- Will A Military Coup Undo The November Elections, Donald Trump, & The Republic Itself?
Will A Military Coup Undo The November Elections, Donald Trump, & The Republic Itself?
Tyler Durden
Sat, 09/26/2020 – 23:45Authored by Matthew Ehret via The Strategic Culture Foundation,
On March 20, I published an article called Why Assume There will be a 2020 Election? where I laid out the existential threat of a new Wall Street military Coup which would not only render elections obsolete, but would impose a new fascist hell onto America and the world.
In that article I discussed the importance of General Smedley Butler’s strategic decision to expose the Wall Street plot to overthrow the newly elected president Franklin Roosevelt who was in the midst of waging a war on both Wall Street, the City of London and the chaos these financiers engineered during the great depression. Butler’s congressional testimony put the spotlight on these shadow creatures and gave FDR the breathing space and public supported needed to wage war on America’s deep state while pushing a bold healing of the nation under the New Deal.
That article was followed by a sequel on April 3 entitled Standing on the Precipice of Martial Law which featured the story of John F Kennedy’s battles with the London-directed Deep State and Military Industrial Complex in depth and also how JFK worked closely with the film maker John Frankenheimer to expose these intrigues to the American people by turning the book 7 Days in May into a film (unfortunately released only after other means were found to depose of the president). That article also dealt with the various PNAC-affiliated “planning scenarios” run over a year before September 11, 2001 which established the groundwork for a new type of Coup d’état within America with Cheney’s Continuity of Government protocols, the vast expansion of biowarfare infrastructure under the Bio-Shield Act, regime change wars abroad and police state measures within America itself.
The Trump Factor
After years of ongoing deep state penetration of the USA since JFK’s murder, a surprising nationalist dark horse president found himself in the Oval Office in the form of Donald Trump and just two months away from the 2020 elections, the threat of a new Military Coup organized by international financiers is as high as ever.
In his Labor Day press conference, Trump, who has distinguished himself as the first president since Eisenhower to call out the “military industrial complex” threw down the gauntlet saying:
“Biden … sent our youth off to fight in these crazy endless wars. It’s one of the reasons the military— I’m not saying the military is in love with me; the soldiers are. The top people in the Pentagon probably aren’t because they want to do nothing but fight wars so that all of those wonderful companies that make the bombs and make the planes and make everything else stay happy. But we’re getting out of the endless wars…. And I said, ‘That’s good. Let’s bring our soldiers back home. Some people don’t like to come home. Some people like to continue to spend money.’ One cold-hearted globalist betrayal after another, and that’s what it was.”
This statement should be taken both as a rallying call for patriots to use what is possibly their last chance to save the collapsing republic and avoiding world war three.
On September 5, Colonel Richard Black (Former State Senator and Judge Advocate) delivered a presentation at a Schiller Institute seminar where the colonel warned of the interconnected pattern of statements by former high ranking military officials either openly calling for a military coup (Lt. Colonels Paul Yingling and John Nagl on August 11) or celebrating the anarchist mobs threatening to tear the republic apart. To the latter group, Col. Black named former Defense Secretary James Mattis, Colin Powell, and Col. John Allen who have all questioned the authority of the President and touted their belief that Trump would not leave the White House willingly in January 2021. The actual source for those concerns didn’t come from any actual evidence obtained from reality however, but in fact arose out of “November chaos scenario war games” advanced by Soros/Clinton/Neocon-affiliated think tanks like the Transition Integrity Project which ran Event 201-like “fictional” scenario “war games”.
In one of the June TIP scenarios, Trump wins the popular November vote by a landslide, but due to the slow influx of mail-in ballots, it is soon revealed that Biden is the winner, whereby Trump supposedly locks the doors of the White House refusing to leave. In the TIP “game”, Biden was played by none other than John Podesta. These scenarios were again replayed more recently by a DNC-connected outfit named Hawkfish funded by Michael Bloomberg which was covered on Axios running a more detailed version of this computer model called “Red Mirage”.
Warning of a military coup, Col. Black stated:
“The coordinated release of scathing remarks by senior officials coupled with publication of a letter advocating a military coup suggests a deep sickness within the Pentagon and within our constitutional structure.”
As RT reported, between 2008-2018, 380 high ranking pentagon officials have been hired by defense contractors including 25 generals, 9 admirals, 43 Lieutenant Generals and 23 Vice Admirals… which provides just one sampling of the potential for treachery prevalent within the sick constitutional structure.
Other Soros-affiliated operations have sprung forth on multiple fronts to ensure maximum instability leading up to the elections. Beyond the obvious anarchy operations within the streets of America itself, a Canadian-based Soros-funded anarchist group called the Adbusters/Blackspot Collective which claims credit for coordinating Occupy Wall Street in 2010 has unleashed a 60-day “Lay Siege to the White House” offensive beginning on September 17. The British-Canadian pedigree of this act represents a long-standing tradition of anti-U.S. operations stretching back to the Aaron Burr plot of “northern secession” with Canada in 1804, the Montreal-directed assassinations of Abraham Lincoln AND John Kennedy to name but a few.
As Whitney Webb pointed out in her excellent assessment of this operation:
“other known members of the TIP include David Frum (the Atlantic), William Kristol (Project for a New American Century, The Bulwark), Max Boot (the Washington Post), Donna Brazile (ex-DNC), John Podesta (former campaign manager – Clinton 2016), Chuck Hagel (former Secretary of Defense), Reed Galen (co-founder of the Lincoln Project) and Norm Ornstein (American Enterprise Institute).”
As Webb lays out in her article and as I documented in my April 2020 ‘Standing on the Precipice of Martial Law’, the new “Continuity of Government” protocols created in February to deal with the inevitable breakdown of America’s governing mechanisms under COVID pandemonium are very much still in effect. A parallel chain of command under jarhead war hawk General Terrance O’Shaughnessy (head of both NORTHCOM and NORAD) has been established and members of that parallel government await the moment to come forth in bunkers 650 meters under a mountain in Cheyenne, Colorado to “wait out the COVID-19 crisis”.
Traitors tied to the Military Industrial Complex, and other NATO-phile unipolarist ideologues among the military are undoubtedly itching for action, and unless extraordinarily creative and speedy maneuvers can be accomplished by Trump and his trusted allies (who number few and far between) in tandem with his potential allies among the Multipolar Alliance, then all hope for the republic, and global war avoidance more broadly may be lost.
- China Plans To Protect TikTok "At All Cost" Against "Mafia-Style Robbery" & US Threat To National Security
China Plans To Protect TikTok "At All Cost" Against "Mafia-Style Robbery" & US Threat To National Security
Tyler Durden
Sat, 09/26/2020 – 23:15It was a week ago that Beijing made clear it won’t be signing off on the messy and mired in confusion proposed Oracle-TikTok deal, citing that it would harm its “national security interests,” which is exactly the same reason given by Trump for trying to shut TikTok down in the first place.
China’s state-run Global Times is out with a new editorial Saturday indicating that Beijing will stick to protecting TikTok “at all costs”. The theme of “compromised” national security is still being presented as the crux of the matter.
“China is prepared to prevent Chinese firm TikTok and its advanced technologies from falling into US hands at all cost,” Global Times introduces.
Getty Images This even if that should mean the hugely popular app “risks being shut down in the US, because allowing the US to seize the firm and its technology will not only set a dangerous precedent for other Chinese firms, but also pose a direct threat to China’s national security, Chinese experts said on Saturday, a day ahead of a court battle in the US over a ban of the app.”
Again, interestingly this seems to be the mirror image argument the Trump administration has harped on for much of the past year, especially on Huawei. GT’s argument continues:
More importantly, for Beijing, the case goes way beyond just a mafia-style robbery of a lucrative Chinese business and cutting-edge technologies, but a threat to its national security, because the US could find loopholes in those technologies to launch cyber and other attacks on China and other countries to preserve its hegemony, the experts added.
Voicing the communist government’s rationale further, GT cites an expert at the China Electronics Standardization Institute Liu Chang, who says “What the US wants, we definitely cannot give.”
Stop extorting. You think TikTok is a company from a small country? There’s no way the Chinese government will accept your demand. You can ruin TikTok’s US business, if US users do not object, but you can’t rob it and turn it into a US baby. pic.twitter.com/Jskn9PjIFU
— Hu Xijin 胡锡进 (@HuXijin_GT) September 22, 2020
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“From the perspective of both the company and the Chinese government, this cannot be allowed to happen,” he said.
- Which Of These Poses The Greater Threat To The Country?
Which Of These Poses The Greater Threat To The Country?
Tyler Durden
Sat, 09/26/2020 – 22:45“The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness.”
– Joseph Conrad
Here’s your political puzzler for the day: Which of these two things poses a greater threat to the country:
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An incompetent and boastful president who has no previous government experience and who is rash and impulsive in his dealings with the media, foreign leaders and his critics?
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Or a political party that collaborates with senior-level officials in the Intel agencies, the FBI, the DOJ, the media, and former members of the White House to spy on the new administration with the intention of gathering damaging information that can be used to overthrow the elected government?
