- From Russia With Sense: Putin Says "Nyet" To PC Radicals Replacing 'Mothers' & 'Fathers'
From Russia With Sense: Putin Says “Nyet” To PC Radicals Replacing ‘Mothers’ & ‘Fathers’
Authored by Robert Bridge via The Strategic Culture Foundation,
When it comes to protecting children, families and Russian traditions, Vladimir Putin has few rivals in the developed world. But will Russia be able to holdout forever against the globalists’ ultra-liberal agenda now threatening the planet?
Had Peter the Great known what strange ideas would come to fixate the Western mind, perhaps he never would have built his northerly city of St. Petersburg, designed to throw open a ‘window to the West’. Indeed, he most likely would have evacuated the swampland, ditched his Europe-inspired beard tax and retreated inland as far as possible.
There is some craziness in this world, however, that could not have been predicted 30 years ago, to say nothing of 300 years. The new realities have forced Russian lawmakers to reflect upon the future of Russian identity in the face of radical liberal tendencies emanating from the West like some modern plague.
“You said the word mother ‘can’t be replaced.’ It turns out, perhaps, it can,” Putin reminded delegates at a meeting of the Council for Interethnic Relations, a Kremlin advisory group.
“In some countries, they now have ‘parent number one’ and ‘parent number two.’ I hope we never have that (in Russia).”
The Russian leader’s comment elicited chuckles from the assembled officials, long inured to the occasional Western crackups. Yet that good-natured response masked the looming uneasiness that yet another crazy train has departed the Western station and is on a collision course with Russia, as well as the rest of the world.
#parent1Parent2 pic.twitter.com/oh5rKEmXPM
— Sentenza (@Perinetti_Yo) February 15, 2019
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Indeed, Putin was referencing a law passed in France earlier this year that mandates schools refrain from using ‘mother’ and ‘father,’ substituting it for ‘parent 1’ and ‘parent 2’ in an effort to accommodate passage of a 2013 same-sex marriage law.
“We have families who find themselves faced with tick boxes stuck in rather old-fashioned social and family models,” said Valérie Petit, MP from the party of President Emmanuel Macron.
“For us, this article is a measurement of social equality.”
In case anyone thought that would settle the confusion, the issue has now turned to the question as to which parents will be designated ‘parent 1’ and ‘parent 2.’
Marine Le-Pen, leader of the far-Right National Rally, remarked that “the mask has fallen” from the Macron government regarding its views on family values.
Meanwhile, back in Russia, Putin began adjusting his country’s sails against such radical liberal experiments back in June 2013 with passage of a federal law entitled, ‘Protecting Children from Information Advocating for a Denial of Traditional Family Values’. Western media outlets quickly pounced on the legislation, portraying it as dangerous to homosexuals, even warning they risked arrest if they visited the 2014 Sochi Olympics.
Vladimir Putin, today: “You said the word mother ‘can’t be replaced.’ It turns out, perhaps, it can. In some countries, they now have ‘parent number one’ and ‘parent number two.’ I hope we never have that (in Russia).”pic.twitter.com/O7mS7YNtfI
— Bryan MacDonald (@27khv) November 29, 2019
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As Harvey Fierstein argued in the New York Times, for example, Putin’s ‘anti-gay’ law means that “any Olympic athlete, trainer, reporter, family member or fan who is gay — or suspected of being gay, or just accused of being gay — can go to jail.”
That was either deliberate fake news or extremely shoddy journalism, but since the New York Times article cited Huff Post, which in turn quoted an obscure travel blog, we’ll give the Grey Lady some benefit of the doubt and go with the latter possibility.
The fact is, what the Russian law explicitly forbids is the promotion of “non-traditional sexual relationships” to children. Full stop. Adults can behave any way they want in the privacy of their own homes or hotels, but please keep the underage children away from the spectacles. Sounds pretty logical, right? In fact, if the Western media had not become sold-out sycophants of the LGBTQ movement, together with the insidious induction of children into the act, they would probably find that the overwhelming majority of Westerners would gladly stand behind the Russian law as well.
