- Holiday Sales May Be Missing In Action
Holiday Sales May Be Missing In Action
Authored by Dave Kranzler via Investment Research Dynamics,
I’m sure most of you are inundated with “Black November,” “70% off” and “clearance” email promotions from the usual cast of brick/mortar/online chain retailers. It started with my inbox in October. This is because retailers are terrified of what could be one of the worst holiday spending seasons in years.
The mainstream financial media, planted with soundbites from Wall Street snakeoil salesmen, have already created this year’s “the dog ate my homework” excuse for poor holiday spending with the absurd notion that the period between Thanksgiving and Christmas is shorter this year.
Quite frankly, I would not be surprised if many households used Amazon’s Prime day and easy Amazon credit lines offered to buy holiday gifts early this year.
Speaking of AMZN, it warned that its expected holiday sales would be lower than previous guidance. And Home Depot lowered its Q4 revenue estimates for the second time in three months.
Perhaps October retail sales offers a glimpse at what we can expect. The headline retail sales report promoted the idea that retail sales “rebounded” in October (recall September retail sales dropped 3%). October’s retail sales reportedly increased 0.3%. The headline number was rounded up from 0.27%. Compare this to the headline 0.36% CPI. This means that real retail sales in October (i.e. ex-inflation) declined.
Keep in mind that a survey of more than 5,400 Americans by the Financial Health Network revealed that 70% of households are struggling financially in some capacity. 17% said they can’t maintain a majority or all aspects of their finances. Another 54% said they’re struggling with at least one aspect of financial stability (likely credit card/auto debt). About 20% of middle class workers are spending more than they earn. This study confirms and reinforces other studies I’ve seen showing similar results.
Core retail sales, which are ex-automobiles and gasoline, increased 0.1%, which was worse than expected. When you think about it, aside from all of the statistical errors from estimating 16 out of 25 categories, the core retail sales ex-inflation was negative. It looks like gasoline sales drove the headline number as it was up 1.1%, which is the result of higher gasoline prices during the month.
Away from food, “core” discretionary categories suffered rather large declines from September. Clothing was down 1%, sporting goods/hobby/books were down 0.8%, furniture store sales dropped 0.9% and electronics/appliance sales were down 0.4%. Consumers also cut back spending at restaurants and bars, with sales dropping 0.3%.
The retail sales numbers for October, preceded by the big drop in retail sales in September, reflect and confirm my view that the consumer is “running out road” with the ability to assume more credit card debt for discretionary expenditures. The results of the survey above suggest that a not insignificant percentage of households need credit cards to make ends meet. This chart nicely summarizes the U.S. household financial conditions:
I suspect the Census Bureau will do its best to impose “seasonal adjustment” distortions at Trump’s behest in order to put the best possible spin on retail sales. But truth is that a majority of households are struggling with a heavy debt load and with real income after taxes that barely covers non-discretionary expenditures. Do not mistake a rising stock market as an indicator that economy is healthy. Right now the largest component of economic activity at 70% of GDP is terminally ill financially.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 11/28/2019 – 23:00 - Mainstream Policy Expert Reveals How He Was Silenced On Syria: "Truth Did Not Matter"
Mainstream Policy Expert Reveals How He Was Silenced On Syria: “Truth Did Not Matter”
A mainstream media and academic expert this week issued a rare admission: that pretty much everything the establishment has fed the public on Syria is false or distorted; but it remains that after tragic eight-year long war is slowly coming to a close, new indisputable facts are coming to light. “Truth did not matter at all,” he admits after years of providing commentary for mainstream publications.
In a lengthy thread on Twitter, counter-terrorism author and assistant professor of political science and public policy at Northeastern University Max Abrahms exposed how he saw the ‘narrative managers’ at work from the inside of the establishment think tank world and media. As his own research came to uncover and document the truth of what was happening in Syria, “the media would excise me and the research from their stories” he revealed. His work in the early years of the war appeared in The New York Times and other major outlets, however, he was increasingly censored and pushed out of a number of platforms for speaking inconvenient truths.
Below is his full commentary, written in the wake of the new OPCW leaks which the mainstream is still trying hard to ignore.
Dr. Max Abrahms, screengrab via The Center For Strategic & International Studies. Every day there are new revelations that the “rebels” were in cahoots not only with Al Qaeda but also ISIS and official reports of Assad using chemical weapons were doctored according to the reports’ own authors.
Were you ever skeptical that Assad was authorizing chemical weapons attacks when they were the one thing that put his winning the war at risk?
Authors of the official reports linking him to chemical weapons usage have now supplied evidence that their own reports were doctored.
When I was interviewed about Syria’s military using chemical weapons, I expressed skepticism as Assad bucked the political science literature by engaging in the one conduct that would reverse his hard-fought victory.
But the media would excise me and the research from their stories.
The #1 story should be that authors of the official reports linking Assad to WMD usage have supplied evidence that they were doctored in defiance of the scientific evidence and exploited to push regime change in Damascus, which risked creating the Islamic State war with Russia.
Until you get how you were duped into supporting regime change in Syria you’ll get duped into supporting other costly ventures to the local population, international stability and our counterterrorism efforts.
The mainstream narrative of the Syria conflict has imploded.
Every day there are new revelations that the “rebels” were in cahoots not only with Al Qaeda but also ISIS & official reports of Assad using chemical weapons were doctored according to the reports’ own authors.
— Max Abrahms (@MaxAbrahms) November 25, 2019
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The story of doctored WMD reports and Al Qaeda-led rebels must be told.
What happened in Syria is the American political establishment decided that the ends justify the means. Truth did not matter at all. We were told Assad must go based on WMD reports their own authors say were doctored to support “rebels” who were Al-Qaeda-led and helping ISIS.
Watch this interview and determine yourself whether you find trustworthy the official report linking Assad to the chlorine attack which was sold in the media as casus belli for toppling Assad and has now been exposed by the fact-finders themselves as doctored.
If you think politicians, think tanks and media got a lot wrong in the Iraq war wait until you hear about the Syria war.
If you cheered for another regime change war then it doesn’t matter whether the casus belli lacks evidence. The media is unmoved that multiple scientists who made up the official investigation doubt that the Syrian military was behind the attacks or the use of chlorine at all.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 11/28/2019 – 22:30 - A Failure Of Leadership In The Muslim World
A Failure Of Leadership In The Muslim World
Authored by James Durso via RealClearWorld.com,
Bad news about China’s persecution of the Uighurs has been coming thick and fast.
In October, the Citizen Power Institute released a report on the use of forced labor. The report finds that up to 1 million imprisoned Uighurs and members of other Muslim ethnic groups have been made to work in China’s cotton value chain, which produces cotton, textiles, and apparel. In November, the New York Times released more than 400 pages of internal Chinese government documents that exposed how China organizes the mass detention of Uighurs.
On July, 22 countries issued a joint statement criticizing China for “disturbing reports of large-scale arbitrary detentions” and “widespread surveillance and restrictions” of Uighurs and other minorities in the country’s Xinjiang region. The next day, 37 countries, nearly half of them Muslim-majority and none of them democracies, defended China’s human rights record and dismissed the reported detention of up to 2 million Muslims.
Azeem Ibrahim of the U.S. Army War College Strategic Studies Institute has pointed out that the acquiescence of Muslim-majority countries illustrates “’Muslim solidarity’ is a convenient and effective slogan to be thrown at domestic audiences” but, when push comes to a shove from China, you can “forget about the umma.”
This is a serious issue, not a provocation like Everybody Draw Mohammed Day. Why are leaders in the Islamic world refusing to take a stand?
Two reasons stand out immediately.
First, faith leaders in the Islamic world probably reckon it is futile to chastise the Communist Party of China for actions taken against a non-Han people practicing what the Party sees as an “illegal superstition”. China’s leader, President Xi Jinping, isn’t some Danish cartoonist — there would be consequences for speaking out.
Continuing in that pragmatic vein, the Saudi Aramco IPO is looking parlous and oil prices are below the $65-per-barrel price Aramco uses to builds its financial assumptions. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, known as MbS, needs money to complete Saudi Vision 2030, but he would prefer that money to have no strings attached to concerns about human rights — so, enter the dragon. China has stepped up as a source of capital as the kingdom tries to shift its economy away from energy exports. Xi recently said China was taking a “strategic high view and long-term perspective,” meaning let’s agree not to talk about Uighurs or Jamal Khashoggi. MbS reciprocated by endorsing China’s policies: “We respect and support China’s rights to take counter-terrorism and de-extremism measures to safeguard national security.”
And it’s not just the Saudis.
“Nobody knows nothin’” seems to be the operating principle when someone says “Uighur”.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan initially criticized Beijing, but recently muted his comments. With economic relations stalled with the United States and the European Union, the economy weak, and the U.S. Congress threatening sanctions for Russian defense purchases and Turkey’s incursion into Syria, Turkey will continue its turn east. In June, China’s central bank gave Istanbul a $1 billion cash injection, and in August the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China provided a $3.6 billion loan package for Turkey’s energy and transportation sectors.
Pakistan’s normally voluble Prime Minister Imran Khan could only say “[f]rankly, I don’t know much about that” when asked about the plight of the Uighurs, but that may be because of China’s planned investment of $62 billion in ports, infrastructure, industry and energy-generation facilities in Pakistan. And while Pakistan’s Islamist militants as a rule are always ready to raise the issue of persecuted Sunnis, on the issue of Xinjiang’s Uighurs all we get is a “deafening silence.”
Money matters, but it isn’t all about cash. The governments friendly to Beijing know that supporting human rights for Uighurs will lead their own citizens — even worse, their countries’ religious minorities — to demand human rights of their own.
China-friendly governments may be successfully dealing with some short- or medium-term cash-flow problems, but they are eroding their legitimacy as defenders of the faith. Into the breach may step groups like the separatist East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), which may inspire youth, radicals, and the devout.
ETIM was designated a terrorist organization in 2002 by the United States and the United Nations. The U.S. designation might have come in exchange for China’s support for the U.S. attack on Iraq. China’s actions have been ETIM’s best recruiting sergeant. If ETIM narrows its target list to Chinese officials and installations, it may find blind eyes being turned as it takes the fight to its enemies in China and ignores the governments in Central and South Asia.