The answer is “2”, the greater threat to the country is a political party that engages in subversive activity aimed at toppling the government and seizing power. In fact, that’s the greatest danger that any country can face, an enemy from within. Foreign adversaries can be countered by diplomatic engagement and shoring up the nation’s military defenses, but traitors–who conduct their activities below the radar using a secret network of contacts and connections to inflict maximum damage on the government– are nearly unstoppable.
What the Russiagate investigation shows, is that high-ranking members of the Democrat party participated in the type of activities that are described above, they were part of an illicit coup d’etat aimed at removing Donald Trump from office and rolling back the results of the 2016 elections. It is a vast understatement to say that the operation was merely an attack on Donald Trump when, in fact, it was an attack on the system itself, a full-blown assault on the right of ordinary people to choose their own leaders. That’s what Russiagate is really all about; it was an attempt to torpedo democracy by invoking the flimsy and unverifiable claim that Trump was an agent of the Kremlin.
None of this, of course, has been discussed in a public forum because those platforms are all privately-owned media that are linked to the people who executed the junta. But for those who followed events closely, and who know what actually happened, there has never been a more serious crime in American history. What we discovered was that the permanent bureaucracy, the media and the Democrat party are riddled with strategically-placed quislings and collaborators that are willing to sabotage their own government if they are so directed. The question that immediately comes to mind is this: Who concocted this plot, who authorized the electronic eavesdropping, the confidential informants, the widespread spying, the improperly obtained warrants, the fake news, and the endless leaks to the media? Who?
What we witnessed was not just an attempted coup, it was a window into the inner-workings of a secret government operating independently from within the state. And the sedition was not confined to a few posts at the senior levels of the FBI, CIA, NSA, or DOJ. No. The corruption has saturated the entire structure, seeping down to the lower levels where career bureaucrats eagerly perform tasks that are designed to damage or incriminate elected officials. How did it ever get this bad?
And who is calling the shots? We still don’t know.
Let me pose a theory: The operation might have been concocted by former CIA-Director John Brennan, but Brennan surely is not the prime instigator, nor is Clapper, Comey or even Obama. The real person or persons who initiated the coup will likely never be known. These are the Big Money guys who operate in the shadows and who have a stranglehold on the Intelligence agencies. These are the gilded Mandarins who have their tentacles wrapped firmly around the entire state-power apparatus and who dictate policy from their leather-bound chairs at their high-end men’s clubs. These are the people who decided that Donald Trump “had to go” whatever the cost. They pulled out all the stops, engaged their assets across the bureaucracy, and launched a desperate 3 and half year-long regime change operation that blew up in their faces leaving behind a trail carnage from Washington, DC to Sydney, Australia. In contrast, Trump somehow slipped the noose and escaped largely unscathed. He was pummeled mercilessly in the media, disparaged by his political rivals, and raked over the coals by the chattering classes, but — at the end of the day– it was Trump who was left standing.. Trump– who took on the entire political establishment, the Intel agencies, the FBI, the mainstream media, and the Democratic party– had beaten them all at their own game. Go figure??
Keep in mind, the Democrats have known that the Mueller probe was a fraud from as early as 2017 when the President of Crowdstrike, Shawn Henry, (who provided cyber security for the DNC) admitted to Congress that there was no forensic evidence that the DNC emails had been hacked by Russia or anyone else.
Think about that for a minute: The entire Mueller investigation was based on the assumption that Russia hacked into the DNC servers and stole the emails. We now know that never happened. The cyber-security team that conducted the investigation of the DNC computers admitted in sworn testimony before Congress that there was no evidence of “exfiltration” or pilfering of any kind. Repeat: There was no proof of hacking, no proof of Russian involvement, and no proof of foul play. The entire foundation upon which the Russia investigation was built, turned out to be false. More importantly, Democrat members of the Intelligence Committee knew it was false from the get-go, but opted to let the charade continue anyway. Why?
Because the truth didn’t matter, what mattered was getting rid of Trump by any means necessary. That’s why they used “opposition research” (Note– “Oppo” research is the hyperbolic nonsense political parties use to smear a political opponent.) to illegally obtain warrants to spy on members of the Trump team. It’s because the Democrat leadership will do anything to regain power.
By the way, we also have evidence that the warrants that were used to spy on Trump were obtained illegally. The FISA court was deliberately misled so the FBI could carry out its vendetta on Trump. Former FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith “did willfully and knowingly make and use a false writing and document, knowing the same to contain a materially false, fictitious, and fraudulent statement and entry in a matter before the jurisdiction of the executive branch and judicial branch of the Government of the United States.” Bottom line: Clinesmith deliberately altered emails so that FISA applications could be renewed and the spying on the Trump campaign could continue.
So, let’s summarize:
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The Democrats knew there was no proof the emails were stolen; thus, they knew the Russia probe was a hoax.
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The Democrats knew that their fraudulent “opposition research” was being used to illegally obtain warrants to spy on the Trump camp. This makes them accessory to a crime.
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Finally, the Democrats continue to spread (virtually) the same Russia-Trump collusion allegations today that they did before the Mueller investigation released its report. The lies and disinformation have persisted as if the “nation’s most expensive and exhaustive investigation” had never taken place. What does this tell us about the Democrats?
On a superficial level, it tells us that they can’t be trusted because they don’t tell the truth. But on a deeper level, it expresses the party’s Ruling Doctrine, which is to control the public by means of deceit, disinformation, propaganda and lies. Only the powerful and well-connected are entitled to know the truth, everyone else must be subjected to fabrications that are crafted in a way that best coincides with the overall objectives of ruling elites. That’s why the Democrats stick with the shopworn mantra that Trump is in bed with Russia. It doesn’t matter that the theory has been thoroughly discredited and disproved. It doesn’t even matter that the theory was never the slightest bit believable to begin with. What matters is that party leaders are preventing ordinary people from knowing the truth, which is an essential part of their governing doctrine. It’s surprising that this doesn’t piss-off more Democrats, after all, it’s the ultimate expression of contempt and condescension. When someone lies to your face relentlessly, repeatedly and shamelessly, they are expressing their loathing for you. Can’t they see that?
But maybe you think this is overstating the case? Maybe you think the Dems are just trying to “cover their backside” on a matter that is purely political?
Okay, but answer this: Were the Democrats involved in a plot to overthrow the President of the United States?
Yes, they were.
Is that treason?
Yes, it is.
Then, are we really prepared to say that treason is “purely political”?
No, especially since Russiagate was not a one-off, but just the first shocking example of how the Democrats operate. If we examine the Dems approach to the Covid-19 crisis, we see that their policy is actually more destructive than the 4-year Russia fiasco.
For example, which party has imposed the most brutal, economy-eviscerating lockdowns and the most punitive mask mandates, while steadily ratcheting up the fearmongering at every opportunity? Which states suffered the most catastrophic economic damage due in large part to the edicts issued by their Democrat governors? Which party is using a public health emergency to advance the global “Reset” agenda announced at the World Economic Forum (WEF)? Which party is using the Covid-19 fraud to crash the economy, eliminate 40 million jobs, roll-back basic civil liberties and turn the United States into a NWO slave-state ruled by Wall Street bankers, Silicon Valley technocrats and Davos elites? Which party?
And which party has aligned itself with Black Lives Matter, the faux-social justice organization that is funded by foreign oligarchs that are working tirelessly to crush the emerging populist movement that supports “America First” ideals? Which party applauded while American cities burned and small businesses across the country were looted and razed by masses of hooligans engaged in an orgy of destruction? Which party’s mayors and governors rejected federal assistance to put down the riots and reestablish order so ordinary people could get back to work to provide for themselves and their families? And which party now is threatening widespread social unrest and anarchy if the upcoming presidential election does not produce the result that they or their globalist puppet-masters seek?
The Democrat party has undergone a sea-change in the last four years. There’s no trace of the party that was once headed by progressive-thinking idealists like John F Kennedy.
What’s left now is a shell of its former self; a cynical, self-aggrandizing, cutthroat organization that has betrayed its base, the American people, and the country. Indeed, for all its many failings, it is the ‘betrayal’ that is the most infuriating.
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- In The Midst Of A Pandemic, Blanketed In Wildfire Smoke, The City Of Berkeley Is Focused On Banning Candy Bars
In The Midst Of A Pandemic, Blanketed In Wildfire Smoke, The City Of Berkeley Is Focused On Banning Candy Bars
Tyler Durden
Sat, 09/26/2020 – 22:15It doesn’t look like California is going to get the message that there’s such a thing as “too much government” anytime soon – so, if you were holding out hope, this might just be the time to give up.
While the state continues to struggle giving its citizens basics, like masks to survive the ongoing pandemic and wildfires, legislators have turned their ire to the real important issue: Snickers bars.
Now, Berkeley, California is looking to implement a measure this week that would “prohibit grocery stores bigger than 2,500 square feet from displaying junk food and other unhealthy items in checkout aisles,” according to CBS.
The ordinance would apply to 25 retailers in Berkeley including major names like CVS, Safeway and Whole Foods. Retailers will be allowed to sell chips and candy bars elsewhere in their stores. Oh thank you, sweet government Gods, for allowing us to continue to purchase potato chips.
