Apr 26

Today’s News 26th April 2018

  • ECB Preview: Don't Expect Fireworks

    Submitted by RanSquawk

    Ahead of the ECB’s Monetary Policy Decision due Thursday at 07:45 EDT/13:45 CET with a Press Conference due at 08:30 EDT/14:30 CET, here are the key highlights:

    • Unanimous expectations look for the ECB to leave its three key rates unchanged
    • Ultimately, this week’s press conference is set to offer little in the way of fireworks with June/July touted as a more opportune time for the ECB to unveil their next stage of major policy announcements
    • Draghi will likely make some reference to the recent softness in data but ultimately maintain that risks to economic growth are ‘broadly balanced’

    BACKGROUND

    PREVIOUS MEETING: The main takeaway from March’s meeting was the ECB’s decision to remove their pledge to increase the size and/or duration of QE purchases; an action viewed by the market as the ECB beginning to lay the foundations for more policy ‘normalisation’. Aside from the removal of the easing bias, the staff projections saw only mild tweaks from those released in December with the most notable being an additional upgrade to the 2018 growth outlook from an already bullish 2.3% to 2.4%. Furthermore, Draghi also revealed that no additional discussions were held on further policy changes.

    ECB MARCH MINUTES: In comparison to the ECB statement and press conference, the minutes offered a slightly more dovish account of proceedings by noting widespread concerns about the potential impact of trade wars. Furthermore, FX was also cited as a source of uncertainty, with EUR strength not fully due to the macro environment and fears that it could have a more negative impact on inflation.

    SOURCE REPORTS: The most pertinent source reports came last week with the ECB said to see scope to wait until July to signal an end for its asset purchase program, adding that the ECB is said to have had no talks on the interest rate path after QE ends.

    ECB RHETORIC: The most recent rhetoric from President Draghi stated that measures of underlying inflation are subdued but are expected to rise gradually over the medium term, adding that growth momentum is to continue; largely a reiteration. Other notable input came from ECB’s Nowotny on 10th April with the Austrian representative stating that the deposit rate could be lifted to -0.2% from -0.4% to start the process of rate hikes then go on to the main Refi Rate in the second phase; a view which was later labelled as his own and not representative of the view held by the ECB’s governing council by an ECB spokesperson. This also appeared to be at odds with comments from other members of the ECB which stated that mid-2019 is a reasonable timeframe for markets to expect rate hikes by the Bank.

    DATA: Overall, data has been slightly softer since last month’s meeting but will most likely be downplayed by the ECB as largely a by-product of adverse weather conditions. Goldman Sachs explain that whilst the ECB will use weather as a driving factor rather than underlying economic concern, they are likely to acknowledge that March macro-economic staff projections are broadly on track, but that downside risks have become greater. On the inflation front, March’s HICP Y/Y inflation slipped to 1.3% from 1.4% with the core metric remaining at 1.0%, however, Capital Economics suggests that this blip is unlikely to deter many policymakers in their belief that inflation will rise towards its target in the medium-term. In terms of survey data, the Eurozone composite PMI for March pulled back to 55.2 (flash reading) from the highs seen in January of 58.8 and thus has erased gains seen later last year and early 2018.
     

    CURRENT ECB FORWARD GUIDANCE (INTRODUCTORY STATEMENT)

    RATES: We still expect the key ECB interest rates to remain at their present levels for an extended period of time and well past the horizon of our net asset purchases. (Mar 8th)

    ASSET PURCHASES: Net asset purchases, at the current monthly pace of €30 billion, are intended to run until the end of September 2018, or beyond, if necessary, and in any case until the Governing Council sees a sustained adjustment in the path of inflation consistent with its inflation aim. (Mar 8th)

    GROWTH: The risks surrounding the euro area growth outlook are assessed as broadly balanced. (Mar 8th)

    INFLATION: This outlook for growth confirms our confidence that inflation will converge towards our inflation aim of below, but close to, 2% over the medium term. At the same time, measures of underlying inflation remain subdued and have yet to show convincing signs of a sustained upward trend. In this context, the Governing Council will continue to monitor developments in the exchange rate and financial conditions with regard to their possible implications for the inflation outlook.
     

    POTENTIAL ADJUSTMENTS TO ECB FORWARD GUIDANCE (INTRODUCTORY STATEMENT)

    RATES: No changes on rates communication is expected at this stage given preferred sequencing at the ECB.

    ASSET PURCHASES: No additional changes expected to those made last month with June/July touted as a more opportune time for the ECB.

    GROWTH: No changes major changes are expected on growth guidance, although recent adverse weather conditions may be discussed during the press conference.

    INFLATION: No changes are expected on this front as that would require the ECB to acknowledge that their inflation objective had been achieved; something that it has not.

    PRESS CONFERENCE

    Ultimately, this week’s press conference is set to offer little in the way of fireworks with June/July touted as a more opportune time for the ECB to unveil their next stage of major policy announcements. June/July is viewed as a more likely time for Bank to outline its plans for policy normalisation as it will give the governing council the opportunity to digest an additional set of staff economic projections and see how the Eurozone economy performs in H1 2018.

    In terms of what could be discussed this week, as mentioned above, Draghi will likely make some reference to the recent softness in data but ultimately maintain that risks to economic growth are ‘broadly balanced’, albeit SocGen questions whether or not ‘hopes of a strong and lasting cycle and rising potential growth were premature’.