Uighurs with combat experience in Syria and Afghanistan will want another mission, and fighting is more fun than farming. These new mujahedeen will be ready to fight a Communist regime that suppresses their religion and culture.
What are some lessons for Washington?
First, if the United States thinks a foreign-policy initiative makes sense, despite disapproval from some Muslim countries, press ahead. The Trump administration may be testing this idea by moving the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, and reversing the U.S. position on the illegality of Israeli settlements on the West Bank.
And, if China wants troublemakers like Pakistan as allies, let Beijing have them.
What should the U.S. do?
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First, sincerely warn China of the trouble that lies ahead if a serious terrorist campaign is kicked off by ETIM or a likeminded group. Remind them that their policies may lead to a situation wherein nearby countries offer only perfunctory responses to Chinese demands for counter-terrorism assistance, especially if the terrorists only hit Chinese targets. China will ignore any warnings by the Americans, but Washington will know that it tried.
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Provide political support for Central Asian countries like Kazakhstan for refusing to return fleeing Uighurs to China, but follow their lead on how much publicity to give the effort. (Use your “inside voice,” America.) If China cancels investments in Central Asian countries as retaliation, support offsetting development assistance from the World Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the Asian Development Bank, and the Islamic Development Bank.
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Then, consider allowing the 22 Uighurs who were held at the Guantanamo Bay detainment camp but found to be “no longer enemy combatants” to settle in the United States. It’s likely the Chinese snookered the Americans in the aftermath of 9-11 by portraying all Uighur activists as terrorists, which landed 22 of them in Gitmo for over a decade. In 2009, Congress opposed President Barack Obama’s plan to resettle two Uighurs in the United States. Ten years later, it’s time for Congress to show that its concern for the Uighurs is more than press-release deep.
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Highlight that the United States continues to be the world’s leading advocate of religious freedom for all, even as the Organization for Islamic Cooperation bent to China’s will and commended it for “providing care to its Muslim citizens”.
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Last, continue work on a trade deal with China, while continuing to sanction Chinese entities that use forced Muslim labor. Then, deal or not, on November 4, 2020, increase the pressure even more.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 11/28/2019 – 22:00 -
- Stuffed? Woman Needs Her Ass Amputated After "Enhancing" It With Illegal Injections
Stuffed? Woman Needs Her Ass Amputated After “Enhancing” It With Illegal Injections
Model Courtney Barnes may have a little less room this Thanksgiving to stuff her turkey, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes and dessert.
That’s because she has been told by doctors she may need to have her entire ass amputated, after “enhancing” it with illegal injections, according to the NY Post.
Barnes, who is known as Miss Miami, said on the E! show “Botched” that she is desperate to get her body back after the injections. But Doctors told her that in order to fix her ass, it may have to be amputated.
“Amputate the whole booty? I’m not doing that. No, I’m not doing that. I’m not amputating butts,” she responded.
She had the illegal fillers injected when she was 22 years old and working as a dancer in a club.
She said: “When I was in college I got a job dancing at a club. The first night, after really not making no money on the stage, there was a dancer who walked up to me and she told me that I needed some more booty if I wanted to make some more money. That’s when I found out about the injections that gave me my big booty problems.”
She continued: “So I made the appointment and she showed up at my hotel room. She told me she worked for a cosmetic surgeon and that’s how she was able to get her hands on what she needed. I asked her why she was doing it outside of the office and that’s when she told me the procedure was illegal. It’s foolish, definitely, but all I wanted was a big booty.”
She underwent three rounds of injections over a year, but that wasn’t enough. And it was during the fourth round that problems began, she said.
Barnes said: “This time I showed up at her house to have my injections, but after leaving my injections were beginning to leak out of my butt. My butt had so many dimples so I called the lady who injected me immediately. She told me it probably could be fixed with a few more shots and that’s how round number five got started.”
She continued: “That round of injections, it seemed like it only made my butt bigger. She did not fill in the holes. Then number six happened. It made it a bit worse. There was nothing I could do to fix my butt. After six rounds of butt injections, I believe I spent about seven or eight thousand dollars to get me right here, with these big booty problems.”
Barnes has embraced the ass implants, posting photos to her nearly 1 million Instagram followers and writing an Autobiography called “I Am Not My Body — But I Wanted a Bigger Behind,” which warns young women about the dangers of getting implants.
Dr. Terry Dubrow examined Barnes but says he can’t find where her old ass begins and her new one starts.
Dubrow commented on the show: “Whoa, I’ve never felt anything like this before. Because the masses are so superficially located, you absolutely can’t remove all of them. Unless you amputate … the whole booty.”
And what would this feel good story be without a silver lining? Dubrow concluded: “The good news is that the person didn’t seem to inject much of it into the muscle — and that’s how people die. You get into the blood vessel of the buttock muscle and it goes right into the main blood vessel that goes back to your heart and your lungs. That’s how they’re killing people, so it’s very good that you don’t have that problem.”
Tyler Durden
Thu, 11/28/2019 – 21:44 - Here Are More US Tech Giants Propping Up China's Vast Surveillance State
Here Are More US Tech Giants Propping Up China’s Vast Surveillance State
A bombshell follow-up report to a major document leak which confirmed and detailed China’s vast Uyghur Muslim Xinjiang prison network and system for monitoring communications and whereabouts has named names. Names that is, of US tech giants that are actually aiding and abetting China’s multibillion-dollar surveillance industry being used to impose a total electronic police state on the communist country. And it’s not just Google and IBM, but a growing list of recognizable names.
“U.S. companies, including Seagate Technology PLC, Western Digital Corp. and Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co., have nurtured, courted and profited from China’s surveillance industry,” the scathing report begins. “Several have been involved since the industry’s infancy.”
Image via Reuters. These American companies gained greater scrutiny after the US Treasury recently targeted up to eight Chinese surveillance companies, blocking their ability to export US technology through which they could help the Chinese state in committing human rights and individual privacy violations. This included a federal ban on US agencies purchasing video surveillance equipment manufactured by Dahua, Hikvision, and Hytera Communications.
American companies over recent years have competed to enter China’s booming $10BN+ surveillance market, and also take advantage of Chinese companies’ rapidly progressing technology.
Stunningly, the WSJ investigation finds that “Of 37 Chinese firms singled out last November by the Beijing-backed China Security and Protection Industry Association for outstanding contributions to the country’s surveillance industry, 17 have publicly disclosed financing, commercial or supply-chain relationships with U.S. technology companies.” And further, “Several had multiple connections.”
Image source: WSJ Demonstrating the ‘indirect’ relationship between US companies and Chinese state surveillance, via the WSJ: “Hikvision, China’s largest surveillance systems maker, has bought technology from U.S. firms directly and through third parties. Hikvision was placed on the U.S. entity list in October, limiting some of the technology it can buy from the U.S. American companies said they comply with the law and export rules, and declined to comment on whether sales continue.”
For example, the report details Hewlett Packard Enterprise owns 49% of New H3C Technologies Co. Ltd. This Chinese company is well-known as providing internet control systems to Chinese security services. “According to company marketing materials, one end customer for its switches is Aksu, a Xinjiang city that conducts broad surveillance of residents in public spaces. Satellite images suggest the city is home to multiple internment camps,” the report concludes.
And in another alarming example, China’s state-owned Hikvision receives a steady supply of programmable chips from San Jose, Calif.-based Xilinx Inc., which prompted a Xilinx response saying it doesn’t control or limit how its customers use its products, but takes human rights allegations “seriously”.
AP Photo: A saleswoman introduces human identification technology from state-owned surveillance equipment manufacturer Hikvision on a monitor at Security China 2018 in Beijing. There are additional multiple instances of American companies’ operations and products becoming deeply entwined with that Chinese surveillance companies, such as chips and hard drives developed and produced in California being central to some of US-sanctioned Hikvision’s systems.
But is anyone surprised? Likely such major US companies as Hewlett Packard — its products long spread around the globe — will continue to seek a piece of the lucrative Chinese market while only claiming an ‘indirect’ relationship with Beijing’s growing police surveillance state, claiming further ‘it’s out of our hands’ what they do with American technology.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 11/28/2019 – 21:30 - Rise Of The Superbugs: Bacteria Are Outsmarting Humans. Will They Eventually Kill Us All?
Rise Of The Superbugs: Bacteria Are Outsmarting Humans. Will They Eventually Kill Us All?
Authored by Dagny Taggart via The Organic Prepper blog,
It is getting hard to keep track of all the recalls and outbreaks associated with foodborne illness lately. In the last month, apples, vegetable products, meat, and fish have all been recalled for possible Listeria contamination. In the same time frame, a Salmonella outbreak that has been linked to ground beef has been making the rounds, and an E. coli outbreak has been linked with packaged salad products (romaine lettuce is once again the suspect).
What is the reason for all of these recalls and outbreaks? Cat Ellis summed it up in the article Here’s Why There Are SO MANY Food Recalls Lately:
Our centralized, industrialized food system is at the heart of the increase in food contamination and recalls. Modern farming and modern food manufacturing methods are breeding grounds for bacteria. (source)
To make matters worse, superbugs are rapidly becoming a serious threat, and we are running out of ways to kill them. Several new studies and reports shed light on just how dire the situation is.
In the future, superbugs will kill millions every year.
Earlier this year, the World Health Organization (WHO) warned that by the year 2050, 10 million people worldwide could die each year from antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Currently, the WHO estimates that 700,000 people globally die from infection with drug-resistant microbes every year. At that point, these “superbugs” will have surpassed cancer, heart disease, and diabetes to become the main cause of death in the human race.
Superbugs are bacteria that have developed resistance to one or more classes of antibiotics, rendering those antibiotics less effective in treating infections. They are also known as antimicrobial-resistant bacteria (ARB).
One of the reasons antibiotic resistance is a growing problem is their widespread use in animals raised for food.
According to a recent study published in the journal Science,
There is a clear increase in the number of resistant bacterial strains occurring in chickens and pigs.
Globally, 73% of all antimicrobials sold on Earth are used in animals raised for food. A growing body of evidence has linked this practice with the rise of antimicrobial-resistant infections, not just in animals but also in humans. Beyond potentially serious consequences for public health, the reliance on antimicrobials to meet demand for animal protein is a likely threat to the sustainability of the livestock industry, and thus to the livelihood of farmers around the world. (source).