The Center for Science in the Public Interest called the ordinance the nation’s “first healthy checkout policy.”
CSPI senior policy associate Ashley Hickson said: “This is a massive win for consumers,” (we’ll pause for laughter) “and public health during the COVID-19 pandemic, when grocery stores are more integral to our well-being than ever before. By offering healthier options at checkout, stores will contribute to advancing public health and level the playing field for consumers during an already stressful time.”
Kate Harrison, a council member who co-authored the ordinance, said: “It’s not a ban, it’s a nudge.” Actually, Kate, you’re the nudge.
And when we see the inevitable article in 12 months that Berkeley is baffled by why the city isn’t attracting small businesses anymore, we’ll be able to point right back to these types of burdensome regulations. The only problem, of course, is that there’s very small chance legislators in California, convinced they need to save the world from itself, will even realize the fault of their actions.
They certainly haven’t so far. How long until everything but bread and water is banned?
- Chaotic Scene Unfolds As Car Plows Through Trump Supporters In California, Multiple Injuries Reported; Driver Arrested
Chaotic Scene Unfolds As Car Plows Through Trump Supporters In California, Multiple Injuries Reported; Driver Arrested
Tyler Durden
Sat, 09/26/2020 – 21:45Several people were injured on Saturday after a car plowed through a group of Trump supporters who were counter-protesting a Black Lives Matter rally in Yorba Linda, California.
The driver raced down the street as people carrying Thin Blue Line and American flags chased her, only to be faced with a line of police cars. She then continued down the wrong side of the road for a stretch before being stopped and taken into custody.
A woman is taken into custody after witnesses said she drove her car into a crowd of protesters in Yorba Linda on Saturday, September 26, 2020. (Photo by Mindy Schauer, Orange County Register/SCNG) At least two injuries were reported with one being taken away by an ambulance.
Moment of arrest pic.twitter.com/HtJyq1E7Y6
— Conservative South Africa (@Conservative_ZA) September 27, 2020
Different angle:
Someone ran their car through a crowd of Trump supporters. OC Sheriffs took the person into custody. Ambulances were dispatched, but I don’t have information on injuries pic.twitter.com/EAWBSXS8R1
— Border Photog #blm (@desertborder) September 26, 2020
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According to the OC Register, the BLM march took place on Imperial Highway – while counter-protesters gathered on the other side. The conservative group crossed over to the BLM protesters to confront them when the white sedan ‘came tearing through the crowd.’
A car just drove through a crowd. The crowd then chased after the white sedan. This person was hurt. pic.twitter.com/0iAhWkcRnu
— Brian Rokos (@Brian_Rokos) September 26, 2020
- Top NASA Official Unveils $28 Billion Plan To Land First Woman On Moon
Top NASA Official Unveils $28 Billion Plan To Land First Woman On Moon
Tyler Durden
Sat, 09/26/2020 – 21:15The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has unveiled a $28 billion program to send the first woman to the moon in 2024 as part of its Artemis program.
NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine released a statement Monday (Sept. 21), announcing the new mission to put a human back on the lunar surface would be the first time since 1972.
Bridenstine said, “with bipartisan support from Congress, our 21st-century push to the Moon is well within America’s reach.”
“As we’ve solidified more of our exploration plans in recent months, we’ve continued to refine our budget and architecture. We’re going back to the moon for scientific discovery, economic benefits, and inspiration for a new generation of explorers,” he said.
The #Artemis program is well underway! Learn more about @NASA’s lunar exploration plans including how we will land the first woman and the next man on the Moon in 2024: https://t.co/mj1GwwV61S
— Jim Bridenstine (@JimBridenstine) September 21, 2020
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Bridenstine added that “a sustainable presence” on the moon will eventually pave the way for astronauts to take their “first steps on the Red Planet,” referring to NASA’s future mission to Mars.
NASA’s lunar missions are part of its Artemis plan, including the first mission – known as Artemis I – will launch the Space Launch System (SLS) and the Orion spacecraft around the moon for a series of tests this fall to check performance, life support, and communication capabilities. Astronauts will be apart of the Artemis II mission in 2023. Artemis III allows the first woman and the next man back onto the lunar surface in 2024.
“In 2024, Artemis III will be humanity’s return to the surface of the moon – landing the first astronauts on the lunar South Pole. After launching on SLS, astronauts will travel about 240,000 miles to lunar orbit aboard Orion, at which point they will directly board one of the new commercial human landing systems, or dock to the Gateway to inspect it and gather supplies before boarding the landing system for their expedition to the surface,” NASA’s statement read.
President Trump signed Space Policy Directive 1 in 2017, which allows NASA to integrate private companies into its space program to return humans to the moon, followed by missions to Mars and beyond.
And for hints of why NASA wants to return to the moon. Bridenstine, last week, called for a “lunar gold rush” by paying private companies to extract rare earth metals from the moon.
The Artemis missions appear to pave the way for America to tap into hundreds of billions, if not trillions, of dollars of untapped resources of the moon , including fifteen lanthanides, as well as scandium and yttrium – used in modern electronics. There’s also an abundance of Helium-3, a very rare gas, with the potential to fuel clean nuclear fusion power plants. This infographic from 911Metallurgist.com explains why NASA wants to harvest the moon’s resources:
“Across history, human development has relied upon the finite resources available on Earth. But the moon – a seemingly barren rock – may actually be a treasure trove of rare resources vital to Earth’s future. And now, nations are looking upwards to a potential lunar gold rush,” 911Metallurgist.com states in the infographic’s intro.
NASA’s next step in exploring and commercializing the solar system starts with landing the first woman on the moon in 2024.
- Trump Unveils "Platinum Plan" For Black Americans, Designates Antifa, KKK As "Terrorist Organizations"
Trump Unveils "Platinum Plan" For Black Americans, Designates Antifa, KKK As "Terrorist Organizations"
Tyler Durden
Sat, 09/26/2020 – 21:15President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign released a “Platinum Plan” that outlines promises he is making to black Americans over the next 4 years, if he remains the U.S. president.
As The Epoch Times’ Mimi Nguyen Ly details below, the plan seeks to uplift black communities through, in part, an investment of about $500 billion.
The Trump campaign announced late Friday:
“After years of neglect by Democrat politicians, black Americans have finally found a true advocate in President Trump, who is working tirelessly to deliver greater opportunity, security, prosperity, and fairness to their communities.
“While Joe Biden takes black voters for granted—and even questions their blackness if they dare to support conservative ideals—President Trump is working hard to earn the black vote through his Platinum Plan.”
The president’s daughter, Senior White House Adviser Ivanka Trump posted details of the plan on Twitter late Friday.
The “Platinum Plan” (pdf) is based on four core values – opportunity, security, prosperity, and fairness.
The plan seeks to add some 3 million new jobs for the black community, create 500,000 new black-owned businesses, and increase access to capital in black communities by almost $500 billion.
Part of the plan includes bringing back manufacturing jobs to the United States to advance jobs and business, and having an immigration policy that protects American jobs. It also calls to “increase activity in opportunity zones including benefits for local hires.”
Trump is also promising access to better education and job training opportunities, and will work to “advance home ownership opportunities and enhance financial literacy in the black community,” according to the plan.
People listen while President Donald Trump speaks during an event for black supporters at the Cobb Galleria Centre in Atlanta, Georgia, on Sept. 25, 2020. (Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images)
Over the next 4 years, Trump promises to lower the cost of healthcare, and “bring better and tailored healthcare to address historic disparities” for the black community. The president will also ensure that black churches can compete for federal resources, and “defend religious freedom exemptions to respect religious believers and always protect life.”
The president also seeks to further criminal justice reform, with his plan saying that he will “commit to working on a Second Step Act.” He will also work towards “safe urban neighborhoods with highest policing standards,” the plan states.
Other aspects of the plan includes making Juneteenth a National Holiday, prosecuting the KKK, designating Antifa a terrorist organization, and making lynching a national hate crime.
Trump’s move to designate Antifa as a terrorist organization came after FBI Director Christopher Wray told Congress that those who engaged in recent violent protests are targets of serious FBI investigations.
“We have seen Antifa adherence coalescing and working together in what I would describe as small groups and nodes,” Wray has said. Wray added that the bureau is conducting multiple investigations “into some anarchist violent extremists, some of whom operate through these nodes.”
Before that, Attorney General William Barr in August said Antifa is a “revolutionary group” that is bent on establishing communism or socialism in the United States.
“They are a revolutionary group that is interested in some form of socialism, communism. They’re essentially Bolsheviks. Their tactics are fascistic,” Barr said in an interview with Fox News on Aug. 9.
At a “Black Voices for Trump” campaign rally in Atlanta, Georgia, Trump characterized his Platinum Plan as a “black empowerment plan,” and warned black voters against supporting his opponent, former Vice President Joe Biden.
“Though black Americans have traditionally been shut out of opportunities to grow our own businesses and create generational wealth, President Trump is working hard to give us access to the American Dream,” K. Carl Smith, Black Voices for Trump advisory board member, said in a statement.
“President Trump is a businessman and understands that pride, community, and dedication are built through entrepreneurship.”