    Furthermore, Draghi will also likely comment/be questioned on recent protectionist measures which were cited in the March minutes and have escalated since the previous meeting as the US and China have now detailed plans for tariffs against other. Capital Economics explain that the fallout of this has been a firmer EUR which could pose concerns to policymakers outlook for inflation but ultimately should not be enough to derail the ECB in their belief that inflation will hit its target in the medium-term. Pictet also back the governing council’s view on inflation by stating that they “see very little evidence of a larger FX pass-through on core inflation” and “higher oil prices can be expected to provide a modest boost to headline inflation going into the more important June meeting”.

    As ever, journalists will likely ask many a question to the ECB President about what discussions (if any) took place regarding the future path of the Bank’s PSPP. However, it is likely that Draghi will stick to his usual rebuttal of “we did not discuss this” in order to avoid an unwarranted tightening of monetary conditions ahead of the June meeting. Furthermore, Capital Economics argue that Draghi will also wish to avoid any specifics on the outlook for interest rates given the backlash seen to recent comments by Nowotny and will most likely reiterate the ECB’s press release when questioned.

    As such, from a markets perspective, June/July is seen as much more of a pivotal meeting for the ECB and will likely see the commencements of the Bank’s series of policy adjustments. Please see below for Rabobank’s “expected ECB policy timeline”

    MARKET REACTION:

    Please see the following ING ‘ECB Scenario Analysis’ with subsequent potential market reactions.

  • Germany: Migrant Crisis Delusions

    Authored by Vijeta Uniyal via The Gatestone Institute,

    • A report commissioned by the German government found that newly-arrived asylum seekers were behind more than 90% percent of the increase in violent crimes in the state of Lower Saxony.

    • As of December 2017, an estimated 600,000 able-bodied asylum seekers in Germany were on the welfare dole, according to Die Welt. “More than half of the able-bodied unemployment benefit receivers at present are of foreign descent,” wrote Der Spiegel on April 10, 2018.

    • Meanwhile, poverty in Germany, especially among elderly pensioners, has reached a historic high.

    While the number of Salafists in Germany reaches a record high and machete-wielding gangs riot on the country’s streets, the establishment media not only covers up the fallout from Chancellor Angela Merkel’s open door migration policy, but continues to paint a false picture of the country’s current state.

    “Cool Germany,” a cover story on Britain’s magazine, The Economist, claims that, “Germany is becoming more open and diverse” and “[m]any of the country’s defining traits” including “its ethnic and cultural homogeneity, conformist and conservative society” are “suddenly in flux.”

    The Economist attributes this change to Chancellor Merkel’s migrant policy. “The biggest change comes from Mrs. Merkel’s “open door” policy towards refugees, which brought in 1.2 million new migrants in 2015-16. The magazine celebrates the sudden outburst of diversity as its transforms “once-homogeneous Germany” into a “melting-pot” and claims that the “patriarchal culture has become more gender-balanced.”

    The Economist also advocates the urgent necessity of the open-door policy for refugees, and alleges that the “flow of newcomers to Germany” will “cushion the demographic crunch.”

    Since the onset of the migrant crisis, which began in the autumn of 2015, much of the mainstream media has been peddling the idea of an influx of hundreds of thousands of migrants from Arab and Muslim countries as a silver bullet for Europe’s economic woes. Young and sturdy immigrants were going to bolster Europe’s shrinking labor force and usher in the next economic boom, a miracle comparable to Germany’s post-war Wirtschaftswunder (“economic miracle”).

    “Refugees to pay our pension,” an editorial headline the newspaper Frankfurter Rundschau in February 2016 promised. The migrant “influx ensures rejuvenation that is so urgently needed” and the refugees “will soon pay into our public welfare system,” the newspaper pledged.

    “The German business community views the recent influx of refugees as an opportunity to help companies grow and ensure long term prosperity,” the Der Spiegel reported in its August 2015, issue, just ahead of Merkel’s decision to open the country’s borders to mass migration. “The business community urgently needs workers,” it added.

    “What the refugees bring to us is more valuable than gold,” said Martin Schulz, Merkel’s main political rival and the leader of Germany’s Social Democrats (SPD).

    “Many [migrants] are in integration courses or waiting to get in them. So I think we will need to show some patience,” Merkel said in September 2016.

    Unfortunately, these claims and assurances now seem like nothing more than liberal pipe-dreams to push through a pro-immigration policy in Germany.

    Instead of lining up to join the German workforce, as the political elite and most of the media were asking us to believe, these young immigrant men, in the hundreds of thousands, took refuge in the Germany’s generous welfare system.

    German Chancellor Angela Merkel poses for a selfie with Anas Modamani, a migrant from Syria, outside a shelter for migrants in Berlin, on September 10, 2015. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

    “More than half of the able-bodied unemployment benefit receivers at present are of foreign descent,” Der Spiegel reported on April 10, 2018. “According to latest numbers complied in September 2017, out of 4.3 million able-bodied welfare recipients, 55.2% were of an immigrant background. In 2013, that figure was 43%.”

    As of December 2017, an estimated 600,000 able-bodied asylum seekers in Germany were on the dole, the newspaper Die Welt revealed in December, 2017. For the first time in post-war German history, the number of foreigners living on unemployment benefits has crossed the 2-million-mark.