“We have no problem with LGBT persons,” Putin said in an interview with the Financial Times.
“God forbid, let them live as they wish. But some things do appear excessive to us. They claim now that children can play five or six gender roles.”
He added:
“Let everyone be happy, we have no problem with that. But this must not be allowed to overshadow the culture, traditions and traditional family values of millions of people making up the core population.”
This is an issue that few Western leaders are willing or able to promote: the traditional family, which is increasingly portrayed as some sort of radical institution in Western eyes. At the same time, the average citizen has absolutely zero say in the LGBTQ indoctrination program that is happening practically everywhere in the West, including inside of the public school system.
As a consequence of the madness, the West is facing demons of its own making as hundreds of adolescents who underwent so-called ‘sexual reassignment surgery’ – the removal of the breasts in women, the penis in men, together with the ingestion of powerful and potentially deadly sex hormones – want to change back to their original selves. Unfortunately for them, that is nearly mission impossible.
Meanwhile, transgender females, that is, biological males at birth, are now triumphing on the field of dream against their female competition. Needless to say, this radical new development in the world of sports has set back feminism to the somewhere around the time of the Moon landing.
And here is where the next great East-West showdown will get ugly – at some future Olympic event when the West insists on fielding transgender females against the East’s more feminine counterparts. In fact, the debate on the transgender issue is already underway ahead of the Tokyo 2020 Games.
One thing is clear from all of this nonsense: Vladimir Putin and other like-minded leaders have their work cut out for them in a world gone absolutely mad.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 12/05/2019 – 02:00 - UN's Agenda 2030 Translator: How To Read The UN's New Sustainable Development Goals
UN’s Agenda 2030 Translator: How To Read The UN’s New Sustainable Development Goals
It’s that time again: the United Nations is officially releasing the all new Agenda 2030 sustainable development plan, or what some have hailed as “the new Agenda 21 on steroids,” at the United Nations Sustainable Development Summit kicking off today in New York City.
Since these supposedly non-binding international agreements can sometimes be a bit tricky to decode, what with all the weaponized buzz terms and semantics games, we’ve prepared a handy dandy translator on the 17 new Agenda 2030 goals below.
Goal 1: End poverty in all its forms everywhere
Translation: Centralized banks, IMF, World Bank, Fed to control all finances, digital one world currency in a cashless society
Goal 2: End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture
Translation: GMO
Goal 3: Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages
Translation: Mass vaccination, Codex Alimentarius
Goal 4: Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all
Translation: UN propaganda, brainwashing through compulsory education from cradle to grave
Goal 5: Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls
Translation: Population control through forced “Family Planning”
Goal 6: Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all
Translation: Privatize all water sources, don’t forget to add fluoride
Goal 7: Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all
Translation: Smart grid with smart meters on everything, peak pricing
Goal 8: Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all
Translation: TPP, free trade zones that favor megacorporate interests
Goal 9: Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation
Translation: Toll roads, push public transit, remove free travel, environmental restrictions
Goal 10: Reduce inequality within and among countries
Translation: Even more regional government bureaucracy like a mutant octopus
Goal 11: Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable
Translation: Big brother big data surveillance state
Goal 12: Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns
Translation: Forced austerity
Goal 13: Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts*
Translation: Cap and Trade, carbon taxes/credits, footprint taxes (aka Al Gore’s wet dream)
Goal 14: Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development
Translation: Environmental restrictions, control all oceans including mineral rights from ocean floors
Goal 15: Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss
Translation: More environmental restrictions, more controlling resources and mineral rights
Goal 16: Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels
Translation: UN “peacekeeping” missions (ex 1, ex 2), the International Court of (blind) Justice, force people together via fake refugee crises and then mediate with more “UN peacekeeping” when tension breaks out to gain more control over a region, remove 2nd Amendment in USA
Goal 17: Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development
Translation: Remove national sovereignty worldwide, promote globalism under the “authority” and bloated, Orwellian bureaucracy of the UN
But, don’t worry, it’s all for your own good!