President Donald Trump elbow bumps with Herschel Walker during a campaign rally in Atlanta, Georgia, on Sept. 25, 2020. (John Bazemore/AP Photo)
“No one in Washington politics today has done more to hurt black Americans than Joe Biden,” Trump told supporters on Friday. “For half a century, Joe’s personally advocated or enacted virtually every policy that has caused pain and suffering in the black community. You know that.”
In a statement prior to Trump’s rally in Georgia, Biden said, “As president, I will work to advance racial equity across the American economy and build back better … I promise to fight for black working families and direct real investments to advance racial equity as part of our nation’s economic recovery.”
- Prof Compares Black Americans Supporting Trump To Jews Supporting Hitler
Prof Compares Black Americans Supporting Trump To Jews Supporting Hitler
Tyler Durden
Sat, 09/26/2020 – 20:45Authored by Ben Zeisloft via Campus Reform,
Northwestern University journalism professor Stephan Garnett referred to African-American speakers at the Republican National Convention as “a grand display of buffoonery.” In an exclusive interview with Campus Reform, Garnett doubled down, comparing Black Americans who support Trump to Jews supporting Hitler.
In an op-ed for MaxNewsToday titled “Black RNC Speakers Don’t Represent Us,” Garnett denounced Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Ben Carson, Sen. Tim Scott, former NFL star Herschel Walker, and other prominent Black conservatives for declaring, “Donald Trump is not a racist.”
“What a grand display of buffoonery, almost as entertaining as a minstrel show,” said Garnett.
“In fact, as far as the majority of African-Americans are concerned, it was a minstrel show.”
Garnett also said that “as for those Black ‘patriots’ who spoke so rapturously about [Trump] at the RNC, we in the Black community have an age-old, down-home term for them. And it ain’t pretty.” Garnett called Trump’s lack of racism a “fiction” and called Black swing voters who are considering Trump “too dumb to see racism even when it runs up and socks ’em in the jaw.”
Black RNC speakers attempted to challenge the narrative that the U.S. is a fundamentally racist nation.
Scott, a Republican from South Carolina, explained at the RNC that his mother worked 16 hours per day to provide for him and his brother. He described his efforts to succeed in his career and rise above poverty.
“Because of the evolution of the heart, in an overwhelmingly White district… the voters judged me on the content of my character, not the color of my skin,” said Scott. “Our family went from Cotton to Congress in one lifetime. And that’s why I believe the next American century can be better than the last.”
Polls indicated that the RNC led to a nine-point increase in Trump’s approval rating among registered Black voters.
During an interview with Campus Reform, Garnett doubled down on his op-ed, saying he has “zero respect” for African Americans who support Trump. After acknowledging that African Americans have the right to support the candidate of their choice, Garnett said, “Donald Trump does not support the interests of African Americans.”
Garnett said he “does not want to hear” the argument that the economy is better for African Americans under Trump, because Trump “inherited” a good economy from former President Barack Obama and since “he can no longer make that claim” due to the coronavirus pandemic.”
“If you are a Black American and you support Donald Trump, I have an issue…”Garnett said.
Twice, Garnett compared the idea of Jews supporting Adolf Hitler to the idea of Black Americans supporting Trump.
“You do not support someone who works against your interests. And Donald Trump is not supportive of the interests of African Americans,” he said,” adding that Trump “has proven time and time again through his actions and through his word that he is racist.”
Asked whether he believes the “threat” posed to Black Americans by Trump rises to the same level as the threat to Jews posed by Hitler during the Holocaust, Garnett responded, simply, “Yes.”
“I think Donald Trump, beyond the shadow of a doubt, the most dangerous man in America at this moment,” he added.
- Landlords Avoid Confrontation With 'Uber Of Evictions'
Landlords Avoid Confrontation With 'Uber Of Evictions'
Tyler Durden
Sat, 09/26/2020 – 20:15“Unemployment is at a record high and many cannot or simply are not paying rent and mortgages… “We are being contracted by frustrated property owners and banks to secure foreclosed residential properties.” –Civvl
A new startup company called Civvl is placing Craigslist ads across the country for gig workers to evict those who have fallen behind on rent during the pandemic, who can earn “up to 125/hour” for their services.
“Be hired as an eviction crew,” reads another ad.
As Vice reports:
During a time of great economic and general hardship, Civvl aims to be, essentially, Uber, but for evicting people. Seizing on a pandemic-driven nosedive in employment and huge uptick in number-of-people-who-can’t-pay-their-rent, Civvl aims to make it easy for landlords to hire process servers and eviction agents as gig workers.
“It’s fucked up that there will be struggling working-class people who will be drawn to gigs like furniture-hauling or process-serving for a company like Civvl, evicting fellow working-class people from their homes so they themselves can make rent,” Chicago-based paralegal and housing activist, Helena Duncan, told Vice.
Civvl uses catchy gig economy language such as “be your own boss,” and “flexible hours!” or “Looking for self-motivated individuals with positive attitudes.”
“FASTEST GROWING MONEY MAKING GIG DUE TO COVID-19,” their website read. “Literally thousands of process servers are needed in the coming months due courts being backed up in judgements that needs to be served to defendants.”
The website also featured a quote, attributed to The New York Times: “Too many people stopped paying rent and mortgages thinking they would not be evicted.” A search reveals this phrase hasn’t appeared in the Times. The company did not respond to requests for comment or a source for this quote, but the mention of the Times has since disappeared from its website. –Vice
Civvl is connected to another gig economy company, OnQall – an app which describes itself as providing “on-demand task services to non-urban communities beyond main city areas.” The company is heavy on using celebrities of various grades to promote their platform.
To put the business of OnQall more simply, Ice-T said in an apparent Cameo video, “It’s basically Uber, for side hustle jobs. You dig it?” Ice-T’s representative did not respond to a request for comment. Another vertically-shot selfie video from Omarosa Manigault Newman, offers generic words of congratulations to OnQall’s CEO, Paul Francis, on his app.
“Mrs Newman is NOT associated with Civvl,” A spokesperson for Omarosa told VICE. “That video is certainly a cameo and should be credited as such.” –Vice
Read the rest of the report here.
- John Legend Threatens To 'Leave Country' If Trump Reelected – After Buying $17.5 Million LA Mansion This Month
John Legend Threatens To 'Leave Country' If Trump Reelected – After Buying $17.5 Million LA Mansion This Month
Tyler Durden
Sat, 09/26/2020 – 19:55Singer John Legend (real name John Roger Stephens) says that Americans might “have to start thinking about going somewhere else” if President Trump is reelected.
Legend joins a long tradition of Hollywood liberals who vow to leave the country over President Trump but then don’t.
“At some point, if that project [to destroy democracy] was to be in any way successful, you’d have to think about going somewhere that is a true democracy, that has respect for the rule of law and human rights,” Legend virtue signaled in an interview this week with Cosmopolitan UK.
“If America chooses to be that place then people will have to start thinking about going somewhere else. It is truly disturbing and concerning,” he added.
“We were born and raised here, all of our families are here. It would be hard to leave. But I don’t know what one’s supposed to do when you have a leader who is trying to destroy democracy,” Legend added.
Legend, 41, performed at the Democratic National Convention and is a huge Biden supporter – while Trump has referred to the performer as “boring,” and referred to his wife Chrissy Teigen as “filthy-mouthed.”
Teigen deleted 60,000 tweets earlier this year after coming under fire for sexualizing children.
When will you explain these tweets @chrissyteigen ? Cc: @DOJPH pic.twitter.com/xzH5HwA3Uu
— 47™️ (@fadde) July 14, 2020
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That said, Legend’s obvious virtue signal would be slightly more believable if he and Teigen hadn’t just bought a $17.5 million mansion in Beverly Hills.
Yeah, I’m gonna call bullshit pic.twitter.com/8Nr8GpfOeA
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) September 25, 2020
- Outrage Grows Over Pentagon Funneling $1BN In COVID Relief To Defense Contractor Wish Lists
Outrage Grows Over Pentagon Funneling $1BN In COVID Relief To Defense Contractor Wish Lists
Tyler Durden
Sat, 09/26/2020 – 19:45Authored by Jessica Corbett via CommonDreams.org,
A coalition of 40 ideologically diverse organizations on Thursday demanded that federal lawmakers investigate allegations from earlier this week that the Pentagon misused much of $1 billion in congressionally appropriated Covid-19 relief funding for what one critic called “a colossal backdoor bailout for the defense industry.”
The groups’ call came in a letter (pdf) addressed to Reps. James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.) Steve Scalise (R-La.), leaders of the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis. The push for a probe was prompted by Washington Post reporting that some tax dollars directed to the Defense Department in March for building up U.S. supplies of medical equipment have “instead been mostly funneled to defense contractors and used to make things such as jet engine parts, body armor, and dress uniforms.”
Getty Images In addition to a probe, the National Taxpayers Union, the Project On Government Oversight (POGO), Win Without War, and 37 other groups urged Clyburn and Scalise to determine whether Congress should pass a bill suspending the Pentagon’s spending authority for the funds, arguing that the department’s decision-making “violates congressional intent at minimum, and represents a significant breach of trust with the taxpayers who fund the military’s budget and its emergency spending.”
