popular manufacturer of facemasks in China, has already sold out on its official online stores on e-commerce platforms Taobao and JD.com .

    Meanwhile, guards at the Wuhan airport pointed electronic thermometers at travelers, with plans to segregate anybody showing a fever, an early symptom of the virus.

    Several unscrupulous sellers who bought up masks en bulk are now managing to sell them for more than 10 times their original price. Some retailers were selling the masks for as much as 40 yuan ($7), a more than 10-fold mark-up. Users of Weibo, a Chinese social network similar to Twitter, warned anybody planning to travel to instead consider staying home, and repeatedly washing their hands.

    According to certain sites that track prices of Chinese goods, the masks typically sell for 53 cents.

    At one pharmacy in Shanghai, a shopkeeper named Liu Zhuzhen said more than 100 people had bought masks by noon on Tuesday. They sold out again after a re-stocking.

    * * *

    Update (1600ET): Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Zhejiang, Henan, Chongqing, Hong Kong, Bangkok, Seoul, Tokyo, Brisbane, Taipei – and now Washington State.

    The viral pneumonia-like lung illness first discovered late last year in Wuhan, a mid-sized Chinese city in the center of the country, has Beijing’s leadership – who are already grappling with slowing economic growth and continuing trade pressure from the US – very much on edge.

    It’s clear now that Beijing’s initial response to reports of a new SARS-like virus was to dissemble. After initially insisting that there was no evidence that the virus could be spread by humans, health officials have now admitted that they were “wrong”, and that human-to-human transmission is possible, meaning that there’s no telling yet just how contagious this thing really is.

    It’s already spread rapidly: In just a few weeks, it’s gone from a few isolated cases in Wuhan to nearly 300 confirmed cases, not just in Greater China, but also across the Asia-Pacific region, and now in the US. The fact that the CDC has already identified the first case in Washington State suggests that this is an aggressive pathogen, and health officials are duly concerned.

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    It has already confounded expectations. The fact that 139 cases – roughly half the total number reported – were only just identified over the weekend is especially unnerving, because now infected hosts have had time to scatter back to wherever they’re from, potentially spreading the virus across the planet.

    According to Bloomberg, the US case has been revealed to be a man in his 30s who returned to the US last week, but not before visiting a public market in Wuhan…

    The sudden spike in cases has prompted airports in the US, Australia and elsewhere to tighte illnesses has prompted tightened borders and a rapid attempt to trace contacts of those who have become ill.

    On Wednesday, the World Health Organization will decide whether this crisis qualifies as a public health emergency of international concern, a label signifying only the most complex pathologies with the potential to cross borders. The WHO could recommend that travel be restricted, or that global governments take other drastic measures.

    With global health officials on high alert, local authorities in Wuhan have announced that the city has 800 hospital beds ready in three separate designated care hospitals, and it’s ready to have 1,200 prepared at short notice, according to local media reports.

    With the Chinese New Year travel season about to begin, many fear that millions of Chinese traveling abroad or internally for vacation will help the virus spread at an exponential rate. Chinese health officials have played down the possibility of this. But they also say they don’t want to underestimate it. After all, the last major outbreak, SARS in 2003, killed 800 people.

    * * *

    Update (1335ET): The CDC has confirmed that a traveler from China has been diagnosed in Seattle with the Wuhan Coronavirus.

    The patient, who was hospitalized with pneumonia last week, recently had traveled to Wuhan, China, where the outbreak appears to have originated, federal officials have found.

    Officials declined to identify the patient, who was said to be quite ill.

    Additionally, on a conference call, the CDC confirmed it expects more US cases to come.

    The outbreak began at a market in China and now has spread to at least four other countries, and  has killed at least six people and sickened hundreds more in Asia.

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    Broadly speaking, stocks are getting hammered on this but there is one silver lining however, prices for flu-shot manufacturers are soaring: Nanovaricides +240%, Novavax +53%, Inovio Pharma +10%, and Vaxart +14%.

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    *  *  *

    CNN’s AnneClaire Stapleton (@AnneClaireCNN) tweeted an ominous warning:

    “The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is expected to announce this afternoon that the first case of Wuhan coronavirus has been reported in the United States, in Washington state, a federal source outside the CDC tells CNN.”