Certain types of infections pose significant risks.
The CDC recently published a report on Antibiotic/Antimicrobial Resistance, which revealed that more than 2.8 million antibiotic-resistant infections occur in the U.S. each year, and more than 35,000 people die as a result. In addition, 223,900 cases of Clostridioides difficile occurred in 2017 and at least 12,800 people died.
Clostridioides difficile (C.diff) is of special concern because it causes a dangerous infection that is linked to antibiotic use. It can cause deadly diarrhea when antibiotics kill beneficial bacteria in the digestive system that normally keep it under control. When the C. diff. illnesses and deaths are added, the annual U.S. toll of all these pathogens is more than 3 million infections and 48,000 deaths.
C. diff., drug-resistant gonorrhea, and carbapenem-resistant enterobacteriaceae (CRE) are known as “nightmare bacteria” because they pose a triple threat. They are resistant to all or nearly all antibiotics, they kill up to half of patients who get bloodstream infections from them, and the bacteria can transfer their antibiotic resistance to other related bacteria, potentially making the other bacteria untreatable.
Candida auris, a dangerous fungal infection that preys on people with weakened immune systems, is quietly spreading across the globe, as we reported earlier this year:
The CDC is concerned about C. aruis for three main reasons, according to the agency’s website.
It is often multidrug-resistant, meaning that it is resistant to multiple antifungal drugs commonly used to treat Candida infections.
It is difficult to identify with standard laboratory methods, and it can be misidentified in labs without specific technology. Misidentification may lead to inappropriate management.
It has caused outbreaks in healthcare settings. For this reason, it is important to quickly identify C. auris in a hospitalized patient so that healthcare facilities can take special precautions to stop its spread.
As of August 31, 2019, 806 confirmed cases of C. auris have been reported in the US. Beyond the reported clinical case counts, an additional 1642 patients have been found to be colonized with C. auris. While exact figures are not available (many infected people had other serious health issues that contributed to their deaths), an estimated 30-60% of those infected with C. auris die. (source)
One form of Acinetobacter, a group of bacteria commonly found in the environment (like in soil and water) has developed resistance to nearly all antibiotics:
Acinetobacter baumannii can cause infections in the blood, urinary tract, and lungs (pneumonia), or in wounds in other parts of the body. It can also “colonize” or live in a patient without causing infections or symptoms, especially in respiratory secretions (sputum) or open wounds.
These bacteria are constantly finding new ways to avoid the effects of the antibiotics used to treat the infections they cause. Antibiotic resistance occurs when the germs no longer respond to the antibiotics designed to kill them. If they develop resistance to the group of antibiotics called carbapenems, they become carbapenem-resistant. When resistant to multiple antibiotics, they’re multidrug-resistant. Carbapenem-resistant Acinetobacter are usually multidrug-resistant. (source)
Pork products recently tested positive for antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
Pigs are one of the most intensively farmed animals in the world, according to a new report from nonprofit World Animal Protection. The organization tested pork products sold in two well-known national retail chains in the US, including Walmart.
Here is an excerpt from the report’s summary:
A total of 160 samples of pork were purchased from several stores of Walmart and a competing national retailer over a period of several days in the mid-Atlantic region of the United States. The samples, 80 from each retailer, were tested by a laboratory at Texas Tech University (TTU) in 32 batches of five samples each for the presence of bacteria commonly found in pigs and pork in the U.S.: E. coli, Salmonella, Enterococcus, and Listeria. Bacteria isolated from the batches were then tested for susceptibility to antibiotics.
According to the data provided to World Animal Protection by the laboratory, a total of 51 bacteria were isolated from 30 batches including:
Enterococcus in 27 batches
E. coli in 14 batches
Salmonella in six batches
Listeria in four batches
Batches of samples from Walmart were far more likely to contain a detectable presence of two or more of the bacteria in a single batch than the other chain, and all batches that tested positive for three or more bacteria were obtained at Walmart.
Antibiotic susceptibility testing conducted by the laboratory revealed that 41of the 51 bacteria isolated from the pork samples were resistant to at least one class of medically important antibiotic. Twenty-one of the bacteria were multi-drug-resistant, meaning they were resistant to three or more classes, with three being resistant to six classes of medically important antibiotics.
The majority of multi-drug-resistant strains were isolated from Walmart sample batches, including all strains resistant to four or more drug classes. All seven strains resistant to Highest Priority Critically Important Antimicrobials (HPCIA) were in Walmart samples. (source)
Several new studies show just how serious the situation is.
A study published in September 2019 found that bacteria can change shape inside our bodies to avoid antibiotics. Here’s an excerpt from an article Katarzyna Mickiewicz, the lead study author, wrote:
Some of the ways that bacteria become resistant to antibiotics is through changes in the bacteria’s genome. For example, bacteria can pump the antibiotics out, or they can break the antibiotics down. They can also stop growing and divide, which makes them difficult to spot for the immune system.
However, our research has focused on another little known method that bacteria use to become antibiotic resistant. We have directly shown that bacteria can “change shape” in the human body to avoid being targeted by antibiotics – a process that requires no genetic changes for the bacteria to continue growing. (source)
Researchers have found a new survival mechanism for a commonly known type of bacteria. It can send out warning signals and thus make sure that other bacteria escape ‘dangers’ such as antibiotics, according to another new study:
Some bacteria develop resistance to otherwise effective treatment with antibiotics. Therefore, researchers are trying to develop new types of antibiotics that can fight the bacteria, and at the same time trying to make the current treatment with antibiotics more effective.
Researchers are now getting closer to this goal with a type of bacteria called Pseudomonas aeruginosa, which is notorious for infecting patients with the lung disease cystic fibrosis. In a new study, researchers found that the bacteria send out warning signals to their conspecifics when attacked by antibiotics or the viruses called bacteriophages which kill bacteria.
‘We can see in the laboratory that the bacteria simply swim around the ‘dangerous area’ with antibiotics or bacteriophages. When they receive the warning signal from their conspecifics, you can see in the microscope that they are moving in a neat circle around. It is a smart survival mechanism for the bacteria. If it turns out that the bacteria use the same evasive manoeuvre when infecting humans, it may help explain why some bacterial infections cannot be effectively treated with antibiotics’, says researcher Nina Molin Høyland-Kroghsbo, Assistant Professor at the Department of Veterinary and Animal Sciences and part of the research talent programme UCPH-Forward. (source)
Antibiotic-resistant strains of Salmonella are on the uptick, according to a study published a few days ago. Here’s an explanation from a press release titled The Nature of Salmonella is Changing – and It’s Meaner:
“If you get a salmonella infection that is resistant to antibiotics today, you are more likely to be hospitalized longer, and it will take you longer to recover,” said Shannon Manning, MSU Foundation professor in the Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics and senior author of the study. “We need better detection methods at the clinical level to identify resistant pathogens earlier so we can treat them with the right drugs the first time.”
Losing a day or more to misdiagnosis or improper treatment allows symptoms to get worse. Doctors might kill off a subpopulation of bacteria that are susceptible, but the ones that are resistant grow stronger, she added. (source)
Scientists are exploring alternatives to antibiotics.
In response to the growing number of bugs that are drug-resistant, scientists are learning to identify and isolate them in hopes of preventing large outbreaks. They are also making efforts to tighten up the use of antibiotics in an effort to slow the development of resistant strains, but many experts say it is too late, and that these actions will only buy us a little time.
There isn’t much incentive to develop new antibiotics, mainly because the development of one new antibiotic costs about $2 billion and takes about 10 years, and the likelihood of drug companies making a profit on such drugs is low.
An international team of researchers recently announced, however, that they have discovered a “novel peptide” they call Darobactin that attacks gram-negative bacteria:
More and more bacterial pathogens of infectious diseases become resistant to customary antibiotics. Typical hospital germs such as Escherichia coli and Klebsiella pneumoniae have become resistant to the most – and in some cases even all – currently available antibiotics. Their additional external membrane makes these bacteria difficult to attack. It protects the bacteria particularly well by preventing many substances from getting into the cell interior. Especially for the treatment of diseases caused by these so-called gram negative bacteria, there is a lack of new active substances. An international team of researchers, with the participation of scientists from Justus Liebig University Giessen (JLU), has now discovered a novel peptide, that attacks gram negative bacteria at a previously unknown site of action.
Darobactin exhibited an excellent effect in the case of infections with both wild-type, as well as antibiotic-resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Escherichia coli and Klebsiella pneumoniae strains. Thus, Darobactin presents a very promising lead substance for the development of a new antibiotic. (source)
Another new study found that copper hospital beds in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) harbored an average of 95% fewer bacteria than conventional hospital beds, and maintained these low-risk levels throughout patients’ stay in hospital:
Knowledge of copper’s antimicrobial properties dates back to ancient Ayurveda, when drinking water was often stored in copper vessels to prevent illness. In the modern medical era, numerous studies have noted copper’s antimicrobial properties.
However, until recently, no-one had designed acute–care hospital beds that enabled all high risk surfaces to be encapsulated in copper. “Based on the positive results of previous trials, we worked to get a fully encapsulated copper bed produced,” said Dr. Schmidt. “We needed to convince manufacturers that the risk to undertake this effort was worthwhile.”
This in situ study compared the relative contamination of intensive care unit (ICU) beds outfitted with copper rails, footboards, and bed controls to traditional hospital beds with plastic surfaces. Nearly 90 percent of the bacterial samples taken from the tops of the plastic rails had concentrations of bacteria that exceed levels considered safe.
“The findings indicate that antimicrobial copper beds can assist infection control practitioners in their quest to keep healthcare surfaces hygienic between regular cleanings, thereby reducing the potential risk of transmitting bacteria associated with healthcare associated infections,” said Dr. Schmidt.
With the advent of copper encapsulated hospital beds, dividends will likely be paid in improved patient outcomes, lives saved, and healthcare dollars saved. (source)
Earlier this year, a study found that cannabidiol (commonly known as CBD) is remarkably effective at killing a wide range of Gram-positive bacteria, including types of staph and strep bacteria, as well as strains that had become resistant to other antibiotic drugs.