Win Without War advocacy director Erica Fein said in a statement that “this gross misuse of Covid-19 relief funds provides yet another example of the Pentagon’s wasteful, unaccountable spending, which puts the corporate profits of the weapons industry over the lives and well-being of everyday people.”
“This scandal should be a wake-up call,” she added. “The greatest threats to human security cannot be addressed by funneling money into weapons of war. We must resist the corrupting influence of the military contracting industry, stop pouring our resources into the bloated, unaccountable Pentagon coffers, and instead invest in meeting our country’s, and the world’s, real human needs.”
The United States continued to lead the world in Covid-19 cases and deaths Friday afternoon. There have been more than seven million confirmed infections and over 203,000 deaths nationwide, according to Johns Hopkins University’s global tracker. President Donald Trump’s administration and Congress have come under fire for inadequately responding to the public health crisis.
The Pentagon gave more than $1,000,000,000 of pandemic-related aid to military contractors for body armor and jet engines.
We’re joining 40 orgs, along with @SenWarren and @RepRoKhanna, in demanding answers as to how on earth this was allowed to happen.https://t.co/5BBKloPssH
— Public Citizen (@Public_Citizen) September 25, 2020
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As the letter the highlights, the Post reported that the Defense Department—which is run by former Raytheon lobbyist Mark Esper—gave at least $183 million to contractors “to maintain the shipbuilding industry” and $80 million to an “aircraft parts business suffering from the Boeing 737 Max grounding.”
Additionally, the Pentagon gave $25 million to a firm that also “received between $5 million and $10 million” from the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP); $3 million to a firm that also received between $150,000 and $350,000 from the PPP; and “$2 million for a domestic manufacturer of Army dress uniform fabric.”
Chief Pentagon spokesperson Jonathan Hoffman issued a lengthy statement Wednesday defending the spending and criticizing the Post piece. He said in part, “As indicated by recent reporting, there appears to be a misunderstanding by some about what the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (“CARES Act”) did and did not do with respect to the Department of Defense.”
Hoffman added that the department has been “wholly transparent” in its decisions about the relief funds and claimed that “much of [the] useful context” it provided to the newspaper was “left out of the story leading some to misconstrue the expenditures when in fact they are wholly appropriate as directed by Congress.”
Although the Post acknowleged that Pentagon officials “contend that they have sought to strike a balance between boosting American medical production and supporting the defense industry, whose health they consider critical to national security,” critics at the groups behind the letter aren’t buying that argument.
“It’s unconscionable that the department would prioritize defense contractor wish lists over the health and safety of the American people,” declared Mandy Smithberger, director of POGO’s Center for Defense Information.
DOD has issued statements on stories before, but this is a different level: On @washingtonpost story on #CARESAct funds for defense base. WaPo story was accurate — but created sense something was hidden when DOD (& media & Congress) had it in full view. https://t.co/aDcpbwOIpP pic.twitter.com/A1GdntT9D8
— Tara Copp (@TaraCopp) September 23, 2020
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Arguing that Congress was clear it wanted the Pentagon to use its powers to address ongoing shortages of personal protective equipment (PPE), Smithberger said “the American people deserve better judgment from the agency entrusted with leading our national security and responses to unanticipated threats.”
Other signatories include Beyond the Bomb, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), Demand Progress, Greenpeace USA, Indivisible, the National Priorities Project at the Institute for Policy Studies, Peace Action, Physicians for Social Responsibility, Public Citizen, and the Union of Concerned Scientists.
On Friday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) requested that the department’s inspector general investigate reports about the Pentagon’s spending, writing that the alleged misuse of funds “meant for the response to the deadly pandemic plaguing our country is inconsistent with the will of Congress and may be illegal.”
That request and the groups’ collective call for a congressional investigation follow a similar letter that a pair of lawmakers sent Tuesday to Clyburn as well as Reps. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) and Adam Smith (D-Wash.). Maloney heads the House Oversight Committee while Smith chairs the chamber’s Armed Services Committee.
Writing as co-chairs of the Defense Spending Reduction Caucus, Reps. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) and Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) condemned the Pentagon’s actions as “unacceptable.” They urged the trio to “review the legality of the Department of Defense’s spending decisions and every possible remedy.”
- New Research Explains Why Children Are Far Less Vulnerable To COVID-19 Than Adults
New Research Explains Why Children Are Far Less Vulnerable To COVID-19 Than Adults
Tyler Durden
Sat, 09/26/2020 – 19:20For months, some scientists dismissed the lack of symptomatic COVID-19 infections in children as perhaps a factor of schools being cancelled before the pandemic entered its worst phases. But new research has emerged to suggest that children’s bodies really do process the virus differently than adults, in a way that makes them less susceptible to its most life-threatening excesses.
In a new study that was reported on by the New York Times yesterday, one reason for children’s relative good fortune is that a branch of their immune system that evolved to protect against unfamiliar pathogens rapidly destroys the coronavirus before the virus can do serious damage to its youthful host.
“The bottom line is, yes, children do respond differently immunologically to this virus, and it seems to be protecting the kids,” said Dr. Betsy Herold, a pediatric infectious disease expert at Albert Einstein College of Medicine who led the study. In adults, the body’s immune response to the virus is “much more muted”.
As the NYT explains, when the body encounters an unfamiliar pathogen, it responds within hours with a flurry of immune activity, called an innate immune response. The body’s defenders are quickly recruited to the fight and begin releasing signals calling for backup. Since children more frequently encounter viruses and other pathogens with which their bodies are unfamiliar, their immune responses are typically a lot harsher than adults’.
Over time, an individual’s immune system encounters so many of these biological invaders, that it builds up a large rolodex of frequent pests, then relies on more complicated systems of fighting off bodily threats. At the same time, this ‘innate response’ fades, leaving adults more susceptible to pathogens that are new to the entire population.
One study examining 60 adults and 65 children and young adults under the age of 24, all of whom were hospitalized at the Montefiore Medical Center in New York City from March 13 to May 17, found that children exhibited severe symptoms much less frequently than even the young adults.
The patients included 20 children with multisystem inflammatory syndrome, the severe and sometimes deadly immune overreaction linked to the coronavirus. Overall, the children were only mildly affected by the virus, compared with adults. The kids mostly reported gastrointestinal symptoms like diarrhea and a loss of taste or smell. Only five children needed mechanical ventilation, compared with 22 of the adults. Only two children died, compared with 17 adults.
To be sure, the coronavirus can be lethal for people of all ages, and there are many risk factors that put people with preexisting health issues at greater risk.
But these differences in immune system function between generations might not be the only reason why kids suffer from COVID-19 in much smaller numbers. Writing in the Blaze, Daniel Horowitz discusses some new research from Europe, which found that 3% of samples of a different coronavirus variety that causes the common cold (between 15% and 30% of colds are thought to be caused by coronaviruses of one type or another) tested positive for COVID-19.
That means a significant number of positive tests from schools and other places children congregate could be false positives. Keep in mind, when a child tests positive, not only are they quarantined for a week, but oftentimes, all children with whom they’ve been in contact – sometimes even their entire class – are also quarantined for 2 weeks.
But as the world’s understanding of the virus improves, maybe societies will learn to allocate resources in a different way that doesn’t place so much emphasis on testing and isolating the least vulnerable.
Scitranslmed.abd5487.Full by Zerohedge on Scribd
- Why Are So Many Asteroids Having Close-Calls With Earth In 2020?
Why Are So Many Asteroids Having Close-Calls With Earth In 2020?
Tyler Durden
Sat, 09/26/2020 – 18:55Authored by Michael Snyder via The End of The American Dream blog,
Have you noticed that it seems like stories about asteroids that are approaching the Earth are constantly in the news this year? It wasn’t always this way. In the old days, maybe there would be a story about an asteroid every once in a while, and those stories were never a big deal. But now asteroids are zipping by our planet with frightening regularity, and several more very notable passes will happen over the next few weeks.
For example, an asteroid that was just discovered on September 18th will come very, very close to the Earth on Thursday. According to NASA, it will actually come closer to our planet than many of our weather satellites…
An asteroid about the size of an RV or small school bus will zoom past the Earth on Thursday, NASA announced, passing within 13,000 miles of the Earth’s surface.
That’s much closer than the moon and is actually closer than some of our weather satellites.
This asteroid will speed by at more than 17,000 mph, but the good news is that it is so small that it would not be a serious threat even if it hit us.
But two other very large asteroids are also going to pass the Earth by the end of this month, and both of them are large enough to do an enormous amount of damage…
Two large asteroids will pass Earth in the next two weeks, with one measuring up to 426 feet in diameter and the other 656 feet—comparable in size to ancient Egypt’s Great Pyramid of Giza, which is 455 feet tall.
The first, smaller asteroid will pass by Earth on September 25 at a distance of 3.6 million miles, according to NASA’s Center for Near Earth Object Studies, which tracks and predicts asteroids and comets that will come close to Earth. The second larger asteroid will fly by on September 29 at a closer distance of 1.78 million miles.
The good news is that neither of them have a chance of hitting us this time around, but the fact that the Earth’s neighborhood has so much “traffic” these days is a major concern.