    All this has happened, moreover, at time when poverty, especially among elderly pensioners, reached a historic high. Under Merkel’s watch, nearly 20% of Germans are threatened by poverty, according to the German Federal Statistical Office. The current level of poverty is “higher than ever since the unification of the Federal Republic and the [Communist] German Democratic Republic,” the German public broadcaster Deutsche Welle reported.

    Contrary to what the establishment media would have people believe, there is no evidence that the hundreds of thousands of young migrant men pouring into Germany are going to relieve the country’s aging work force or become productive citizens in other ways.

    Not only are these newly arrived immigrants a strain on Germany’s finances, but since their arrival, there has been a surge across the country in violent crime. A recent report commissioned by the German Ministry of Family Affairs found that the newly arrived asylum seekers were behind more than 90% percent of the increase in violent crimes in the northern state of Lower Saxony. Similar trends can be witnessed throughout the country.

    According to the country’s annual crime report of 2017, compiled by the Federal Crime Bureau (BKA), Germany saw a 50% year-on-year rise in migrant crimes. This tiny but growing minority, that presently makes up less than 2% of the German population, was charged for nearly 15% of all violent crimes, such as rapes and aggravated assaults, the BKA report revealed.

    In March, Turkish and Arab gangs “armed with machetes, clubs and baseball bats” clashed on German streets in violent attempts to demarcate gang territories. The country is also in the grip of a stabbing epidemic, with the attackers often turning out to be “unaccompanied minors” holding refugee status.

    While media outlets such as The Economist are busy touting Merkel’s Germany as “model for the West” for its newly-acquired “diversity,” the country is sinking ever deeper into a social, economic and demographic bog. With their collective heads buried in sand, many in the establishment and the media seem to want the rest of the Western world to follow Germany’s example by opening their borders to unregulated mass immigration. Sadly, the current result of Germany’s open-door policy indicates that all those rosy reports seem to have been nothing more than an elaborate campaign of deceit or misinformation.

  • Iranian Naval Commander Threatens To Sink US Ships, Create "Catastrophic Situation" If Trump Kills Deal

    President Donald Trump offered some of his most bellicose rhetoric yet about Iran on Tuesday when he said Iran would have “bigger problems than they have ever had before” if the country’s leadership dared to restart its nuclear program following a US pull-out of the JCPOA (otherwise known as the Iran deal), per the Times of Israel.

    And today, a top Iranian general hit back at Trump with an aggressive threat to sink US Navy ships, while warning that the US would find itself in a “catastrophic situation” if it withdraws from the deal and reimposes economic sanctions.

    “The actual information that the Americans have about us is much less than what they think they have. When will they figure this out? When it is too late,” the Revolutionary Guard Corps’s navy commander, Admiral Ali Fadavim, told Iranian television on Saturday.

    “They will definitely figure it out when their ships are sunk, or when they find themselves in a catastrophic situation,” Fadavi threatened in an interview with IRINN TV, according to a translation by the Middle East Media Research Institute.

    On Wednesday, a non-proliferation envoy confirmed that the US isn’t seeking to renegotiate the JCPOA. Instead, the White House would like to pursue a separate agreement like the one French President Emmanuel Macron proposed during a press conference with Trump. And apparently, Macron’s proposal took his European partners by surprise.

    Admiral Fadavim’s remarks followed a similarly stern warning from Iranian President Hassan Rouhani.

    “I am telling those in the White House that if they do not live up to their commitments, the Iranian government will react firmly,” Rouhani said.

    “If anyone betrays the deal, they should know that they would face severe consequences,” he added.

    Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif also reiterated over the weekend his warning that Tehran was ready to swiftly resume uranium enrichment if the US ditches the accord.

    Meanwhile, Ali Shamkhani, the Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, warned that Iran would consider withdrawing from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty if the US reimposes sanctions.

    Of course, by leaving both the Iran deal and the NPT, Iran would only lend credence to its adversaries’ claims that the Islamic Republic is seeking to build a nuclear weapon – an accusation Iran has long denied. The White House has set a self-imposed deadline of May 12 for deciding whether to pull out of the deal.

  • Joy Reid Says Old Homophobic Blog Posts "Hacked"; Archive.org Hits Back

    MSNBC Weekend host Joy-Ann Reid – who in December apologized for a series of homophobic blog posts from 2007-2009, thought it would be a good idea to pour lighter fluid on herself and tell Mediaite that the offensive posts were “somehow put in by an “external party” that “manipulated material from my now-defunct blog.””

    In a statement to Mediaite, Reid said that the allegedly hacked entries do “not represent the original entries on her site.” 

    “In December I learned that an unknown, external party accessed and manipulated material from my now-defunct blog, The Reid Report, to include offensive and hateful references that are fabricated and run counter to my personal beliefs and ideology.

    I began working with a cyber-security expert who first identified the unauthorized activity, and we notified federal law enforcement officials of the breach. The manipulated material seems to be part of an effort to taint my character with false information by distorting a blog that ended a decade ago.” –Joy Reid

    So Reid is now claiming that hackers authored numerous anti-gay articles on The Reid Report to make her look bad. AKA the “I didn’t do anything wrong” defense. 