In a press release, study lead author Dr. Mark Blaskovich, of The University of Queensland’s Institute for Molecular Bioscience’s Centre for Superbug Solutions in Brisbane, Australia, said of the findings:
“Given cannabidiol’s documented anti-inflammatory effects, existing safety data in humans, and potential for varied delivery routes, it is a promising new antibiotic worth further investigation. The combination of inherent antimicrobial activity and potential to reduce damage caused by the inflammatory response to infections is particularly attractive.”
Cannabidiol had a similar potency to established antibiotics such as vancomycin and daptomycin, and did not lose effectiveness after extended treatment.
Importantly, the drug retained its activity against bacteria that have become highly resistant to other common antibiotics. Under extended exposure conditions that lead to resistance against the antibiotics vancomycin or daptomycin, cannabidiol did not lose effectiveness.
It was also effective at disrupting biofilms, a physical form of bacteria growth that leads to difficult-to-treat infections. (source)
This research was not the first to demonstrate CBD’s bacteria-fighting properties. Two previous studies showed that CBD may be effective against a killer infection: Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus Aureus, or MRSA. While research on CBD as a treatment for serious infections is in the early stages, the mounting scientific evidence showing the compound’s powerful antifungal, antiviral, and antibacterial properties is promising.
This might be a good time to grab a copy of Prepping for a Pandemic: Life-Saving Supplies, Skills and Plans for Surviving an Outbreak by Cat Ellis – it can help you prepare for the impending bacterial apocalypse.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 11/28/2019 – 21:00 - Iran, China, & Russia Gear Up For Unprecedented War Games In "Message To The World"
Iran, China, & Russia Gear Up For Unprecedented War Games In “Message To The World”
Just as Americans were gearing up for Thanksgiving, on Wednesday Iranian officials announced they will send a “message to the world” by holding unprecedented war games with partner forces Russia in China in the Indian Ocean.
Semi-official Mehr news agency cited Rear Admiral Hossein Khanzadi on Wedneday to reveal the “mass war drills” will held at some point next month or the “near future” in a historic first, and as the three unlikely allies find themselves facing ramped up Washington sanctions and pressure.
He went on to explain such high level cooperation among powerful enemies to the US will send a glaring and unmistakable message to the world: “The joint wargame between Iran, Russia, and China, which will hopefully be conducted next month, carries the same message to the world, that these three countries have reached a meaningful strategic point in their relations, with regard to their shared and non-shared interests, and by non-shared I mean the respect we have for one another’s national interests.”
Iran war games file image, via MEHR News Agency. Adm. Khanzadi described further: “When we talk about joint wargames, we are talking about two or more countries with a high level of relations in various political, economic and social fields, which culminate in cooperation in the military sector, with wargames usually being the highest level of such cooperation.”
“A joint wargame between several countries, whether on land, at sea, or in the air, indicates a remarkable expansion of cooperation among them,” the naval commander said.
This comes after a summer where simmering tensions with the West boiled over into a full blown ‘tanker war’ scenario, as well as the alleged Iranian-ordered drone and missile attack on Saudi Aramco facilities in mid-September which briefly took out the kingdom’s ability to process crude oil.
“The wargame seeks to deliver this message to the world that any kind of security at sea must include the interests of all concerned countries. We do not condone the kind of security that only caters to the benefits of one specific country at a specific time and which disregards the security of others,” Khanzadi said.
“Seas, which are used as a platform for conducting global commerce, cannot be exclusively beneficial to certain powers,” he added, likely in reference to Washington’s latest attempts to establish a joint maritime security force to patrol the Gulf against ‘Iran threats’.
Russia has historically cooperated in naval exercises with Iran on the Caspian Sea in local maneuvers; but an expansive exercise which includes China will set a major precedent.
Currently, a Europe-led maritime mission is gaining traction in the Gulf, led by France and headquartered in Dubai. Iran has expressed that it alone is responsible for safeguarding the vital Strait of Hormuz oil passageway, but has also recognized that a European-led force (involving JCPOA partners) is more acceptable than any American military or naval initiative.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 11/28/2019 – 20:30 - DOJ Watchdog Expected To Downgrade 'Spying' On Trump Campaign To 'Typical Law Enforcement Activities'
DOJ Watchdog Expected To Downgrade ‘Spying’ On Trump Campaign To ‘Typical Law Enforcement Activities’
In late September, RealClearInvestigations‘ Paul Sperry suggested that Inspector General Michael Horowitz – tasked with investigating and exposing wrongdoing at the highest levels – was feared to be pulling punches in order to protect establishment darlings in his upcoming report on the Russia investigation.
Now we learn that Horowitz, who volunteered on several Democratic political campaigns while in college and is married to a former liberal political activist, Obama donor and CNN employee, is expected to conclude that the FBI didn’t spy on the Trump campaign.
Instead, when longtime FBI / CIA asset Stephan Halper and his undercover FBI ‘assistant’ named “Azra Turk” befriended George Papadopoulos, it was nothing more than “typical law enforcement activities,” according the New York Times.
Mr. Horowitz found no evidence that Mr. Halper tried to infiltrate the Trump campaign itself, the people familiar with the draft report said, such as by seeking inside campaign information or a role in the organization. The F.B.I. also never directed him to do so, former officials said. Instead, Mr. Halper focused on eliciting information from Mr. Page and Mr. Papadopoulos about their ties to Russia.
…
Mr. Trump and his allies have pointed to some of the investigative steps the F.B.I. took as evidence of spying, though they were typical law enforcement activities. –NYT
Recall that the Obama administration had paid Halper over $1 million over a several years, with nearly half of it surrounding the 2016 election.
The FBI never tried to place informants inside the Trump campaign. They only ran informants to solicit information from people who worked for the campaign. Is it just me, or does this seem like a distinction without a difference. https://t.co/hOVEiLdgyq
— Eli Lake (@EliLake) November 27, 2019
NYT: The FBI never did X. Never ever. Except those two times… https://t.co/f9AcujwtEr pic.twitter.com/uZlFxPho1f
— Byron York (@ByronYork) November 27, 2019
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The report is also expected to conclude that Maltese professor Joseph Mifsud – who fed Papadopoulos the rumor that Russia had dirt on Hillary Clinton – is not an FBI informant. Mifsud, a self-described member of the Clinton Foundation, has been painted by Western media as a Russian asset.
Except, nobody claimed Mifsud was an FBI informant. As The Conservative Treehouse notes, “The concern has always been Mifsud was a western intelligence asset, perhaps CIA.”
Moreover, Horowitz will conclude that while the FBI was ‘careless and unprofessional’ in pursuing a wiretap on Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, and that a ‘front-line lawyer’ Kevin Clinesmith, 37, fabricated evidence to support a FISA spy warrant renewal against Page, that the underlying justification to go after page remained intact.
In other slaps on the wrist, Horowitz is expected to criticize DOJ official Bruce Ohr for failing to inform his bosses about his extensive contacts with ‘Steele Dossier’ author Christopher Steele.
And the icing on the cake – last week The Times also reported that while Horowitz will criticize the FBI for how they handled the Trump investigation, “he made no finding of politically biased actions by top officials Mr. Trump has vilified like the former F.B.I. director James B. Comey.”
NYtimes did a story on Horowitz report. I warned folks many times about Horowitz. Turns out I was right.
“ report debunks a series of conspiracy theories/insinuations about the F.B.I. that Mr. Trump & his allies have put forward over the past
2 years “..https://t.co/r0f2mP34GH— Christian Lamar (@christianllamar) November 25, 2019
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Horowitz gave Comey, McCabe, Strzok, Yates, Boente and Rosenstein a clean bill of health. No wrongdoing.
Don’t expect Durham to charge anyone because if he did the Department of Justice would be contradicting itself.
Clinesmith guy is low hanging fruit. No big players charged.
— Christian Lamar (@christianllamar) November 25, 2019
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No wonder Comey and team have been so smug!
The report is expected December 9, while Horowitz is scheduled to testify in front of the Senate days later.
I’m at the “abolish the FBI” stage of grief. https://t.co/I22PmMwih1
— Jubal E. Harshaw (@alimhaider) November 28, 2019
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.jshttps://platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsOf course, while Horowitz may or may not give key FBI officials a pass in his report, its only one component of the ongoing efforts by the DOJ.
16) The media will use the IG report to paint the narrative that no one of consequence will be prosecuted. They’ll conflate the responsibilities of IG Horowitz and US Attorney Durham, and claim that Horowitz’s recommendations are what really matter.
— Praying Medic (@prayingmedic) November 28, 2019
Tyler Durden
Thu, 11/28/2019 – 20:30 - How Much Energy Do Americans Use On Thanksgiving?
How Much Energy Do Americans Use On Thanksgiving?
Authored by Julianne Geiger via OilPrice.com,
This Thanksgiving, Americans will suck up 350 gigawatts of electricity – equivalent to the entire world’s nuclear power capacity in 2012 – making turkeys.
So, while we spend time being thankful this Thursday as we gather around the dinner table with family and friends, we should take a moment to extend that thanks to the energy that will be consumed making the turkey and all the trimmings.
But you might be surprised to know that Americans consume far less energy on Thanksgiving than on just any old Thursday – despite the fact that turkeys take nearly all night in the oven to cook.
Thanksgiving by the numbers
Size Matters
Americans aren’t the only ones with a weight problem; turkeys are getting a bit too big for their britches, too. The average Thanksgiving turkey size in 2019 is 30 pounds! That’s one big bird, and more than double from the 13 pound average sold in the 1930s. The fact that turkeys have bulged into enormous proportions means that it takes longer to cook. A 30-pound bird (stuffed, or course, because who doesn’t like in-the-bird stuffing?) can take 6.25 hours to cook in a 350° oven. The unstuffed equivalent takes about 1.25 hours less time to roast.
The Electric Cost of Roasting Each Tom
We did the math, and the average electric oven (non-convection) of the 2000-2400-watt variety will chew through a little over 12 kWh of electricity to cook that tom for 6 hours. At an average cost of 13.3 cents per kwh for electricity in the United States, turkey cookers will pay about $1.60 for the electricity to cook their birds (a couple of pennies more if you keep peeking at it while its cooking).