Any soldier will tell you that if enough bullets get fired at you there is a very good chance that eventually you will get hit.
Let me give you a couple more examples of “near Earth objects” that are headed our way in the near future…
In October, an “unknown object” is expected to enter our gravitational field and become a temporary “mini-moon”…
An object known as 2020 SO is heading towards Earth, and from October, it will be a ‘mini-moon’, which could stay in orbit of our planet until May next year. While we have The Moon, Earth regularly gets many small asteroids and meteors which caught in its orbit, which astronomers call ‘mini-moons’.
And in November, we are being told that a small asteroid will come very close to our planet on the day before the election…
An asteroid is projected to come close to the Earth on November 2, a day before the 2020 U.S. presidential election, the Center for Near Earth Objects Studies (CNEOS) at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory confirmed.
The asteroid known as 2018VP1, first identified at Palomar Observatory in San Diego County, California, has a diameter of 0.002 kilometers (over 6.5 feet), according to the data.
Scientists say that it is not likely that this asteroid will hit us, but they admit that they cannot claim this with 100 percent certainty…
And that’s why the future of 2018 VP₁ is uncertain. It was observed 21 times over 13 days, which allows its orbit to be calculated fairly precisely. We know it takes 2 years (plus or minus 0.001314 years) to go around the Sun. In other words, our uncertainty in the asteroid’s orbital period is about 12 hours either way.
That’s actually pretty good, given how few observations were made – but it means we can’t be certain exactly where the asteroid will be on November 2 this year.
Fortunately, this particular asteroid is also too small to seriously hurt us, and we should be thankful for that.
But the fact that so many space rocks have been headed our way is definitely alarming.
Back in August, an asteroid the size of an SUV came extremely close to hitting our planet. The following comes from NASA…
Near Earth Asteroids, or NEAs, pass by our home planet all the time. But an SUV-size asteroid set the record this past weekend for coming closer to Earth than any other known NEA: It passed 1,830 miles (2,950 kilometers) above the southern Indian Ocean on Sunday, Aug. 16 at 12:08 a.m. EDT (Saturday, Aug. 15 at 9:08 p.m. PDT).
What made that incident so unsettling was the fact that NASA didn’t even see it until it had passed us…
The flyby wasn’t expected and took many by surprise. In fact, the Palomar Observatory didn’t detect the zooming asteroid until about six hours after the object’s closest approach. “The asteroid approached undetected from the direction of the sun,” Paul Chodas, the director of NASA’s Center for Near Earth Object Studies, told Business Insider. “We didn’t see it coming.”
Unfortunately, the truth is that our scientists simply cannot see everything that is up there.
They are doing their best, but everyone agrees that our technology is limited.
But over the last 20 years our technology has definitely improved, and at this point the number of asteroids that our scientists have identified is far greater than it was a couple of decades ago…
The animation maps out all known near-Earth asteroids (NEAs) — space rocks that get within about 30 million miles (50 million kilometers) of our planet’s orbit — from 1999 through January 2018, in roughly 10-year time steps.
The differences are stark. In 1999, identified NEAs speckled the inner solar system thinly, in a light dusting. Many more were discovered by 2009, and Earth’s neighborhood looks absolutely swamped in the present-day portion of the video.
Of course more giant space rocks are being discovered all the time, and unfortunately many of them are not identified until after they have had a close encounter with our planet.
If NASA couldn’t see the asteroid that almost hit us in August in advance, what else can’t they see?
And is it just our imagination that the number of close calls seems to be increasing, or are scientists just getting a whole lot better at detecting them?
At this moment we don’t have all the answers, but we should be thankful that our experts are trying to keep a close watch on the skies because scientists tell us that it is just a matter of time before we are hit by a giant asteroid.
In the movie Deep Impact, such a scenario was called an “extinction level event”.
As I write this article, there are thousands of giant space rocks floating around up there that could cause such a disaster, and NASA is working to catalog them all as rapidly as they can.
- A Visual History Of The Fed's Forward Guidance
A Visual History Of The Fed's Forward Guidance
Tyler Durden
Sat, 09/26/2020 – 18:30Ten years after the Fed had steadfastly followed a monetary policy prescription based on the preachings of the Phillips model, late in August the Fed finally admitted that it had done everything wrong. As Fed vice chair Richard Clarida said when discussing the Fed’s new policy “framework” of Flexible Average Inflation Targeting (or no FAIT), this was “a robust evolution in the Federal Reserve’s policy framework and reflects the reality that econometric models of maximum employment, while essential inputs to monetary policy, can be and have been wrong.”
The immediate implication here is that had the Fed operated under inflation targeting in the 2012-2018 period, the Fed would have never started hiking rates. As Clarida explained “a decision to tighten monetary policy based solely on a model without any other evidence of excessive cost-push pressure that puts the price-stability mandate at risk” – such as what happened the last time the Fed tightened “is difficult to justify, given the significant cost to the economy if the model turns out to be wrong and given the ability of monetary policy to respond if the model were eventually to turn out to be right.” This has been interpreted to mean that the Fed’s tightening cycle of 2015, which some have suggested cost Hillary the election, would never have happened and that the Fed is taking Trump’s presidency quite personally.
But more to the point, it begs the question why should the Fed’s economic takes, views and analyses be taken seriously anymore? After all, if the Fed now admits it was operating under a “wrong” framework, what’s to say that inflation targeting isn’t wrong? Or that propping up stocks for the sake of avoiding collapse while blowing the biggest ever asset bubble isn’t wrong, and so on.
Frankly, we don’t know or care, but now that the Fed is once again in a corner and on the verge of launching both yield curve control (should the Democrats sweep in November), expanded QE (once the S&P drops a total of 20% from its all time high), and even more forward guidance (to the abyss), we decided to show readers the catastrophic history of the Fed’s projections even before it had admitted it had no clue what the relationship between labor and inflation is.
First, we look at the Fed’s laughable forward guidance history:
Next, a look at the FOMC’s balance sheet policies: this one is especially amusing in the context of the Fed’s dramatic reversal from “autopilot” to rate cuts as soon as stocks slumped in late 2018.
Finally here is a look at how the Fed’s economic projections policies have changed over time.
Source: Morgan Stanley
- No Internet, No Problem. Venezuela Gets Bitcoin Satellite Node
No Internet, No Problem. Venezuela Gets Bitcoin Satellite Node
Tyler Durden
Sat, 09/26/2020 – 18:05Authored by Jose Antonio Lanz via Decrypt.co,
In brief
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Venezuela deployed its first Bitcoin satellite node.
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It allows for a node on the ground to receive Bitcoin transaction details from a Blockstream satellite without internet.
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Venezuela has poor internet connectivity.
Venezuela has its first Bitcoin satellite node capable of processing transactions without an internet connection.
The Venezuelan “space node” was set up in the country by Anibal Garrido and the Anibal Cripto team. It uses technology from Blockstream, which contracts satellites—in this case, EUTELSAT-113 – to broadcast data between points via offline connections. That’s huge in a country where internet infrastructure is lacking.
The idea came from Cryptobuyer, a Latin American startup focused on offering cryptocurrency-based payment solutions.
“We started in Venezuela because of the obvious connectivity problems and Cryptobuyer is always looking for a way to be resilient to these kinds of problems by anticipating any possible contingency,” CEO Jorge Farias told Decrypt.
We successfully installed and run a satellite #Bitcoin node in #Venezuela which allows us to be independent of the internet to download messages and validate transactions. Thanks to @Blockstream @adam3us @richardbensberg @anibalcripto for all your support https://t.co/TUb6eG19XP
— Cryptobuyer (@cryptobuyer) September 25, 2020
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The node on the ground “receives the data packet via satellite, directly from the connection provided by Blockstream,” Anibal Garrido explained to Decrypt. Garrido added that he hopes to expand access by deploying something akin to a mesh network that can broadcast data between various devices.
The node antenna, deployed in Valencia, is the first of three. The other two will be deployed in the capital city, Caracas, and Puerto Ordaz. Cryptobuyer chose Valencia because it is an industrialized city but doesn’t have many tall buildings that could block the signal.
This would be the first stage of an ambitious project that could help increase Bitcoin’s usability in a country with below-average technological infrastructure. Internet speeds in Venezuela are some of the slowest on the continent. Electricity service has also been known to fail, leaving large chunks of the country without power.
Could this antenna make it possible to pay with Bitcoin in remote areas or in the event of an internet failure? Farias thinks so. He pointed out that that is why they are looking to deploy a mesh system that communicates with the Blockstream satellite:
“We use a P2P network that uses some USB devices that are already in Venezuela. Soon we will deploy these devices with coverage of about four kilometers each.”
But beyond the pragmatism, Anibal considers Venezuela a breeding ground for actualizing Satoshi Nakamoto’s vision.
“This project seeks to demonstrate the character of the Bitcoin protocol: Open nature, without restrictions and without borders,” he said. “Consequently, Venezuela is a pioneer in Latin America and the world in the use and application of this type of technology that is not imposed by decree or force.”