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    In December, Mediaite reported on the offensive content, noting that “Reid wrote a dozen blog posts in 2007, 2008, and 2009 that contained homophobic conspiracies and anti-gay jokes.“

    Reid wrote numerous bigoted blog posts smearing, mocking, and attacking former Florida governor Charlie Crist. These rants included calling Crist “Miss Charlie” and sarcastically using the tags “gay politicians” and “not gay politicians” — despite the fact that the twice-married, heterosexual man has never come-out as gay.

    Reid went on to spread the crackpot conspiracy theory that Crist was actually a closeted gay man who refused to come out for fear that his sexual orientation would hurt his political career. Additionally, the AM Joy host claims Crist’s marriages to women are part of this elaborate cover up.

    As bad as the conspiracy theory is in itself, Reid doesn’t just suggest Cris is gay — she assumes he is gay and proceeds to attack him for it. “Miss Charlie, Miss Charlie. Stop pretending, brother. It’s okay that you don’t go for the ladies,” wrote Reid in a 2007 post. –Mediaite

    It gets worse

    As The Intercept‘s Glenn Greenwald notes – “THE LAST 24 HOURS have changed the Joy Reid situation considerably. Last week, the same left-wing Twitter user (Jamie Maz) who first unearthed Reid’s anti-gay tweets about Crist unearthed far more toxic, bigoted, and vicious anti-gay articles that appeared to be from Reid’s old blog.”

    Reid has removed her blog from the internet, so Maz found the articles using the “Wayback Machine,” the internet digital archive that stores old online content even after it’s been removed or deleted by the publisher. Last night, the news outlet that reports on TV news media, Mediaite, published an extensive story on these newly found articles that appear under Reid’s byline.

    But unlike the posts for which Reid apologized in December — which she said were intended to mock the hypocrisy of GOP officials who are simultaneously closeted gays, but also anti-gay in their politics — these newly discovered articles have nothing to do with GOP hypocrisy. They are just hateful, bigoted, and homophobic in their own right.

    Click on any of the three tweets below to read the original Twitter thread by Jamie Maz, full of screenshots similar to the above.

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    Some of the lowlights, as Mediaite itemized, include (via The Intercept):

    • “defend[ing] former NBA star Tim Hardaway’s aggressively anti-gay comments by writing that while such comments are stupid for a public figure to make: ‘most straight people cringe at the sight of two men kissing’”;
    • saying she “couldn’t go see [Brokeback Mountain] either, despite my sister’s ringing endorsement, because I didn’t want to watch the two male characters having sex. Does that make me homophobic? Probably”;
    • arguing that “intrinsic” to being straight is finding gay sex acts “gross”;
    • “defending Marine General Peter Pace after he condemned ‘homosexual acts’ as ‘immoral’ by suggesting his views are actually normal”;
    • opposing Harriet Miers’s nomination to the Supreme Court by implying she is a closeted lesbian and comparing her “lesbian haircut” to those worn by the presidents of NOW and GLAAD;
    • promoting the ugliest and most destructive stereotype of gay men as pedophile predators by suggesting that anti-gay attitudes are based in “concerns that adult gay men tend to be attracted to very young, post-pubescent types, bringing them ‘into the lifestyle’ in a way that many people consider to be immoral” and that “gay rights groups seek to organize very young, impressionable teens who may have an inclination that they are gay.”

    The Wayback Machine Hits Back

    Responding to Reid’s claims that the entries were hacked, the folks over at the Internet Archive Wayback Machine at archive.org responded, claiming they hadn’t identified anything “to indicate tampering or hacking of the Wayback Machine” versions of Reid’s blog.

    This past December, Reid’s lawyers contacted us, asking to have archives of the blog (blog.reidreport.com) taken down, stating that “fraudulent” posts were “inserted into legitimate content” in our archives of the blog. Her attorneys stated that they didn’t know if the alleged insertion happened on the original site or with our archives (the point at which the manipulation is to have occurred, according to Reid, is still unclear to us).

    When we reviewed the archives, we found nothing to indicate tampering or hacking of the Wayback Machine versions. At least some of the examples of allegedly fraudulent posts provided to us had been archived at different dates and by different entities.

    We let Reid’s lawyers know that the information provided was not sufficient for us to verify claims of manipulation. Consequently, and due to Reid’s being a journalist (a very high-profile one, at that) and the journalistic nature of the blog archives, we declined to take down the archives. We were clear that we would welcome and consider any further information that they could provide us to support their claims.-Internet Archive

    That leaves Reid with only one option; hackers must have broken into her website prior to the internet archive cataloging it, and made dozens of homophobic, bigoted entries, which just sat there for years until they were unearthed nearly a decade later. 

    Unfortunately we can’t check out Reid’s old blog posts, as “sometime after the story broke last December, Joy Reid had the archive taken down,” by adding a “robots.txt” file to the website which tells the Internet Archive to exclude the site. Unfortunately for her, Jamie Maz took copious screenshots to document Reid’s comments. 

  • Total Control: New Measures Toward Global Totalitarianism

    Authored by Jeremiah Johnson via SHTFplan.com,

    For those who have read “1984” by George Orwell, it is almost prophetic in its depth and accuracy. The reason that the warning has not been heeded is that change takes place with glacial slowness. Sometimes the changes take so long they dull the senses and we become inured to “more bad news,” or we just discount it continually. No matter what our reaction, the march toward global totalitarianism proceeds, with or without our consent or even our attention.