All Together Now
Americans will consume a staggering 46,000,000 turkeys this Thanksgiving. At 12 kWh each, that’s 552,000,000 kWh—for a single meal. That’s surely a large number.
Now, not everyone has an electric oven, so there’s that. About 63% of American homes have electric ovens, according to 2018 EIA data (with 33% using natural gas and 5% using propane), so this 552,000,000 kWh can be reduced to just 347,760,000 kWh. This could also be expressed as 347 gigawatts. That’s the equivalent of all the nuclear power capacity of the entire world in 2012, according to the IAEA, or the entire coal capacity installed in America in 2011.
Gobble it up!
But fret not. You can eat your turkey in good conscience—you’re actually doing your part to save the environment by eating the turkey. And here’s why:
An estimated 88% of all Americans eat turkey on Thanksgiving. There are 327,000,000 people living in America, so this means that 287,760,000 people eat turkey on Thanksgiving—but only 46,000,000 of those turkey eaters have the dual role of turkey eater and turkey roaster.
That means that the remaining 241,760,000 people in America are your freeloading family members that are coming to your house to eat your turkey. And if those people are all at your house to eat your turkey, what are they not doing that they would be doing on any other day? Cooking, of course!
So, while cooking a turkey may seem an electrical extravagance, people are consolidating, so it actually is more of an energy savings than an indulgence, because fewer people are cooking that day—a lot fewer.
Other Thanksgiving Day energy considerations
Also, while families are together on this day waiting for the turkey to be done, fewer TVs are playing the requisite football games. Less energy.
More people are traveling. More energy. According to Gas Buddy, 65% of Americans travel by car. Gasoline inventories in the US rose last week, but gasoline prices are holding pretty steady compared to the last three thanksgivings.
Other energy is consumed in greater quantities on Thanksgiving as well, for preparing the rest of the holiday feast such as pumpkin pie, green bean casserole and mashed potatoes—three very critical Thanksgiving must-haves. All these trimmings likely add another couple million kWh to the energy draw for Thanksgiving.
Residential heating. Less energy. As people are grouped into fewer abodes on Thanksgiving Day, heating sources are turned down or off while they stay with family—sometimes for days if they have traveled significant distances. This decreases the amount of energy used for heating.
Estimates are that energy usage typically drops 5-10% on Thanksgiving Day, compared to the November average, all thanks to that delicious turkey. And the estimated savings of that energy could amount to more than $2 billion in energy bills.
So, with conscience clear, travel to visit your family. Roast that bird. Eat well and be merry. Your overindulgence on Thanksgiving Day will balance out in the end, saving more electricity than you consume.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 11/28/2019 – 20:00 - Doug Casey On The Destruction Of The Dollar
Doug Casey On The Destruction Of The Dollar
Authored by Doug Casey via InternationalMan.com,
“Inflation” occurs when the creation of currency outruns the creation of real wealth it can bid for… It isn’t caused by price increases; rather, it causes price increases.
Inflation is not caused by the butcher, the baker, or the auto maker, although they usually get blamed. On the contrary, by producing real wealth, they fight the effects of inflation. Inflation is the work of government alone, since government alone controls the creation of currency.
In a true free-market society, the only way a person or organization can legitimately obtain wealth is through production. “Making money” is no different from “creating wealth,” and money is nothing but a certificate of production. In our world, however, the government can create currency at trivial cost, and spend it at full value in the marketplace. If taxation is the expropriation of wealth by force, then inflation is its expropriation by fraud.
To inflate, a government needs complete control of a country’s legal money. This has the widest possible implications, since money is much more than just a medium of exchange. Money is the means by which all other material goods are valued. It represents, in an objective way, the hours of one’s life spent in acquiring it. And if enough money allows one to live life as one wishes, it represents freedom as well. It represents all the good things one hopes to have, do, and provide for others. Money is life concentrated.
As the state becomes more powerful and is expected to provide more resources to selected groups, its demand for funds escalates. Government naturally prefers to avoid imposing more taxes as people become less able (or willing) to pay them. It runs greater budget deficits, choosing to borrow what it needs. As the market becomes less able (or willing) to lend it money, it turns to inflation, selling ever greater amounts of its debt to its central bank, which pays for the debt by printing more money.
As the supply of currency rises, it loses value relative to other things, and prices rise. The process is vastly more destructive than taxation, which merely dissipates wealth. Inflation undermines and destroys the basis for valuing all goods relative to others and the basis for allocating resources intelligently. It creates the business cycle and causes the resulting misallocations and distortions in the economy.
We know the old saw “The rich get richer, and the poor get poorer.” No one ever said life had to be fair, but usually there is no a priori reason why the rich must get richer. In a free-market society the sayings “Shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations” and “A fool and his money are soon parted” might be better descriptions of reality. We do not live in a free-market society, however.
The rich and the poor do have a tendency to draw apart as a society becomes more bureaucratic, but not because of any cosmic law. It’s a consequence of any highly politicized system. Government, to paraphrase Willie Sutton, is where the money is. The bigger government becomes, the more effort the rich, and those who want to get that way, will put into making the government do things their way.
Only the rich can afford the legal counsel it takes to weave and dodge through the laws that restrict the masses. The rich can afford the accountants to chart a path through loopholes in the tax laws. The rich have the credit to borrow and thereby profit from inflation. The rich can pay to influence how the government distorts the economy, so that the distortions are profitable to them.
The point is not that rich people are bad guys (the political hacks who cater to them are a different question). It is just that in a heavily regulated, highly taxed, and inflationary society, there’s a strong tendency for the rich to get richer at the expense of the poor, who are hurt by the same actions of the government.
Always, and without exception, the most socialistic, or centrally planned, economies have the most unequal distribution of wealth. In those societies the unprincipled become rich, and the rich stay that way, through political power. In free societies, the rich can get richer only by providing goods and services others want at a price they can afford.
As inflation gets worse, there will be a growing public outcry for government to do something, anything, about it.
People will join political action committees, lobbying groups, and political parties in hopes of gaining leverage to impose their will on the country at large, ostensibly for its own good.
Possible government “solutions” will include wage and price controls, credit controls, restrictions on changing jobs, controls on withdrawing money from bank accounts, import and export restrictions, restrictions on the use of cash to prevent tax evasion, nationalization, even martial law—almost anything is possible. None of these “solutions” addresses the root cause—state intervention in the economy. Each will just make things worse rather than better.
What these solutions all share is their political nature; in order to work they require that some people be forced to obey the orders of others.
Whether you or I or a taxi driver on the street thinks a particular solution is good or not is irrelevant. All of the problems that are just beginning to crash down around society’s head (e.g., a bankrupt Social Security system, federally protected banks that are bankrupt, a monetary system gone haywire) used to be solutions, and they must have seemed “good” at the time, otherwise they’d never have been adopted.
The real problem is not what is done but rather how it is done: that is, through the political process or through the free market. The difference is that between coercion and voluntarism. It’s also the difference between getting excited, frustrated, and beating your head against a wall and taking positive action to improve your own standard of living, to live life the way you like it, and, by your own example, to influence society in the direction that you’d like to see it take—but without asking the government to hold a gun to anyone’s head.
Political action can change things. Russians in the ’20s, Germans in the ’30s, Chinese in the ’40s, Cubans in the ’50s, Congolese in the ’60s, South Vietnamese and Cambodians in the ’70s, then Rhodesians, Bosnians, Rwandans, and Venezuelans today are among those who certainly discovered it can. It’s just that the changes usually aren’t very constructive.
That’s the nature of government; it doesn’t create wealth, it only allocates what others have created. More typically, it either dissipates wealth or misallocates it, because it acts in ways that are politically productive (i.e., that gratify and enhance the power of politicians) rather than economically productive (i.e., that allow individuals to satisfy their desires in the ways they prefer).
It’s irresponsible to base your own life on what hundreds of millions of other people and their rulers may or may not do. The essence of being a free person is to be causative over your own actions and destiny, not to be the effect of others. You can’t control what others will do, but you can control yourself.
If you’re counting on other people, or political solutions of some type, most likely it will make you unwary and complacent, secure in the hope that “they” know what they’re doing and you needn’t get yourself all flustered with worries about the collapse of the economy.
* * *
Whether it’s groceries, medical care, tuition, or rent, it seems the cost of everything is rising. It’s an established trend in motion that is accelerating, and now approaching a breaking point. At the same time, the world is facing a severe crisis on multiple fronts. Gold is just about the only place to be. Gold tends to do well during periods of turmoil—for both wealth preservation and speculative gains. That’s precisely why we just released an urgent video. It reveals how it will all play out and what you can do about it. Click here to watch it now.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 11/28/2019 – 19:00 - Nation's Progressives Give Thanks That They Have So Much To Be Angry About This Year
Nation’s Progressives Give Thanks That They Have So Much To Be Angry About This Year
In honor of Thanksgiving week, the nation’s progressives have begun to give thanks that they have so much to be angry and offended about this year.
“Thank you, unspecified deity who may or may not exist, for giving us so much stuff to be outraged about,” said Staci Walder, 42, of Portland, as she prepared her vegan, kale-wrapped turkey.
“I’m truly humbled that you’ve blessed me with the Trump presidency, the patriarchy, the laws of economics, and biological facts to rage against.“
“Every year, it’s important to pause and recognize how much we have to be angry about.”
“A lot of people struggle with gratitude, but I’m deeply thankful that the universe has given us a veritable cornucopia of things to be mad about,” agreed Mary Wallace, 27, of New York.
“I know that I come from a place of privilege, and when I think about those poor people who have absolutely nothing to be mad about, I utter a prayer of thanks to goddess.”
Many progressives partake in an annual tradition of writing down all the things they’re thankful to be mad about:
-
White people
-
Pronouns
-
Personal responsibility
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Satire that does not affirm their viewpoint
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Billionaires
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Old tweets
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32-ounce sodas
-
Plastic straws
-
People who hold a steady job
-
Appropriating other cultures
-
Excluding other cultures
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Bush
-
Obama
-
Trump
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Babies
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Kanye West
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America
“If we’d all just remember to count our outrages, we’d have a much worse attitude all the time,” Wallace said as she looked over her own list of offensive things that dare to exist.
“We should live our lives as though it’s Outrage Thanksgiving every day.”