Despite its political and economic problems, Venezuela ranks first among all Latin countries in cryptocurrency adoption. One can only imagine how much Bitcoin could grow now that it can bypass the internet.
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- Bank of America Issues $2 Billion Bond To Fight "Race Inequality"
Bank of America Issues $2 Billion Bond To Fight "Race Inequality"
Tyler Durden
Sat, 09/26/2020 – 17:40In our bizarro world in which the Fed, having failed at sparking wage inflation (and is now hiding behind the semantic construct of Average Inflation Targeting which gives it leeway to keep rates at zero for decades to come), has instead pivoted to levitating the stock market as the primary source of social wealth creation, is now seeking to combat climate change, has become an expert epidemiologist, and has even been tasked with ending racial inequality (which is delightfully paradoxical since it is the Fed that is behind the biggest wealth divide in history), it should probably come as no surprise that banks which are behind the biggest corporate debt bubble in history, are now selling debt under the absurd virtue-signaling guise of “fighting racial inequality.”
No really: last week Bank of America issued a $2 billion bond (on which it was also the sole bookrunner) which aims to advance racial equality, economic opportunity and environmental sustainability.
The initiative, backed by the high priests of all that is virtuous including BofA Vice Chairman Anne Finucane and Chief Operating Officer Tom Montag, is the company’s eighth environmental, social and governance (ESG) themed bond, bringing its total issuance in the category to $9.85 billion, the bank said in a statement .
The bond offering, which priced earlier in the week, has an explicit “social portion” for the use of proceeds which will be dedicated to “help reduce inequalities for Black and Hispanic-Latino borrowers and communities” including:
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Mortgage lending, construction loans and other financing and investments relating to single or multi-family housing or affordable housing projects;
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Financing for medical professionals to create or expand medical, veterinary and dental practices;
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Supply chain finance loans to be offered directly to minority-owned business enterprises;
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Deposits and equity investments in Black and Hispanic-Latino Minority Depository Institutions that are also Community Development Financial Institutions;
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Equity investments in Black and Hispanic-Latino owned or operated businesses
“Our focus on sustainable finance is one of the ways we drive responsible growth. By addressing these critically important issues through ESG-themed securities, we are offering a way for fixed income investors to be part of social and environmental change, and drive solutions through the debt capital markets,” said vice chairman (shouldn’t that be chairwoman?) Anne Finucane, who leads the company’s ESG, sustainable finance, capital deployment and public policy efforts. “Our communities and the environment are inextricably linked, and Bank of America cares deeply about both and continues to explore innovative ways to enable investors to use their investments to help address these societal challenges.”
“We want to be an example for other issuers,” Karen Fang, the bank’s head of global sustainable finance, said in an interview with Bloomberg. “It doesn’t matter if it’s a bull year or a bear year, we need to be committed to these causes.”
What BofA really means is that it has tapped into a surging market where fellow virtue-signalers – in hopes of reducing the heat they are under from an increasingly angry public – buy the bonds to have a token claim that they too are among society’s most noble. Kinda like donating a small fraction of one’s income to charity each year in order to (hopefully) wash away far greater sins, something the Clinton foundation grasped decades ago.
As a result, companies looking to fund ESG projects are tapping the green-bond market at the fastest monthly pace ever according to Bloomberg, with September’s global green-bond issuance already exceededing $30 billion, beating the prior record of $26 billion set in November 2018. And, as Bloomberg adds, “issuance is expected to remain brisk as companies see an opportunity to show their green credentials and potentially reduce funding costs while investors increasingly focus on sustainability.”
In short, investors hope to signal their virtue by buying green bonds – they certainly aren’t buying the bond for its generous coupons: the BofA bond will pay interest semi-annually at a fixed rate of 0.981% for the first four-years, and quarterly at a floating rate thereafter. At the same time issuers allocate a small portion of the proceeds to noble ESG causes, thus absolving them of all their non-ESG sins.
The virtue signaling doesn’t stop there: while BofA did not spent any money placing the bond as it itself underwrote it, it threw a few nickles at “minority-owned broker dealers” who served as joint lead managers, including Loop Capital Markets, Ramirez & Co., Inc. and Siebert Williams Shank.
“I don’t think that trend will diminish even in the face of market volatility,” said Andrew Karp, the bank’s head of global investment-grade capital markets. “ESG activity will no doubt grow in the months and years to come.”
Virtue signaling aside, what is the real story? Well, within a year, the bank said it would publish a report on the bond’s asset allocation, and it will be updated as long as the notes remain outstanding. We won’t be surprised to find that the “non-social portion” of the use of proceeds was somehow used to repurchase BofA’s non-ESG stock.
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- The Supply Chain Is Broken And Food Shortages Are Here
The Supply Chain Is Broken And Food Shortages Are Here
Tyler Durden
Sat, 09/26/2020 – 17:15Authored by Robert Wheeler via The Organic Prepper,
If you are a reader of this site, you might be more interested in the food supply chain than most, at least when things are good. So, if you have been paying attention recently, you might find that there have been some severe disturbances in that supply chain.
Several months ago, the immediate disruptions began at the beginning of the COVID-19 hysteria, when factories, distribution centers, and even farms shut down under the pretext of “flattening the curve.”
As a result, Americans found necessities were missing on the shelves for the first time in years. Items like hand sanitizer and Clorox wipes were, of course, out of stock.
Soon other items became noticeably missing as well.
People began to notice meat, and even canned vegetables and rice were soon missing from the shelves. Most of this was simply the result of mass panic buying, although “preppers” were blamed for “hoarding.” Therefore, people who had not been prepping all along and were suddenly caught with their pants down.
But that’s not the whole story.
Manufacturing and packaging facilities and slaughterhouses shut down due to intrusive totalitarian government reactions to an alleged pandemic. Combined with panic buying, those facilities’ ability to replace what was bought up was drastically reduced. As a result, consumers were forced to wait weeks before buying what they needed (or wanted) again. Even then, they had to show up in the morning.
We are still experiencing those shortages, though better hidden. As anyone who shops regularly can tell you, you can find what you need, but you may have to go to three stores to get it, where one would have done in the past. In this article, you’ll find some advice about dealing with the limited varieties of inventory that people are currently noticing at stores.
War launched on the economy by state governments put millions of Americans out of work.
Now, when most rational people would be happy to have a job at all amid such high unemployment, they were prepared to stop the machine’s wheels from working.
Workers suddenly started to organize, strike, and walk off the job conveniently when the food supply was already broken. Of course, these workers had not organized or initiated a strike at any time before when working conditions were bleak, and wages were low.
While extraordinary times beget extraordinary reactions, the timing of the newfound sense of workers’ resolve cannot go unnoticed.
At the same time, we witnessed farms dumping thousands of gallons of milk down the drain, meat producers slaughtering animals and burying them, and farmers destroying crops all over the country and the world.
The reason for this is two-fold.
First, many major producers would not want a glut of their product on the market and see their prices dropdown.
Second, with the totalitarian measures forcing the shut down of restaurants across the country, many farms and producers lost a massive part of their market, thus destroying it.
A government genuinely concerned with its people’s health would have bought that produce and either distributed it or freeze-dried and stored it for the coming apocalypse.
Indeed, the Trump administration attempted this with some very minor success and high cost. Food banks at least benefited. But the damage to the food supply was already done.
And then came the winds.
As time moved forward, we saw devastating straight-line winds blow across places like Iowa, destroying massive amounts of crops and farming infrastructure, effects rarely advertised on mainstream media outlets.
Following those winds, we saw massive wildfires along the West Coast’s entirety from Washington to California and as far east as Colorado, South Dakota, and Texas.
One need only take a look at the map at fires seemingly heading east, burning up prairies and farmland all along the way to see that the food chain will experience yet even more hiccups once the smoke has cleared.
But while leftists claim the fires are the natural result of “climate change” and conservatives blame lack of adequate forest management (which has some merit), both completely ignore the fact that close to ten people were arrested for setting these fires.
Repeatedly, arsonists are being arrested for starting blazes though the motive is unclear. Those of us who have studied history, however, can speculate with some certainty.
But these problems are not unique to the United States.
Countries all over the world are experiencing supply chain problems. Australia, for instance, is about to run out of its domestic rice supply by December entirely.
Now, here we are, with winter fast approaching and the food supply decimated. The world’s population is walking around masked and terrified of getting within six feet of another human, and the cities all across America are on fire with violent riots.
Communists and the inevitable response are clashing in the streets and threatening to turn in to a possible American Civil War 2.0. What role will hunger play in this scenario?
At the moment, we can’t say for sure.
But what we can say with certainty is that this will be a very long, very trying winter.
Food shortages are coming, and they aren’t too far away.
You do not have much time left before the items you can grab now are gone and gone for good. Here are some tips for shopping when there aren’t many supplies left on the shelves, and here’s a list of things that are usually imported from China that we haven’t been receiving in the same quantities (if at all) since the crisis began.
Many of the readers of this website will be prepared, no doubt, but others won’t. Not only do we advise you to prepare – but we also advise you to be ready for the unprepared.