Tyler Durden
Wed, 12/04/2019 – 23:55 - Buffalo Bishop Resigns Over Sex Abuse Cover-Up
Buffalo Bishop Resigns Over Sex Abuse Cover-Up
The Catholic Church in America is suffering yet another in a series of seemingly never-ending crises stemming from the Church’s rampant mishandling of sex abuse and misconduct claims. But finally, it looks like one of the biggest problems for the church’s image in New York State has just stepped aside: The New York Times reports that Bishop Richard Malone of Buffalo has resigned after weeks of pressure from inside and outside his diocese, which is one of the largest in the US, with 600,000.
Richard Malone
The Vatican reportedly accepted Malone’s resignation on Wednesday, hopefully bringing an end to a period of turmoil for Buffalo Catholics, who organized to try and oust Malone.
“I have concluded, after much prayer and discernment, that the people of Buffalo will be better served by a new bishop who perhaps is better able to bring about the reconciliation, healing and renewal that is so needed,” Malone wrote in his goodbye statement. “It is my honest assessment that I have accomplished as much as I am able to, and that there remain divisions and wounds that I am unable to bind and heal.”
As CNN points out, for more than a year, a dedicated group of parishoners has been trying to convince Malone to leave. They’ve done everything from circulate petitions to try and meet the bishop’s plane.
Since the Catholic church’s sexual abuse scandal reignited in 2018, bishops across the country have come under greater scrutiny for the crimes and cover-ups alleged to have occurred during their tenure. That’s what got Malone: records showing he actively sought to protect pedophile priests.
In one incident back in March 2018, Bishop Malone released a list of 42 priests accused of abuse over decades. But Siobhan O’Connor, a source worked in the bishop’s office, had seen 117 names on a draft list in the diocese’s secret files, and began photocopying and then leaking the documents to WKBW, the local ABC affiliate.
The leaks revealed that Bishop Malone, who had been the highest official in the diocese since 2012, clearly tried to minimize disclosure of the full extent of the diocese’s sex abuse issues.
“We did not remove him from ministry despite full knowledge of the case, and so including him on list might require explanation,” lawyers wrote to Bishop Malone about one priest who was accused of having sex with a teenager .
Back in August came the final blow: Secret audio recordings where Bishop Malone can be heard fretting about a scandal involving sexual harassment of a seminarian by a pastor, which he worried “could be the end of me as bishop.”
Shortly after, the Vatican sent another Bishop to investigate the claims against Malone, but this bishop was also implicated in a sex abuse scandal.
One advocate for the victims said that with Malone gone, people can believe in change once again.
“People were so frustrated and angry at Bishop Malone that they were losing their faith over it,” said Ms. O’Connor, who is now an advocate for the abuse victims. His resignation “is a sign for people that change can happen,” she said.
All bishops are required to submit their resignation to the Pope when they turn 75, but Malone is retiring a couple of years early at 73.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 12/04/2019 – 23:35 - George Zimmerman Sues Trayvon Martin's Family, Others For $100 Million In New Lawsuit
George Zimmerman Sues Trayvon Martin’s Family, Others For $100 Million In New Lawsuit
Authored by Emma Fiala via TheMindUnleashed.com,
Despite having gotten away with murder, neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman has just filed a $100 million lawsuit against the family of Trayvon Martin and attorney Ben Crump, claiming that they engineered false evidence against him.
Zimmerman, who was acquitted of homicide charges in the 2012 shooting death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, is being represented by high-profile lawyer, founder of Judicial Watch and Freedom Watch, and former US Department of Justice prosecutor, Larry Klayman in a lawsuit seeking damages for defamation, abuse of civil process, and conspiracy.
Martin was shot and killed on February 26, 2012 when he was returning to his father’s home, whom he was visiting, after purchasing candy at a local store. Zimmerman reported Martin as suspicious in a call to police. Zimmerman claims he followed Martin after making the call and was attacked by the teen before killing him. Martin was unarmed, carrying only the Skittles and a drink he had just purchased.