Tyler Durden
Thu, 11/28/2019 – 18:45 -
- Korean EV Battery Firms Are At War, Threatening The US Electric Vehicle Market
Korean EV Battery Firms Are At War, Threatening The US Electric Vehicle Market
An ongoing war between EV battery manufacturers in Korea could spill over and begin to cause volatility in the U.S. electric vehicle market.
Back in 2018, South Korea based SK Innovation beat out local rival LG Chem to supply Volkswagen with a multi-billion EV battery order, according to Reuters. As a result, SKI broke ground on a new $1.7 billion plant in Commerce, Georgia, which is about 200km away from VW’s Chattanooga plant.
But LG Chem didn’t take the news sitting down: they took SKI to court in April, accusing the company of misappropriating trade secrets. Now, seven months later, it has been a barrage of U.S. lawsuits between the two companies for battery patent infringements. It has become a war that “threatens to disrupt the launches of electric vehicles (EVs) by some of the world’s biggest carmakers.”
In one court filing, LGC said its rival poached employees working on its own project to supply batteries for VW’s MEB electric vehicle architecture – and that SKI only won the VW contract because it had misappropriated trade secrets.
SKI has denied stealing trade secrets, saying its staff signed agreements not to use information from former workplaces. “We value intellectual property,” a spokesman for SKI said.
If the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) rules in favour of LGC on June 5, when it is due to make a preliminary ruling, that could jeopardise SKI’s plans to supply VW in the United States with batteries from Georgia or a new factory in Hungary, according to court filings.
Both companies are trying to stop each other from importing and selling EV batteries that will be used in VW’s SUVs, as well as electric vehicles from GM, Ford, Jaguar, Audi and Kia.
In the balance hangs the companies’ abilities to supply U.S. automakers with batteries as car producers look to lock in supplies with large contracts ahead of an expected surge in demand.
Cho Jae-phil, a professor at Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology who worked previously at another Korean rival, Samsung SDI, said: “Whoever loses the fight would suffer a fatal blow, unless the two reach a settlement. This will also be a setback for automakers.”
Ford spokeswoman Jennifer Flake said: “We are aware of the issue. As a normal course of action, we have business continuity plans in place to protect our interests.”
She said Ford was encouraging the two companies to resolve their conflicts without litigation and that there was sufficient demand for multiple suppliers.
GM spokesman Patrick Morrissey said: “[GM is] aware of the dispute and at this point it [does] not expect any impact on the production of its Chevy Bolt electric vehicle.”
Volkswagen says it is worried there won’t be enough batteries for all of the EVs it plans to launch over the next 5 years, mainly because other producers don’t have skilled workers for new plants in Europe to ramp up output quickly.
Korea’s battery industry tracker SNE Research shows that the market for EV batteries is set to grow 23% a year to reach $167 billion by 2025, making it bigger than the global memory chip market.
The feud is worrying the Korean government, where officials believe it could damage the firms’ reputations and allow rivals to win market share from South Korean companies.
Beejay Kim, a battery consultant, said: “No one wants them to fight till the end.”
The patent lawsuits brought forth in the U.S. means that if one companies loses, it probably won’t be able to market products using the patents in the country. There are also lawsuits pending in South Korean courts.
But SKI and LGC have said there has been so supply disruption – yet.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 11/28/2019 – 18:30 - Binge Drinking Doubles Amongst American Women Without Children
Binge Drinking Doubles Amongst American Women Without Children
Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,
Binge drinking amongst American women without children has doubled in just over a decade, proving that the satirical ‘wine aunt’ meme is actually true.
A study by Columbia University found that, “More than four in ten (42 percent) childless 30- to 44-year-olds were having five or more drinks on any given occasion last year – compared to a fifth (21 percent) in 2006,” reports the Daily Mail.
Another study from last year showed that white adult women over the age of 45 were more likely to take antidepressants than younger adults, men and minorities.
The wine aunt is no longer just a meme, it’s a manifestly provable reality.
Many women have bought into social engineering propaganda that not having children provides them with freedom and happiness when in reality it only makes them miserable and lonely.
In addition, when these women reach their later years, there will be absolutely nobody to take care of them and many of them will likely die alone.
The freedom to die alone having lived a joyless, barren life of meaningless hedonism.
So happy!
Meanwhile, as we document in the video below, the epidemic in suicides of white, middle aged working class men in America continues to be ignored by the media.
* * *
My voice is being silenced by free speech-hating Silicon Valley behemoths who want me disappeared forever. It is CRUCIAL that you support me. Please sign up for the free newsletter here. Donate to me on SubscribeStar here. Support my sponsor – Turbo Force – a supercharged boost of clean energy without the comedown.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 11/28/2019 – 18:00 - Zombified NYC Developers Resort To Inventory Loans To Stay Afloat Amid Housing Slump
Zombified NYC Developers Resort To Inventory Loans To Stay Afloat Amid Housing Slump
New York City’s housing market has been swamped with a historic mismatch involving a flood of luxury inventory and a shortage of buyers.
Manhattan is facing one of the worst slumps since 2011, forcing developers to take out low-interest inventory loans, collateralized by unsold condos to stay afloat.
These loans are lifelines for struggling developers and a boom for companies such as Silverstein Properties Inc., who is expected to double its inventory loan book to more than $1 billion in 2020, reported Bloomberg.
Silverstein’s inventory loan book is growing at an exponential rate as a housing bust across Manhattan gains momentum.
Michael May, CEO of Silverstein, said inventory loan growth among developers is the fastest in Gramercy, Tribeca, and Midtown East. These areas have also been hit hard in the housing slump.
“You’re seeing some projects that are completed that have just had very, very slow sales,” May said. “Given the amount of condo developers seeking debt, if we open the floodgates, we could probably load $1 billion of that product on within the next 60 days.”
Developers have been pulling inventory loans to avoid slashing listing prices that would spark a firesale and lead to further downside in the housing market.
“Our goal is not to lend to projects that fail: We’re in a position where if a project has a problem, we believe that we could execute the business plan, and we could finish the construction,” May said. “We think that there’s still demand for units that are priced well, but in many cases, the owners of these projects have not adjusted their expectations to where the price would sell in the market yet.”
Silverstein has completed $500 million in financing year-to-date. Inventory loans are expected to be a large portion of the firm’s book in 2020, as there’s no sign the Manhattan real estate market will see an upswing then, and developers will need cheap financing to weather the storm.
Can kicking of condo loans has been institutionalized in the form of “inventory loans”
The Fed continues to see no signs of excess, BTWhttps://t.co/m5YSCsrtmF
— Donut Shorts (@DonutShorts) November 27, 2019
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As a result, the rise of zombie developers across Manhattan is inevitable. Thank You Federal Reserve!
Tyler Durden
Thu, 11/28/2019 – 17:30 - Black Friday Is Coming, And 48 Million Americans Still Have Holiday Debt From Last Year
Black Friday Is Coming, And 48 Million Americans Still Have Holiday Debt From Last Year
Authored by Michael Snyder via TheMostImportantNews.com,
The biggest shopping day of the year is almost here, and marketers are working hard trying to extract as much money from U.S. consumers as possible.
Unfortunately, it is becoming increasingly difficult to get consumers to open up their wallets, because many of them are already drowning in debt. As a society, we have been trained to think of this as “the happiest time of the year”, and for many Americans the most important part of the holiday season is opening presents on Christmas morning. So there is a tremendous amount of pressure to spend a lot of money on presents, but this often leads to high levels of credit card debt. In fact, a survey that was just released discovered that 48 million Americans “are still paying off credit card debt from last holiday season”…
The holidays can be hard: cooking elaborate meals, facing frigid temperatures, making travel plans that please everyone.
Overspending, however, is too easy. In fact, about 48 million Americans are still paying off credit card debt from last holiday season, according to a NerdWallet survey conducted by The Harris Poll.
Sadly, some of those consumers will end up paying the credit card companies more than twice what those Christmas presents originally cost, and it can be exceedingly difficult to ever get ahead when you are trapped in a seemingly endless cycle of debt.
So why do people do it?
Well, according to one financial therapist many Americans are chasing an “emotional experience” this time of the year…
Gift-buying requires money, time and energy when you may already feel overwhelmed, says Los Angeles-based financial therapist Amanda Clayman. During the holidays, “we’re chasing a sort of emotional experience,” she says. Think: the love and happiness of a Hallmark movie.
But feelings of grief or longing may be more realistic. “This is a sad and lonely time for many people,” says Sarah Newcomb, behavioral economist for Morningstar. Shopping (for anything or everything) can be a convenient coping mechanism.
We want what we see on television, but what we see on television is not real.
In the end, many Americans leave the holiday season feeling deeply disappointed, because what they were chasing was just an illusion.
Yes, some wealthy families will literally have hundreds of presents under their Christmas trees this holiday season, but most American families are deeply struggling these days.
In fact, over two million of us are actually living without basic necessities such as “running water or indoor plumbing”. The following comes from Daisy Luther…
A new report says that more than 2 million Americans in West Virginia, Alabama, Texas and the Navajo Nation Reservation in the Southwest are living without clean running water or indoor plumbing. They’re drinking from polluted streams. They’re carrying buckets of the same water home for washing. They’re urinating and defecating outside with no wastewater treatment.
The gap between the rich and the poor continues to grow, and at this point the wealthiest 0.1 percent of all Americans now have as much wealth as the poorest 90 percent of all Americans combined.
Let that sink in for a moment.
That is a recipe for societal disaster, and it is getting worse with each passing year.
A big reason for this is because the Federal Reserve has been artificially pumping up the financial markets, and on Monday stocks hit yet another all-time high…
The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite hit all-time closing highs as they rose 0.8% to 3,133.64 and 1.3% to 8,632.49, respectively. Both indexes also notched intraday records. The Dow Jones Industrial Average also had a record close, gaining 190.85 points, or 0.5% to 28,066.47.
President Donald Trump tweeted about the record, saying: “Enjoy!”
But what most Americans don’t understand is that 84 percent of all stock market wealth is owned by the wealthiest 10 percent of all Americans.