    The slow march is deliberate. The reason for this is simple. The generation/group of people between the ages of approximately 40 to 60 are of an age who still have a sense of nationalism and grew up/experienced their formative years without that complete socialist indoctrination inflicted upon the youth of today. For the youth, there is no escape from it on their own, because they have no point of reference with which to identify and compare it to what has been forced upon them now by indoctrinators (termed “educators”). The new “all for the communal hive” mentality has been crafted by those in power and carried out by teachers.

    So, a deliberate and systematic “ratcheting” up and down of the speed Wcof changes (the institution of new totalitarian controls) varies. Those in power need to eliminate those between 40 to 60 years old, or “engulf” them by numbers of the new manipulated youth and then just “vote” them out of effectiveness. The “Tyranny of the Majority” perfected to an art form. Obama couldn’t finish the job in 8 years…but the sporadic ratcheting just took a new twist.

    It was reported that Bill Gates is joining a group of investors for an initial investment of about $1 billion dollars. They are going to back a company based in Seattle, WA called EarthNow that will endeavor to emplace 500 satellites above the Earth. 

    When the emplacement is complete, every inch of the globe will be able to be surveilled in real time. 

    The Daily Mail wrote a good piece on it on 4/19/18 that seemed to run unnoticed. A few other networks picked it up and reported on it, with the most summarized version being a piece entitled “Surveillance of Entire Earth, Big Brother Satellite Army,” by Battle For World.

    EarthNow will provide this complete surveillance to “high value enterprise and government customers,” in other words: Mega-Corporations and Government.

    There’s more afoot. The article, “Compulsory Biometric ID Announced by European Commission,” by Virginia Hale came out on 4/17/18. Here’s an excerpt:

    “The European Commission has announced plans to make biometric ID cards compulsory across the bloc which will allow authorities to bar “terrorists and criminals” from accessing money and other services. Plans to introduce mandatory ID cards across all 28 EU member states — including Britain — have been in development for more than two years in Brussels as part of the Commission’s goal of building an effective “security union”, Die Welt reports.

    Set to be equipped with data including the holder’s fingerprint, the cards would be designed to tackle identity fraud and make it harder to falsify documents, according to Migration, Home Affairs and Citizenship Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos.  “We have to tighten the screws until there is no room left for terrorists or criminals and no more means for them to carry out attacks,” he told the German newspaper on Monday.  “This means that they must be barred from accessing money, counterfeit documents, weapons and explosives, and at the same time prevented from being able to cross our borders undetected.”

    Tightening the screws, eh? But none of those measures will restrict the true criminals…the “partners” of national governments…who access money, counterfeit documents, weapons, and explosive…they do the same things they claim to be “preventing.” All in the “interests of public safety,” and all under the Color of Law, at the expense of the citizen-beeves.

    Think this isn’t coming here, to the United States? Think again. The biggie that they want now is the DNA. If you recall, I wrote a piece last Fall that mentioned how the Baltimore Ravens Football Administration tried to give out “free DNA kits” on opening day to fans. It was stopped in the “interests of public health” where the fans would have swabbed their mouths and dropped it in a vial…all to “find out their ancestry,” etc. Not quite. They wanted to see if people would voluntarily give away their DNA.

    Myriad Genetics (the “inventors” of the Brica system of breast cancer detection) tried to patent genes they collected, and the courts struck it down. Little by little, the paradigm shifts, however, and recently you’ve been hearing some “murmurs” about DNA information for both ID cards (Driver’s Licenses, for now) and to obtain a firearm…as it is mandatory in some states already to submit biometric information prior to purchasing a pistol or rifle.

    On 4/12/18, an article came out entitled “Estonia offers free genetic testing in nationwide experiment,” by Jari Tanner of AP, and here’s an excerpt:

    “Estonia has started offering residents free genetic profiling in a nationwide experiment aimed at minimizing risks for typical diseases and encouraging a healthier lifestyle through personalized data reports.  Lili Milani, a researcher with the Estonian Genome Center at the University of Tartu, said Thursday the scheme kicked off in March and will initially cover some 100,000 volunteers in the Baltic country of 1.3 million. Participants are required to donate DNA samples from blood and give consent to storing their data to the Estonian Biobank, which has collected health records and biological samples from Estonians since 2000.”

    Do you like that one? “Required” and “give consent” for storing their data, as if it’s a service. The Estonians have been giving samples to a biobank that has been actively collecting physical samples for the past 18 years.

    This is to obtain a DNA “fingerprint” from everyone. It is a worldwide collection activity taking place right under our noses and before our eyes.

    As you can see, they’re pushing their “family-friendly” activities more and more…using the “voluntary” trick at first…but eventually it will become mandatory. It already happens in the U.S. When you have a surgical procedure or operation they take tissue and blood samples and save them in a repository, ostensibly to “compare with later tests,” etc., etc. The samples are frozen and kept by labs who have genetic repositories, such as Myriad Genetics.

    So, Bill Gates and his allies are going to emplace a global surveillance system of satellites, biometric IDs are being pushed and finalized for all of Europe, and genetics collection facilities are in “overdrive” worldwide.