- Amy Coney Barrett Picked By Trump As U.S. Supreme Court Nominee
Amy Coney Barrett Picked By Trump As U.S. Supreme Court Nominee
Tyler Durden
Sat, 09/26/2020 – 16:50President Trump is set to announce his nominee for the Supreme Court seat left vacant by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death last week. And, as previously reported, Trump has picked Amy Coney Barrett.
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Barrett was considered a finalist for the Supreme Court vacancy left by the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy in 2018, but Justice Brett Kavanaugh was tapped by the president instead. Due to her religious beliefs, Barrett is feared by liberals even though some concede that she has “a topnotch legal mind.”
Barrett, known to be a devout Catholic who considers abortion “always immoral,” would fill the seat vacated by the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The loss of liberal icon Ginsburg and the confirmation of the conservative Barrett, 48, could cement the Supreme Court’s rightward shift for a generation.
While Joe Biden has said the winner of the presidential contest should fill Ginsburg’s seat, there’s little Democrats can do to delay a vote on Barrett, a former clerk for the late Justice Antonin Scalia, the high court’s former conservative standard-bearer. Needless to say, her appointment will play a dominant role in the final weeks of the presidential election.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said after Ginsburg’s death on Sept. 18 that a vote will be held on the Senate floor for Trump’s nominee.
McConnell has not said yet whether the vote will take place before or after the Nov. 3 election. In a statement moments after the nomination, McConnell said that “Judge Amy Coney Barrett is an exceptionally impressive jurist and an exceedingly well-qualified nominee to the Supreme Court. A brilliant scholar. An exemplary judge. President Trump could not have made a better decision.”
Judge Amy Coney Barrett is an exceptionally impressive jurist and an exceedingly well-qualified nominee to the Supreme Court.
A brilliant scholar. An exemplary judge. President Trump could not have made a better decision. pic.twitter.com/FKadx6TJeU
— Leader McConnell (@senatemajldr) September 26, 2020
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The Senate Judiciary Committee must hold confirmation hearings with the nominee ahead of the confirmation vote by the full Senate. Although senators typically go home to campaign for reelection in October, members of the Judiciary Committee may have to remain in Washington for any hearings ahead of the election.
Late Friday, amid multiple media outlets, all citing anonymous sources, reporting that Trump was planning to nominate Barrett, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) announced that the Senate was going to “begin a thorough review of Judge Barrett’s nomination.”
“I look forward to meeting with her in the coming days as the Judiciary Committee prepares for her confirmation hearing,” Cornyn announced.
This is the third justice nominated by Trump appointed to the Supreme Court. If appointed, Barrett would also expand the conservative majority on the court, widening it to 6 to 3.
Watch Live (Trump Address due to start at 5pmET):
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So, who is Amy Coney Barrett?
The Epoch Times’ Mimi Nguyen Ly explains Barrett, 48, who currently serves on the Chicago-based 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, earned her J.D. at Notre Dame Law School in 1997. She served as a clerk in 1997-1998 for Judge Laurence Silberman of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals and later as a clerk in 1998-1999 for the late Justice Antonin Scalia, who died in 2016.
After her clerkships, she was an associate at law firm Miller, Cassidy, Larroca & Lewin in Washington, D.C. for a year, and later moved to Texas-based firm Baker Botts in 2000, before leaving for academia.
In 2002, she became a professor at Notre Dame Law School, where she taught constitutional law, the federal courts, and statutory interpretation. She was named “distinguished professor of the year” three times, according to SCOTUSblog.
Barrett was appointed by Trump and confirmed by the Senate 55-43 to the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in 2017. At the time, every full-time member of Notre Dame Law School’s faculty signed a strong letter of support (pdf) for her nomination, as did every law clerk who served a U.S. Supreme Court justice during the term that Barrett clerked for Scalia (pdf).
Barrett is a Roman Catholic. At her confirmation hearing, Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee questioned her over her Catholic faith in fulfilling the judicial role.
“The dogma lives loudly within you,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said.
“And that’s of concern when you come to big issues that large numbers of people have fought for years in this country.”
Feinstein also indicated that she was worried that Barrett may ignore Supreme Court precedents on issues such as abortion.
Barrett said she would respect Supreme Court precedent.When asked about the article, Barrett said, “It’s never appropriate for a judge to impose that judge’s personal convictions, whether they arise from faith or anywhere else, on the law.” She also said later at the hearing that her views on abortion “or any other question will have no bearing on the discharge of my duties as a judge.”
Finally, as we previously pointed out, Alan Dershowitz notes under our Constitution, Senator Feinstein’s statement crossed the line. Ours was the first Constitution in history to provide that “no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”
Although Feinstein did not explicitly impose a religious test, she suggested that personal religious views — which she called dogma — might disqualify a nominee from being confirmed.
That would clearly be unconstitutional.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) attends a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington on June 16, 2020. (Tom Williams/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)
A number of past cases and writings provide insight into Barrett’s stance on various issues, from the death penalty, to immigration, and gun rights.
For example, Barrett was questioned at her 7th Circuit confirmation hearing about an article she co-wrote in 1998, titled “Catholic Judges in Capital Cases.” The article discussed Catholics’ moral and legal obligations when asked to rule in a death penalty case. It stated, “The prohibitions against abortion and euthanasia (properly defined) are absolute; those against war and capital punishment are not.”
“There are two evident differences between the cases. First, abortion and euthanasia take away innocent life. This is not always so with war and punishment,” read the article, which Barrett wrote with former Notre Dame law professor John H. Garvey, who now is the president of the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.
“If one cannot in conscience affirm a death sentence the proper response is to recuse oneself,” the law review article also said.
“Catholic judges must answer some complex moral and legal questions in deciding whether to sit in death penalty cases. Sometimes (as with direct appeals of death sentences) the right answers are not obvious. But in a system that effectively leaves the decision up to the judge, these are questions that responsible Catholics must consider seriously,” the article concluded. “Judges cannot—nor should they try to—align our legal system with the Church’s moral teaching whenever the two diverge. They should, however, conform their own behavior to the Church’s standard. Perhaps their good example will have some effect.”
Barrett and her husband have seven children, two of whom are adopted from Haiti. Her husband, Jesse Barrett, serves as an assistant U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Indiana.
If Barrett is confirmed, she would join Trump appointees Gorsuch and Kavanaugh to form a 6-3 majority in the Supreme Court of justices who were appointed by Republican presidents.
Barring some unforeseen disaster, there appears little Democrats can do – despite the threats – to delay a vote on Barrett, solidifying a right-leaning shift to the court for a generation.
- In Unprecedented Reversal, Nasdaq Shorts Hit Second Highest Ever
In Unprecedented Reversal, Nasdaq Shorts Hit Second Highest Ever
Tyler Durden
Sat, 09/26/2020 – 16:35On Friday we pointed out that one week after one of the biggest inflows into stock funds on record – when retail traders furiously BTFD in hopes the market’s upward momentum would accelerate – speculators hit a brick wall and reversed furiously as stocks slumped, with US equity funds and ETFs reporting $26.87BN of outflows, the largest weekly outflow since December 2018 and the third largest outflow ever! In other this was the fastest and biggest sentiment reversal on record.
This record sentiment reversal was driven by despair-driven capitulation outflows from high beta and momentum names, as tech-focused ETFs suffered $1.23 billion worth of outflows, the largest since December 2018, when global stock markets tanked. September was also the first month of outflows for the tech sector since the March crash.
But nowhere has the sentiment shift been as clear as in Nasdaq 100 Mini futures, where after more than a year of bullish sentiment with just one tiny dip into bearish territory in May, speculators finally puked, sending the net non-commercial NQ futs to -134,311 contracts, surpassing the peak bearish sentiment during and after the financial crisis…
… and in fact the second highest on record, with just July 2006 more bearish. What happened back then? For the next generation of traders out there, that’s when Fed had just reached the peak of its rate-hike cycle (yes, there was a time when rates above 2% were possible), hammering the Nasdaq.
Back in 2006 the Fed responded by starting an easing cycle in 2007, and the resulting drop in rates from over 5% to 0% eventually allowed the Nasdaq to rebound and hit all time highs.
This near-record bearish positioning, which we first pointed out last week, has given even the Bear Traps Report – which is furiously bearish on tech stocks – pause, prompting it to asses the all too real possibility of a squeeze:
Nasdaq non-commercial futures positioning is now the shortest since 2008, the index has rapidly blown through the March lows. We are definitely not bullish Nasdaq, but this certainly gives us pause. It is quite possible that this is just momentum players hedging their FANG gains etc, but still quite a move. Keep in mind, that was out a week ago. We’d imagine most dealers and former dealers are bearish risk and are short futures because every piled into puts very quickly (i.e dealers had to hedge themselves on the other side of the trade). Setting up for a squeeze to short into…
What is curious is that it took only a modest Nasdaq correction over the past month to send sentiment to the second most bearish on record. And unlike 2006, this time the Fed can’t cut rates any lower to reverse sentiment.
On the other hand, the Fed can and will do everything in its power to push sentiment even higher now that Powell has made it clear the Fed is all in the stock market as the primary wealth effect mechanism, in which case watch out once the near record short-squeeze in NQ futs begins: it can and will send the Nasdaq to all time highs faster than you can spell “Brrrrr.“
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