Of course the stock market bubble won’t last indefinitely. We are already in an earnings recession, and that earnings recession is expected to continue in the fourth quarter…
Earnings in the S&P 500 index SPX, +0.75% are now projected to decline 1.51% in the fourth quarter from the year before, according to a FactSet computation of analysts’ average forecasts for individual companies. An earnings recession is defined as two quarters or more of consecutive year-over-year declines, and earnings for S&P 500 components dipped in the first two quarters of 2019 and are all but certain to do so again in the third quarter — with nearly 95% of calendar third-quarter reports posted, earnings have dropped 2.34%, the biggest decline so far this year.
And about 75 percent of the time, an earnings recession leads into a full-blown recession for the economy as a whole…
Three-fourths (75%) of earnings recessions since World War II have morphed into economic recessions, said CFRA Chief Investment Strategist Sam Stovall, who told Market Watch that he has been “scratching his head” trying to reconcile analyst pessimism around earnings with continued stock-market rallies.
So the truth is that those that are celebrating what the stock market is doing are not likely to be celebrating for too much longer.
And every day we continue to get more bad news from the real economy. For example, we just learned that the largest maker of truck engines in the United States will be laying off about 2,000 workers…
Those market trends are now impacting Cummins, a Columbus, Ind., manufacturer of heavy equipment. It’s the largest manufacturer of Class 8 truck engines, claiming a 38.3% market share in 2018 over competitors like Daimler and Volvo/Mack.
Cummins spokesperson Jon Mills confirmed to Business Insider that the company, which employs some 62,610 globally, will reduce its global workforce by about 2,000. Those layoffs will be complete by the first quarter of 2020, he said.
As a “perfect storm” overtakes America, many believe that this will be the last “normal” holiday season that Americans will be able to enjoy.
It has become exceedingly clear that very hard times are coming, and quite a few experts believe that the crisis that is ahead will be even worse than what we experienced in 2008.
So enjoy the time that you are able to spend with your family and friends over the coming weeks, because major changes are already starting to happen, and our nation will soon be dealing with one major headache after another.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 11/28/2019 – 17:00 - China Folds: For All Its Bluster, Beijing Does Nothing After Trump Signs HK Bill
China Folds: For All Its Bluster, Beijing Does Nothing After Trump Signs HK Bill
Just a few hours after Trump called China’s bluff on the Hong Kong bill, it appears the US president won the pot.
After launching a stern verbal protest overnight in which China’s Foreign Ministry said that it would take strong countermeasures if the US continues to undermine Hong Kong’s autonomy after Trump signed the Bill that supports HK protesters, adding that US attempts to interfere in HK are doomed to fail, Beijing has done nothing really, and instead left the door open for a trade deal with the U.S., confirming again that China needs the trade deal with the US just as much as Trump, if not more.
The build up certainly was dramatic: for days after Congress almost unanimously passed the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act last week, China repeatedly vowed it would take unspecified countermeasures if Trump signed the bill, fueling concerns that President Xi Jinping would scuttle the trade talks to appear tough on the U.S. In the end, China did nothing: Wednesday’s bill signing by Mr. Trump came and went without any real action.
Instead, as the WSJ notes, “Chinese officials shifted their focus to whether the U.S. president would implement any of the bill’s measures, according to officials involved in economic policy-making.” Specifically, to save face, Beijing seized on a sentence in Trump’s statement that emphasized his “constitutional authorities with respect to foreign relations.”
… with respect to foreign relations.” Sources confirm the Phase One deal is being finalized. So let’s see. With @PhilipWen11 @Chao_Deng
— Lingling Wei 魏玲灵 (@Lingling_Wei) November 28, 2019
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Or as the WSJ summarized, for all its huffing and puffing, “China’s leadership still wants a deal to help alleviate pressure on its fast-weakening economy”, which incidentally coincides with Trump’s own interest as he hopes to clinch a deal to boost his re-election bid.
Indeed, as the WSJ’s Lingling Wei also notes, Trump “Trump also chose the evening before Thanksgiving to sign the measure, a time guaranteed to get little attention in the U.S. While his signature still makes the bill law, his timing suggests he was trying to play down the political impact at home.
Also good point by @bobdavis187 : Trump also chose the evening before Thanksgiving to sign the measure, a time guaranteed to get little attention in U.S. The timing suggests he was trying to play down the political impact at home.
— Lingling Wei 魏玲灵 (@Lingling_Wei) November 28, 2019
Trump’s successful gambit was concluded when reporters asked if the bill’s signing would affect trade talks. To this, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang didn’t answer directly but demanded the U.S. not implement the law because it would risk “undermining our bilateral relations and cooperation in important areas.” Chinese officials were also reportedly encouraged by Trump’s efforts to emphasize his respect for Mr. Xi. “I signed these bills out of respect for President Xi, China, and the people of Hong Kong,” Trump said unironically in the statement.
And since the actual implementation of the bill wold not take place for over half a year, when it comes to China it is now officially in the rearview mirror as Beijing has moved the goalpost not to responding to Trump’s signing of the bill, but to Washington’s actual implementation.
“It does spoil the mood, but it shouldn’t interfere with the trade talks,” said Wang Yong, a professor of international relations at Peking University, of Mr. Trump’s move. “Both sides have enough reasons to keep trade, Hong Kong and political issues on separate tracks.”
Which means that with both sides now eager to sign a deal, they will ignore any political theater that could potentially jeopardize such a deal:
Some outside experts agree with Beijing’s interpretation that while the U.S. law gives the president broad powers to impose sanctions and travel restrictions on individuals who commit human-rights violations in Hong Kong, the president already had many of those powers—and still has the discretion to not apply them.
“My reading of D.C. is there’s a lot of appetite for talking tough on China, but not that much in terms of actually being tough,” said Andrew Polk, founder of Trivium, a Beijing-based economics and policy consulting firm.
Still, there is a modest risk that Xi will be pressured to offer at least a token response: as noted earlier, China’s top twitter troll, Hu Xijin, editor in chief of the state-run Global Times, said on Twitter that China was considering barring those responsible for drafting the legislation from entering mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau. Trolling Trump’s turn of phrase, Hu said this was “out of respect for President Trump, the U.S. and its people.”
Yet ultimately passage of any trade deal could depend on whether Hong Kong residents escalate their protests in the coming days, emboldened by explicit US support – in that case, Beijing may have no choice but to close the door, if only temporarily, on a Phase 1 deal.
China’s attempts to keep Hong Kong issues and the trade talks on separate tracks might not be universally popular, some analysts say. Shi Yinhong, a professor of international relations at Renmin University, said it could be embarrassing for a phase-one trade deal to progress in light of the Hong Kong law.
Yet despite the various unknowns and risks, the fact that Beijing has so far merely stuck to verbal threats instead of escalating to actual deeds, confirms that for now, Trump’s signing gamble worked out just as the US president expected.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 11/28/2019 – 16:50 - Walmart Pork Found To Have "Superbug" Bacteria Resistant To Antibiotics
Walmart Pork Found To Have “Superbug” Bacteria Resistant To Antibiotics
A new study published by animal-welfare group World Animal Protection has arrived at some stunning findings about pork products begin sold at Walmart.
The report , published by FoodDive, found that pork samples purchased from Walmart contained “superbug” antibiotic-resistant bacteria. 80% of samples tested from Mid-Atlantic Walmart stores were resistant to at least one antibiotic. Additionally, 37% of the bacteria in the Walmart samples were resistant to three or more classes of antibiotics.
In sum, about 27% of the resistant bacteria found on Walmart’s pork were resistant to classes categorized as Highest Priority Critically Important Antimicrobials by the World Health Organization.
160 samples of pork were tested by researchers at Texas Tech University: 80 were from Walmart and 80 were from a competing national retail chain in the Mid-Atlantic region. The samples were tested in 32 batches for E. coli, salmonella, enterococcus and listeria. Researchers said they found enterococcus in 13 batches, E. coli in 10 batches, salmonella in 6 and listeria in 3 batches.
Alesia Soltanpanah, executive director of World Animal Protection U.S., said: “The presence of multidrug-resistant bacteria on pork products illustrates the role the pork supply chain plays in the global health crisis caused by antibiotic-resistant bacteria. The fact that pork from one of the nation’s largest retailers contains bacteria resistant to antibiotics critically important to human health is particularly alarming and should raise concerns.”
In addition to Walmart, researchers also tested pork sample from another national retail chain and also found antibiotic-resistant bacteria. However, the second batch tested did not contain two strains of multidrug-resistant bacteria in a single batch (as the Walmart batch did) and none of the samples were resistant to antibiotics considered “critically important to human health”.
The report didn’t name the second retailer, but FoodDive speculates that it is Costco, Kroger or Target, based on the report noting that the second retailer has “has committed to strengthen its animal welfare policies for its pork suppliers, including working towards a commitment to complete elimination of gestation crates for breeding sows.”
Walmart has not yet made this commitment, while Target and Costco have committed to the initiative by 2022 and Kroger by 2025. In 2016, however, Walmart partnered with IBM and Tsinghua University to track the movement of pork in China using blockchain.
As FoodDive notes, consumers are now challenging major food companies for more transparency with their manufacturing processes:
Food companies are being challenged by consumers demanding more transparency and checking manufacturing processes to make sure the products they buy reflect their values. Younger consumers responding to surveys note how they’re willing to pay premium prices for organic, natural and cruelty-free foods. Both Perdue and Tyson have attracted negative publicity involving animal welfare in recent years and had to change their practices as a result.
Antibiotic-free has become more prevalent as a label claim. Giant Food, a unit of Ahold Delhaize, debuted a private-label pork brand in 2017 with no antibiotics or hormones and 100% vegetarian-fed. And major poultry producers such as Tyson Foods, Pilgrim’s Pride and Perdue have committed to reducing or removing antibiotics from their chicken.
Soltanpanah said the WAP was in contact with Walmart about the results but that the company was “not responsive” to the concerns. Walmart has not acknowledged the problem as of November 26.
These antibiotics – called Highest Priority Critically Important Antimicrobials – are the ones where there are few, or sometimes no, alternatives to treat people with serious infections. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations has said “antimicrobial resistance poses a serious threat to the safety and quality of feed and food, especially in food-producing animals.”
The Centers for Disease Control calls antibiotic resistance “one of the biggest public health challenges of our time.”