    See the writing on the wall and don’t ignore it. They are moving toward global governance in every nation. Orwell is no longer alive, but his writings were a warning for all of mankind that we would all do well to heed before it’s too late.

  • "Black People Don't Have To Be Democrats": Obama-Linked Rapper Backs Kanye As MSM Melts Down Over MAGA

    Kanye West pal and fellow Chicago-based musician “Chance the Rapper” fired off a tweet in support of his controversial friend, who is once again taking flack from the left over his love of Donald Trump – and most recently, black conservative Candace Owens. 

    “Black people don’t have to be democrats,” tweeted the 25-year-old Chance in defense of Kanye. 

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    Donald Trump Jr. agreed with Chance – as did others who declared that people who belong to traditionally liberal demographics can also think differently.

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    Kanye then retweeted Trump supporter Scott Presler who echoed Chance’s sentiments:

    Interestingly, political strategist and pundit Ali Alexander (@ali) implored Chance to support Kanye 20 minutes before his tweet:

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    Born Chancelor Jonathan Bennett, Chance the Rapper’s father was an aide to then-Senator Barack Obama, before landing a job in the Department of Labor during Obama’s first term. Chance met with Obama when he was “13 or 14,” where he discussed his ambitions with the future president – who reportedly replied “word.”

    Chance has been an outspoken critic of President Donald Trump – while endorsing Hillary Clinton one month before the 2016 US election. That said, he may have become disillusioned at the skyrocketing murder rate in his hometown.

    West, who also hails from Chicago, noted in a Wednesday tweet that “Obama was in office for eight years and nothing in Chicago changed.”

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    Trump, meanwhile, has been talking about the Chicago murder rates for years – and then sent the ATF in to do something about it. 

    Kanye thrust himself back into the spotlight on Saturday after taking nearly a year off of Twitter – tweeting his support for black pro-Trump conservative, Candace Owens – director of Urban Engagement for Turning Point USA, who feels that black Americans are “slaves on the Democratic Party plantation.” 

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    West caused Twitter to further implode on Wednesday when he tweeted a picture of an autographed red “Make America Great Again” hat, which Trump responded to with “MAGA!”

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    Kanye addressed the uproar over his conservative leanings as well on Wednesday – tweeting “You don’t have to agree with trump but the mob can’t make me not love him. We are both dragon energy. He is my brother. I love everyone. I don’t agree with everything anyone does. That’s what makes us individuals. And we have the right to independent thought.“

    To which Trump replied “Thank you Kanye, very cool!”

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    MSM assassins everywhere 

    What makes Kanye so dangerous to the left is that he’s breaking through the “all or nothing” conditioning of identity politics, and with West tweeting pro-Trump sentiments to his 27.9 million followers, the MSM is trying their best to smear him. After flat out lying earlier Wednesday about drama in the West household, People Magazine was at it again later in the day – stirring up controversy over Kanye tweeting pictures from “Inside $20M House” despite his wife Kim Kardashian’s wishes. 

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    The Daily Mail – similar to People, said that Kim was scolding Kanye – to which Kardashian tweeted “Oh RELAX I’m joking! Seriously you can’t have a personality on social media these days or your called bizarre or disturbing”

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    Page Six also published an anti-Kanye hit piece, suggesting that people are fearing for “Kanye’s [mental] health” after suddenly firing his manager, Scooter Braun.

    Kanye West canceled 21 tour dates in 2016 after suffering a “nervous breakdown,” but there are new fears for his health after he abruptly fired manager Scooter Braun and a “friend” claimed West had been addicted to opioids. –Page Six

    Kardashian later tweeted “To the media trying to demonize my husband let me just say this… your commentary on Kanye being erratic & his tweets being disturbing is actually scary.” 

    To the media trying to demonize my husband let me just say this… your commentary on Kanye being erratic & his tweets being disturbing is actually scary. –Kim Kardashian

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    “WOW wrong again!!!!!” tweeted Kris Jenner, “Their house is $60 MIL“

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    Donald Trump Jr. also threw his hat in the ring, tweeting #ImWIthHer, and then “2 years ago who would have thought Kanye and Kim would be public enemy number one of Hollywood/Media for saying it’s ok to think differently“

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    And while the left has their collective Kanye meltdown, others over social media have been having a blast: 

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    Flashback: that time MSNBC accidentally interviewed black Trump supporters in North Carolina during the 2016 election – who let the network know “There’s a perception out there that he [Trump] has no black supporters. Wrong. He does.” 

  • The Backfire Continues: NRA Breaks Fundraising Records In Wake Of Gun Control Demands

    Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTHplan.com,

    The NRA continues to rake in money in the wake of gun control activists vocally demanding the government strip away the rights of gun owners.  The gun rights lobbying group broke fundraising records in March largely thanks to the gun control crowd.

    The numbers don’t lie either. The National Rifle Association’s Political Victory Fund raised $2.4 million from March 1 to March 31 of this year, according to The Tampa Bay Times.  As the March for Our Lives movement captured the mainstream media’s attention because it fit their carefully crafted pro-government narrative, in the weeks after the Parkland shooting, the other side of the gun control debate enjoyed a big month of its own.

    The $2.4 million haul is the most money raised by the NRA’s political arm in one month since June 2003, the last month when electronic federal records were readily available.