    And the market reacted rapidly…

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    Transports are the worst hit on the day, already suffering from coronavirus fears overnight…

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    Can The Fed just print up some anti-virus?

    As we detailed earlier, the global risk-off wave had started in the overnight hours of Monday as the full extent of the Chinese coronavirus scare became apparent to traders, has rolled into the cash session Tuesday with airline, casino and gaming, hotel, and travel stocks, taking a leg lower.

    Delta Air -3.50%, United Airlines Holdings -3.20%, Southwest Airlines -1.5%, and American Airlines Group -2.50%, were all sold as the outbreak may crimp global air travel during the upcoming Lunar New Year holiday period.

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    Investors dumped Wynn Resorts -4.45%, Las Vegas Sands Corp -4%, and MGM Resorts International -3%, as the virus threatens to decrease foot traffic. 

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    Hotels were also sold, Wyndham Hotels and Resorts -1%, Choice Hotels International -1%, and Extended Stay America -1%.

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    Travel stocks were dumped, Expedia Group -1%, Booking Holdings -2.20%, TripAdvisor Inc -1%, and Trip.com -10%.

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    Investors are unloading sensitive travel stocks because confirmed cases of coronavirus have tripled since Monday and spread to other countries around China with the risk of spreading across the world. 

    Fears of a 2002-03 outbreak of SARs has been on everyone’s mind to start the week – and with a Lunar New Year holiday fast approaching – the spread of the virus could broaden in the days ahead.

    Travel sensitive stocks have taken a beating in Asia, Europe, and the US – basically across the world on Tuesday, as investors brace for new cases of the virus that is quickly spreading.

    Could this mean world stocks are due for a pullback? 

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    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 01/21/2020 – 19:25

  • Monetary Policy & Business Cycle Scripts Flipped: Fed Policy Stimulates Finance Over Spending
    Monetary Policy & Business Cycle Scripts Flipped: Fed Policy Stimulates Finance Over Spending

    Authored by Joe Carson via The Carson Report,

    The monetary policy guide has fundamentally changed and so to has the business cycle. Changes in monetary policies and practices nowadays stimulate finance over spending. The power and risks of equity markets should not be overlooked as important metrics show equity valuations to be 2X times their historical norm.

    Monetary policy can stimulate too much finance (equities) as it did with spending (inflation). As such, the risks of business cycles have shifted toward finance and away from inflation.

    Here are 5 examples of how monetary policies, new tools and practices stimulate finance over spending.

    1. Policy Rates: The primary tool of monetary policy is the target on the federal funds rate.  Policymakers have often struggled to find a good balance, or find a rate that was equally good for the economy and finance.

    Policymaker’s promise to keep official rates exceptionally low in recent years, and now for the foreseeable future, clearly favor finance over spending. To be sure, interest rates are the most important item in determining the value of equities so the promise on official rates creates the “perfect knowledge” market theory for investors since it eliminates one of the key risks and unknowns—the current and future level of official rates. 

    2. Policy Bias:  Policymakers have consistently shown a bias to ease policy during sharp sell-offs in the financial markets and no bias to withdraw liquidity when finance races far ahead of the economy. This uneven policy —often call the “Fed put”—creates the impression in the minds of investors that policymakers will always ride to their rescue during sell-offs and not stand in the way when markets boom.

    Policy actions of 2018 and 2019 clearly demonstrate that the policy bias is alive and well. Policymakers canceled their plans to raise official rates in 2019, following the abrupt and sharp equity market sell-off in Q4 2018, and yet show no inclination to take back any or all of the three rates cuts of late 2019 despite the resurgence in equity markets to new record highs.

    3. Asset Purchases:  The Federal Reserve has become a big investor in financial assets, expanding the Feds balance sheet to $4.5 trillion at its peak, up from less than $900 billion before the financial crisis. The new Fed tool works through the portfolio channel, injecting more liquidity into the financial markets, thereby lifting the price of financial assets, while also signaling to investors an easier stance on monetary policy.