Tyler Durden
Thu, 11/28/2019 – 16:30 - Christopher Steele Distributed Other Dossier Reports
Christopher Steele Distributed Other Dossier Reports
Authored by John Solomon via JohnSolomonReports.com,
Just before Christmas 2015, the British intelligence operative Christopher Steele emailed a report to private clients that included an American lawyer for a Ukrainian oligarch.
The title of the dossier was “FIRTASH Abortive Return to Ukraine,” and it purported to provide intelligence on why the energy oligarch Dmitri Firtash tried, but failed, to return to his home country of Ukraine.
“FIRTASH’s talk of returning to Ukraine a genuine ambition rather than merely a ruse to reveal Ukrainian government’s hand. However the oligarch developed cold feet upon the news of a negative reception at Boryspil airport,” Steele reported on Dec. 23, 2015.
Perhaps most important to the recipients, the former MI6 agent’s report purported to share the latest thinking of Russian and U.S. officials on Firtash, who at the time faced U.S. criminal charges and was awaiting extradition from Austria.
Those charges and extradition remain unresolved four years later. Firtash insists on his innocence, while the U.S. government stands by it case despite recent criticism from Austrian and Spanish authorities.
“The prevarication over his return has lost FIRTASH credibility with the Russians, but his precarious position in Austria leaves him little choice but to acquiesce with Moscow’s demands,” the Steele report claimed.
“Separate American sources confirm that US Government regards FIRTASH as a conduit for Russian influence and he remains a pariah to the Americans.”
The anecdote of the Firtash report underscores that challenges the FBI faced when it used Steele in 2016 as a human source in the Russia collusion probe.
He not only opposed Trump and was paid by Hillary Clinton’s opposition research firm to dig up dirt on the then-GOP nominee, he also was in the business of selling intelligence to private clients – all perfectly legal — while informing for the FBI.
Steele had engaged the U.S. government on occasion since his retirement from MI6 in 2009, both as an FBI informant in the FIFA soccer corruption case and as intelligence provider to the Obama State Department. So any assessment he offered from U.S. officials was closely watched by private clients.
His Firtash report cited an unnamed intelligence source indicating that Firtash had little chance of winning any favor under the Obama administration, but that other oligarchs in the region might be welcomed by the Americans if they sought to play a role in Ukraine.
“The source had a separate confirmation from US sources that Washington regarded FIRTASH as a conduit for Russian influence,” the report said.
“Whilst the USG was prepared to do business with the likes of Rinat AKHMETOV and Ihor KOLOMOISKY, FIRTASH remained a pariah.”
The U.S. lawyer who received Steele’s report represented Firtash and had spent part of 2015 checking whether there was an opportunity the State or Justice Department might negotiate to settle the criminal case against his client. He determined the U.S. government did not, something Steele’s report only affirmed anew.
Steele did not immediately respond to a message to his London business office seeking comment. But his firm has issued a blanket statement on its Web site saying it does highly professional work but doesn’t comment on specific clients or products.
“Orbis Business Intelligence has an established track record of providing strategic intelligence, forensic investigation and risk consulting services to a broad client base,” the firm wrote. “The nature of our business, and our high standards of professionalism dictate that we would not disclose to the public information on any specific aspects of our work. We remain fully committed to the secure provision of our services to our clients and partners worldwide.”
Steele and his infamous dossier alleging an unfounded conspiracy between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin to hijack the 2016 election are expected to play a starring role in a long-awaited Justice Department inspector general’s report reviewing the FBI’s Russian collusion probe.
The report to be made public next month is expected to reveal that one FBI official falsified a document and other U.S. officials withheld information both about Steele and the innocence of some of the targeted individuals when the FBI sought a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant to probe the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia starting in October 2016.
Some intelligence experts have been quoted recently as saying Steele’s information against Trump, much of which the FBI could never verify, may have been Russian disinformation designed to sow chaos during the U.S. election.
After two-plus years of investigation, Special Counsel Robert Mueller concluded this spring that there was no collusion or conspiracy between Russia and the Trump campaign. Nonetheless, the allegations have lingered over the Trump presidency and divided the country bitterly.
Steele’s Firtash report is a cogent reminder that while Steele on occasion worked for the U.S. government, he also was simultaneously pitching intelligence he got from American sources and others to his private clients, some who had different interests than the United States.
The back and forth between U.S. and other contacts in Steele’s business was laid bare by email and text messages released by the Justice Department last year. For instance, the messages show that less than three weeks after emailing the Firtash report, Steele reached out in January 2016 to senior U.S. Justice Department official Bruce Ohr, a prosecutor with responsibility for Eurasian oligarchs, to set up a possible meeting in London.
Steele and Ohr had frequent contact all the way through 2017, including when Steele shared on July 30, 2016 some of his anti-Trump evidence with Ohr, who then took it to the top of the FBI. Steele was eventually dropped by the FBI as an informant for leaking to the news media.
Fiona Hill, a recent impeachment witness and a former top Russia expert on the National Security Council, suggested to lawmakers in a deposition recently that Steele’s dual role as government insider/informer and private intelligence provider left him vulnerable to Russian disinformation when he wrote his dossier.
“He was constantly trying to drum up business,” Hill testified when asked about her own contacts from time to time with the former British intelligence agent.
She said that when she read Steele’s anti-Trump dossier in January 2017 she instantly feared it might be disinformation fed to Steele by the Russians because he previously had done spy work for MI6.
“That is when I expressed the misgivings and concern that he could have been played,” Hill testified.
She added:
“The Russians would have an axe to grind against him given the job he had previously. And if he started going back through his old contacts and asking about that, that would be a perfect opportunity for people to feed him some kind of misinformation.”
The IG report set to be released Dec. 9 will give Americans a more comprehensive look at Steele and the FBI’s reliance on him as an informant.
And then it will be up to the FBI, DOJ and congressional oversight committees to re-evaluate what lessons can be learned from the now-debunked Russia collusion probe.
Those likely are to include better vetting of informants, stronger oversight of the FISA process and new regulations for when the FBI can investigate a candidate during the middle of an election, especially when the allegations emanate from a political opponent.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 11/28/2019 – 16:00 - Trump Makes Surprise Thanksgiving Visit To US Troops In Afghanistan, Says Taliban Talks Have Resumed
Trump Makes Surprise Thanksgiving Visit To US Troops In Afghanistan, Says Taliban Talks Have Resumed
President Trump made an unannounced trip to Afghanistan on Thursday, his first as president, to visit troops for the Thanksgiving holiday. There, Trump said peace talks with the Taliban had resumed, speaking at a US air force base alongside Afghan president Ashraf Ghani.
Trump landed at Bagram Airfield around 8:30 pm local time Thursday and greeted U.S. soldiers over a turkey dinner before meeting with Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani at the airfield’s Air Force headquarters.
🚨MOMENTS AGO🚨
President @realDonaldTrump visits U.S. Soldiers at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan…. pic.twitter.com/HpHd6PxEqn— Dan Scavino Jr.🇺🇸 (@Scavino45) November 28, 2019
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Following a meeting with Ghani, Trump told reporters that the Taliban “wants to make a deal” and that US officials were “meeting with them.” Trump also said that the Taliban was willing to agree to a ceasefire: “The Taliban wants to make a deal and we’re meeting with them and we’re saying it has to be a cease-fire, and they didn’t want to do a cease-fire and now they want to do a cease-fire – I believe it’ll probably work out that way.”
Trump also said that the US will continue to reduce its troop commitment to the region, from 12,000 now to about 8,600, but would like to go lower without impacting operational duties. “We can go much further than that, but we’ll have it all covered,” Trump said.
According to Bloomberg, both Trump and Ghani said it was an honor to meet. Trump spent about 45 minutes in the building where they met, with press in the room for only a portion of it. In brief remarks to reporters during the bilateral session, Ghani noted that U.S. combat casualties have fallen under Trump’s presidency. Trump took office after the NATO mission in Afghanistan shifted to a training and advisory role.
Ghani thanked Trump for his leadership and called for a deal that won’t give too much power to the Taliban, saying Trump should not put “limits on the type of peace that will ensure the gains of the past year, and will ensure your security and our freedom.”
“Please thank your families for agreeing to miss you on this special occasion at home and for being here defending United States security and our freedom. Together, we will succeed,” Ghani told the soldiers. “We will never permit the repetition of 9/11 again. God bless you, God bless the president.”
Speaking to the US troops, Trump reiterated that they’re working for a peace deal in Afghanistan. “Rest assured that my administration will always be committed to annihilating terrorists wherever they appear,” he said, adding that he looked forward to the day “when we can bring each and every one of you home and safe to your family, and that day is coming and coming very soon.”
Trump’s remarks covered many of the same themes as his campaign events, including discussing highs in the stock market, the recent death of a top Islamic State leader and the role that a U.S. military dog, Conan, played in that mission. He recalled serving turkey earlier to troops, and missing out on his own meal.
“I had a bit of mashed potatoes and I never got to my turkey,” Trump told soldiers at the rally, saying he instead went to take photos with servicemen and -women. “I should have started with that, and not the mashed potatoes. I made a mistake.”
“We’ve spent $2.5 trillion since I’ve been here, that’s a lot of money that we’ve rebuilt our military. It was depleted as you know,” Trump told troops seated for dinner. “I want to thank you very much and I’ll be talking to you later but right now I want to have some turkey, OK? I’m going to join you for a little lunch.”
After speaking to the troops, Trump then toured the room speaking with soldiers, who loudly cheered his arrival. “Thank you all very much, what a great job you do, it’s an honor to be here – it’s a long flight,” he said after arriving, to laughter from soldiers. “But we love it.”
The surprise visit and announcement came two months after Trump abruptly halted peace negotiations with the Taliban in early September after accusing them of seeking “false leverage” through a terrorist attack that killed 12 people, including a member of the American military.
The US had been engaged in negotiations with the Taliban and planned to hold further talks with Taliban leaders and president Ghani at Camp David, the presidential retreat in Maryland, but following the terrorist incident the talks never happened.
Trump has long hoped to strike a deal with the Taliban, which would allow him to claim he has succeeded in ending the war in Afghanistan, something that eluded both George W Bush and Barack Obama, his predecessors in the Oval Office.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 11/28/2019 – 15:43
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