    It surpasses the $1.1 million and $1.5 million raised in January and February 2013, the two months after the Sandy Hook school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut.

    Note that many of the NRA’s highest fundraising months are those after shootings when gun control Nazis seek to disarm the innocent over the actions of a lunatic. Another important tidbit to recognize about this particular fundraising month is that most of the donations, $1.9 million of the $2.4 million total, came from small donors who gave less than $200.  That means regular, everyday Americans are paying what little they have to avoid having even more of their basic fundamental human rights stripped away.

    And much to the rights violators dismay, gun control groups haven’t been able to match the NRA’s fundraising. Everytown for Gun Safety’s Political Action Fund raised $13,580 in March while former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords’ Political Action Committee raised $129,589 in March, according to the Tampa Bay Times.  In fact, much of the demands for innocent people to give up rights is met with resistance and more guns flooding into the hands of Americans. 

    The March for Our Lives group founded after the Parkland shooting has raised $3.5 million since February 18 via the online service GoFundMe, though that money was put toward organizing marches around the country. But big name companies, such as the fashion company Gucci has also publicly announced their own half-million-dollar donation. Those publicly disclosed donations total $2.5 million, meaning a large amount of the donations came from wealth celebrities or corporations.

  • The Great Exodus From America's 'Blue' Cities Accelerates

    Authored by Kristin Tate, op-ed via The Hill,

    Am I the only one in my spinning class at Equinox in Manhattan who’s fed up paying $200 every month for a gym with clean showers, $3,000 in rent every month for an apartment without cockroaches and $8 every morning for a cup of coffee? Am I the only one moving through the greater part of New York City boroughs and seeing an inexorable march of urban decay matched with the discomfort of crowding and inexplicable costs? I know I am not.

    New York is the most expensive city in America. Its lower-cost neighborhoods are riddled with crime and homelessness. Its public schools, some of which are among the worst in the nation, look more like prisons than places of learning.

    With between up to 50 percent of their paycheck going to a combination of federal, local and city taxes, not including other consumer taxes baked into every aspect of their consumer practices, residents don’t even have the comfort of knowing that their tax expenditures are going to the improvement of their lives in the city. New York infamously misuses the hard-earned tax revenues of its citizens in ways that scarcely benefit them.

    Eventually, city and state taxes, fees, and regulations become so burdensome that people and corporations jump ship. More people are currently fleeing New York than any other metropolitan area in the nation. More than 1 million people have moved out of New York City since 2010 in search of greener pastures, which amounts to a negative net migration rate of 4.4 percent.

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    The recently passed tax bill, which repeals the state and local tax (SALT) deduction, will only speed up the exodus. Thanks to the bill’s passage, many New York taxpayers will save little or nothing despite a cut in the federal rate. The state’s highest earners — who have been footing an outsized share of the bill — will pay tens of thousands of dollars more in income taxes in 2018. In New York alone, loss of the SALT deduction will remove $72 billion a year in tax deductions and affect 3.4 million residents.  

    And make no mistake: What’s happening in the Big Apple is a microcosm of what’s happening in the nation’s blue states, cities and towns.

    New York, Los Angeles, Chicago — the places where power and capital have traditionally congregated — have become so over-regulated, so overpriced and mismanaged, and so morally bankrupt and soft on crime that people are leaving in droves. Of course, these high-tax cities are the same places hit hardest by the removal of the SALT deduction.

    The cost of popular moving truck services, like U-Haul, is largely created through the ironclad rules of supply and demand. Turns out, there is much higher demand for trucks leaving high-tax blue states heading to low-tax red states than vice versa.

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    A route from California to Texas, for example, is more than twice as expensive as a route from Texas to California. Want to go from Los Angeles to Dallas? $2,558. Returning back? $1,232. Texas is the No. 1 state people move trucks to, with states like Florida, South Carolina, Tennessee, North Carolina and Colorado rounding out the top 10. The states people are fleeing? New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Illinois — and at the top, California.

    These facts are not coincidences. In fact, in 2016 the Golden State lost almost 143,000 net residents to other states — that figure is an 11 percent increase from 2015. Between 2005 and 2015, Los Angeles and San Francisco alone lost 250,000 residents. The largest socioeconomic segment moving from California is the upper-middle class. The state is home to some of the most burdensome taxes and regulations in the nation. Meanwhile, its social engineering — from green energy to wealth redistribution — have made many working families poorer. As California begins its long decline, the influx outward is picking up in earnest.

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    The only way to slow the great exodus out of America’s blue meccas is to make these areas more affordable for middle-class families; the most significant way to do that is to lower state and city income taxes. And if residents don’t want to be “double taxed” following the removal of SALT deductions, the solution is simple: remove state and city income taxes altogether.

    Houston is the nation’s fourth-largest city and is able to operate, while funding massive infrastructure projects to support its population, without income tax revenue. When residents keep more of their hard-earned money, they are more incentivized to spend that money in ways that make their community a better place.

    This is a lesson high-tax states and cities need to learn if they want to avoid transforming into ghost towns.

  • Russia To Send Advanced Anti-Aircraft Missiles To Syria, Warns Israel Of "Catastrophic Consequences"

    Israel continues ratcheting up its rhetoric this week in response to Russia’s Defense Ministry signaling it will likely move forward in arming Syria with the advanced S-300 missile defense system, bringing both Israeli and Lebanese airspace to within targeting range of Syrian missiles. 