    The recent selloff and rebound in the equity markets have been highly correlated with the shrinkage and the renewed expansion of the balance sheet in 2018 and late 2019. Rightly or wrongly investors view increases and decreases in the Fed’s balance sheet as a signal of easy or tight money and a risk-on or risk-off strategy.

    4. Transparency and Forward Guidance:  Policymakers now telegraph their decisions on policy rates, well ahead of any actual decision and also offer forward guidance on policy rates along with their economic forecasts. Who benefits from greater transparency and forward guidance?

    Investors appear to be the big winner. Never before did policymakers offer so much transparency on official rates—telling investors what they plan to do, when and by how much.  That’s not to say policy transparency has taken all of the risk out of investing, but it removed one of the biggest risks, enabling investors to devise a series of investment strategies based on “inside” knowledge on official rates.

    5. Price Targeting: The Fed elevated inflation from an objective of monetary policy to an actual target. That might not sound like a big deal, but it is.

    The curious thing about price targeting is the gauge policymakers chose to target.  The Fed picked the personal consumption expenditure deflator (PCE) over the more widely used consumer price index (CPI). PCE consistently runs below the CPI, so by selecting the PCE there is a clear bias towards lower rates. 

    In 2019, the choice of the price index proved to be the difference between easing and tightening policy. To be sure, the core PCE reading of 1.7% tilted policy towards an easier stance, while the CPI of 2.3% favored rates inching up a bit more.

    The Results

    The numbers on finance (equity valuations) are impossible to ignore.  Household holdings of equities stand nearly 2X times the level of consumer spending as does the market valuation of domestic companies to nominal GDP. Historic norms are closer to 1X.

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    The narrow public ownership of equities limits the spending impulse for consumers, but the high equity valuations offer companies a huge collateral buffer to borrow.  US nonfinancial companies are sitting on over $10 trillion in debt, almost twice as much as what was on corporate balance sheets at the end of 2008, and the highest debt-to-sales ratio on record.

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    From many sides, monetary policy nowadays stimulates finance more than spending and as the equity market goes so goes the business cycle. 


    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 01/21/2020 – 19:25

    Tags
    Business Finance

  • Phase One Trade Deal "Doomed From The Start" As Skepticism Mounts About Purchases
    Phase One Trade Deal “Doomed From The Start” As Skepticism Mounts About Purchases

    President Trump is at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Tuesday, giving a speech to the world’s elites on how the Phase 1 trade agreement is the greatest deal ever. 

    Trump has touted non-stop on Twitter about how he made the biggest deal in the world, and China will be purchasing vast quantities of U.S. farm products in the coming months.

    After all, it’s an election year, and Trump has to cheerlead, even as skepticism is growing over China’s capacity to buy U.S. products, reported South China Morning Post (SCMP). 

    China’s commitment to purchase an additional $200 billion of U.S. goods over the next several years “may be doomed from the start.” 

    Chad Bown, a trade specialist at the Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE), said, “a close look at the data shows that the numbers are even more unrealistic than first believed. Even worse, hostilities might renew, leading to a re-escalation of trade tensions currently on hold.” 

    Much of the skepticism of trade purchases by China is from their repeated statements on how import purchases from the deal will be based on market conditions. This was reiterated by Li Xingqian, head of the foreign trade department, on Tuesday, who said, “we will expand imports from the United States based on the principles of the market and World Trade Organization rules and will not affect imports from other countries.” 

    Much of the demand will be based on China’s economy, and with growth slumping to three-decade lows in 2019 – a surge in demand for U.S. products will be challenging for Chinese importers. 

    China’s State Grid, the largest utility company in the country, warned that economic growth could plunge to 4% within the next four years, according to internal forecasts.

    Andrei Agapi, associate pricing director for agriculture at S&P Global Platts in Singapore, told the SCMP that if “China says it’s down to market conditions, then the U.S. will have to be competitive. And the reality is that the U.S. is not competitive by a long shot already, and it hasn’t been before either.” 

    Agapi said since China offered tariff waivers on U.S. soybeans imports last fall, the price has risen past Brazilian beans, which would entice the Chinese to ditch U.S. markets for ones in Latin America because of cost factors. 

    We’ve noted how China has been actively diversifying farm purchases away from the U.S. towards Brazil and Argentina. 

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    Peter Meyer, head of grain and oilseed analytics at S&P Global Platts, said when we spoke with Chinese bean traders in the interior of the country, there’s pessimism developing that “there is no way they could even run that much in the country – it would throw the entire domestic supply chain into disarray.” 

    Traders told SCMP that if China had to bite the bullet and buy U.S. farm goods despite market conditions – then it would do so via state trading companies like COFCO. 

    Agapi said China has already purchased 50% of its soybean demand for the year from Latin America. Furthermore, he said demand this year will be lower because the African swine fever wiped out at least half of the country’s pig herd. 

    Andrew Tilton, Goldman Sachs’ chief economist for Asia-Pacific, said Tuesday that “it would obviously take political will and maybe some easing of import restrictions in a couple of areas”.

    “The surprise for us in the official document was that the amount on the agriculture side is less and the energy side was more. That might be relevant because there were a couple of sectors where orders would count as purchases. There are often long-term energy contracts that are signed, but it’s less typical in the agricultural space to see that,” Tilton said.

    Bown said 28% of U.S. exports to China are part of industries not covered by the new trade agreement, and this could mean these exports are slashed while sourced from other countries. 

    “Thus, in legal terms, China has little incentive to import those US$51.6 billion of uncovered products from the U.S. in 2020 or 2021,” he said.

    Bown warned: “To compensate angry trading partners aggrieved because of the trade diversion, China could purchase more uncovered products from them and reduce imports from the United States. That would be painful for American companies and workers whose products Trump has chosen not to put into this agreement.”

    More or less, the trade agreement will likely be broken after the election, and the trade war will resume. 

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    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 01/21/2020 – 19:05

    Tags
    Business Finance

  • Actual Drag Queen Slams "Woke" Parents For Allowing Their Kids To Be Around Drag Queens
    Actual Drag Queen Slams “Woke” Parents For Allowing Their Kids To Be Around Drag Queens

    Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

    Drag queen Kitty Demure posted a viral video in which he expressed his amazement at why ‘woke’ parents are allowing their kids to be around drag queens, asking, “Would you want a stripper or a porn star to influence your child?”

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    Demure questioned why drag queens had attracted so much “respect” from the left given that they’ve done little more than “put on make-up, jump on the floor and writhe around and do sexual things on stage.”

    “I have absolutely no idea why you would want that to influence your child, would you want a stripper or a porn star to influence your child?” he asked.

    Demure went on to point out that drag queens perform in clubs for adults and that backstage “there’s a lot of sex, nudity and drugs, so I don’t think this is an avenue you would want your child to explore.”

    “To get them involved in drag is extremely irresponsible on your part,” Demure told parents, adding that many went along with it to appear “cool” or “woke” to their leftist friends.

    “You can raise your child to be just a normal regular everyday child without including them in gay, sexual things,” said Demure.

    The drag queen went on to argue that things like Drag Queen Story Time which involve kids are actually harmful to the LGBT community too because they advance the notion that gay people are perverts, pedophiles and deviants.

    “We don’t need you to bring your kids around, so keep them at home or take them to Disneyland, take them to Chuck E. Cheese – but if you need your child to be entertained by a big human in costume or in make-up, take them to the circus or something,” he said.

    “Don’t ruin your child’s life and don’t ruin us, because that’s what you’re doing,” concluded Demure.

    As we previously highlighted, a teacher at Willis High School in Texas said parents shouldn’t have the “final say” in raising their own kids after some of them complained about a drag queen visiting the school to give a talk to the children.

    *  *  *

    My voice is being silenced by free speech-hating Silicon Valley behemoths who want me disappeared forever. It is CRUCIAL that you support me. Please sign up for the free newsletter here. Donate to me on SubscribeStar here. Support my sponsor – Turbo Force – a supercharged boost of clean energy without the comedown.


    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 01/21/2020 – 18:45

    Tags
    Human Interest
    Social Issues
    Education

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