    On Tuesday Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman said in unambiguous terms that his country would attack such missile sites should Russia move forward on supplying them.

    Liberman told Israel’s YNet, “What’s important to us is that the defensive weapons the Russians are giving Syria won’t be used against us,” and threatened further, “one thing should be clear: If someone fires on our planes, we will destroy them.”

    Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has in the past years of war in Syria – of which Israel is a significant player, especially given its longtime support of al-Qaeda linked anti-Assad insurgents to the south of Damascus – made it clear that transfer of the S-300 would constitute a “red line” on which Israel would act.

    In 2013, when Russian President Vladimir Putin reportedly first considered the move, marking a major and exceptionally advanced update to Syria’s current Soviet-era deterrent systems, Netanyahu warned, “We’ll destroy your missiles if you deliver them to Assad.” He said that Israel would hit them before the system came online.

    Though displaying an early reluctance to derail its delicate diplomatic relationship with Israel, Russia changed its tune on the very morning after the US-led coalition strike took place overnight on April 13. Russia’s first deputy chief of staff, Sergei Rudskoi, said at the time that Russia would “reconsider” whether to supply the air defenses to Assad – an issue previously thought dead as a result of prior Israeli-Russian summits in Sochi. 

    However, multiple international reports now indicate Russia is likely moving forward with transfer of the feared system which has a range of up to 150-200 kilometers (or 120 miles max). 

    Reuters reports while citing Russia’s main state operated news agency:

    Russia plans to deliver new air defense systems to Syria in the near future, RIA news agency cited Russia’s Defence Ministry as saying on Wednesday.

    The ministry added it plans to study a U.S. Tomahawk cruise missile captured by Syrian forces in a recent attack, in order to improve Russia’s own missiles, RIA reported.

    And crucially, as Haaretz notes, “With Putin’s S-300, Assad’s army could even ‘lock-on’ IAF aircraft as they take off from bases within Israel.” And as one Israeli defense analyst put it, “Israel should be worried.”

    But what’s really behind Israel’s dire warnings to the world and longtime threats of acting on “red lines”? It is certainly not out of concern for acts of aggression coming from either Syria or Russia, as neither country has attacked Israel in recent history.

    Instead, we find the opposite: Israel has attacked Russian allied Syria frequently and with impunity since at least 2013, and it simply wishes to maintain aerial superiority unimpeded (and going back to 2007, when it struck a suspected Syrian nuclear reactor near Deir Ezzor, as Israeli officials have recently admitted).

    Last summer, the head of Israel’s air force for the first time openly acknowledged nearly one hundred IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) attacks on convoys and sites inside Syria over the course of the past 5 years. Perhaps a dozen more have occurred since then, with Syria only very recently retaliating against Israeli incursions, shooting down at least one Israeli F-16 jet near the Golan. Israel also reportedly participated in the US-led missile strikes on April 13 in the hope of weakening the Syrian Army’s clear dominant trajectory over the armed insurgency. 

    Indeed, in spite of over a hundred unprovoked Israeli attacks, Assad has not taken the bait of an Israeli desire for escalation for years now. While pro-government Syrians have themselves at times complained about Israel’s seeming ability to strike inside sovereign Syrian territory with impunity, Assad appears to be operating with the long-game in mind of “survival now, retaliation later”.

    It was clear starting in 2013 that Israel’s semi-frequent strikes on largely non-strategic targets were more about provocation: should Damascus lob missiles back in Israel’s direction Netanyahu would launch an all-out assault while Syria was at its weakest in the midst of a grinding and externally funded al-Qaeda insurgency.

    Concerning Syria’s current missile defense deterrent capabilities – though contested among analysts – Syria’s over 30-year old current deterrent system appears to have performed well, likely stunning the West and neighboring Israel (which itself played a part in the coalition attack) as it reportedly shot down 71 of the 103 cruise missiles, according to official Russian and Syrian government sources (Russia this week has offered proof that its version is correct, over and against Pentagon claims that not a single tomahawk was shot down). 

    Israeli military analysts are now themselves quite open about the end-goal here: it is all about Israel’s aim of maintaining the capability to do whatever it wants in Syria, without repercussions – whether international censure or domestic push-back against the Likud establishment. 

    One can look no further than “the centrist” Jerusalem Post, whose Deputy Managing Editor Tovah Lazaroff is unusually candid regarding Israeli aims while citing an Israeli general:

    Israel fears the S-300 would hamper its ability to attack military sites in Syria that are dangerous to the Jewish State and would therefore allow Iran to strengthen its military foothold in that country.

    “This is by far the most advanced weapons system in air defense in Syrian hands so far,” said Brig. Gen. Assaf Orion (ret.), “so theoretically it is an entrenchment to the apparent freedom of action that the Israeli air force enjoys over Syria’s sky.”

    Meanwhile, Russian military sources were quoted in Haaretz as saying that if Israel tried to destroy the anti-aircraft batteries—as analysts have indicated Israel likely would—it would leads to “catastrophic consequences.”

    After Trump’s ‘one-off’ attack on Syria and Russia’s non-engagement against what was in the end a big American fireworks show, many around the world breathed a collective sigh of relief that World War III had been avoided… but are we only witnessing a mere prelude to the final act? 

     

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