The lawsuit, to be filed Wednesday in Polk County where Zimmerman lives, alleges that Rachel Jeantel, a key witness in the 2013 murder trial, actually wasn’t a witness at all and was instead “an imposter and fake witness” coached by the family and their lawyers to take the place of Diamond Eugene.
Information cited in the case comes from the book and accompanying documentary The Trayvon Hoax: Unmasking the Witness Fraud that Divided America, which accuses the family of creating false testimony. The film was scheduled to be screened in Coral Gables, Florida but, in light of recent developments, Coral Gables Art Cinema announced it would be canceling the event along with a press conference with the film’s director, Joe Gilbert.
Coral Gables Art Cinema was not aware of all of the details surrounding this event and has made a decision to cancel it.
— Coral Gables Art Cinema (@gablescinema) December 4, 2019
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According to the book, Martin’s cell phone records prove that Eugene, whom they say was Martin’s actual girlfriend at the time, was on the phone with him at the time of the shooting. The book accuses Martin’s family and lawyers for swapping Eugene out for Jeantel when Eugene refused to testify. The book charges that Jeantel “lied repeatedly to cause Zimmerman’s arrest and to try to send him to prison for life.”
A media advisory posted on Klayman’s website prior to the filing of the suit mentions the now cancelled press conference and screening and explains the inspiration behind the suit:
“Specifically, the complaint alleges that in March 2012, the Sanford Police Department thoroughly investigated the shooting of Trayvon Martin and closed the case as self-defense. A week later, Martin family attorney Benjamin Crump produced a recorded audio tape of “Diamond Eugene” whom he said was Trayvon’s 16-year-old girlfriend who was on the phone with Trayvon just before the altercation. However, two weeks later, 18-year-old Rachel Jeantel, the alleged imposter, appeared before prosecutors claiming to be “Diamond Eugene” and provided false statements to incriminate Zimmerman based on coaching from others.
These allegations are the result of newly discovered evidence just published in a book and film by Hollywood film director Joel Gilbert, called The Trayvon Hoax: Unmasking the Witness Fraud that Divided America. Based on Trayvon’s cell phone records, they allegedly show that Rachel Jeantel was not Trayvon’s girlfriend, was not on the phone with Trayvon before the altercation, and that she lied repeatedly to cause Zimmerman’s arrest and to try to send him to prison for life. The research also allegedly reveals that Trayvon’s real girlfriend and legitimate phone witness was in fact Miami resident Brittany Diamond Eugene, who was switched out for Jeantel when Eugene refused to bear false witness against Zimmerman.”
According to the Miami Herald, the film’s director distributed a copy of the suit, which does not yet appear in the online docket of the Polk County court system, to media.
Martin’s mother, Sybrina Fulton, is the lead defendant in the suit. Since her son’s death, Fulton has become somewhat of a national figure both as an advocate for reducing gun deaths and as a surrogate for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. Fulton is currently running for a seat on the Miami-Dade County Commission.
The family’s lawyer, Ben Crump, also a defendant in the suit, responded in a statement on Wednesday:
“I have every confidence that this unfounded and reckless lawsuit will be revealed for what it is—another failed attempt to defend the indefensible and a shameless attempt to profit off the lives and grief of others.”
The suit also names book publisher Harper Collins over Crump’s book Open Season: Legalized Genocide of Colored People, as well as Tracy Martin, Trayvon’s father; Florida prosecutors Bernie de la Rionda, John Guy, and Angela Corey; the Florida Department of Law Enforcement; and the state of Florida.
Zimmerman contends that his version of events that took place on the evening of February 26, 2012 are correct while Martin’s family engineered a false narrative. All of the defendants in the suit are accused of “knowing about or should have known about the witness fraud, obstructing justice” or repeatedly lying “under oath in order to cover up their knowledge of the witness fraud.”
Tyler Durden
Wed, 12/04/2019 – 23:15 - Trump's "Trade Optimism" Wanes Amid Declining Soybean Exports
Trump’s “Trade Optimism” Wanes Amid Declining Soybean Exports
This week, the veil has been lifted on President Trump’s trade war narrative of an imminent trade deal with China.
Investors are starting to figure out that many trade headlines in the last 12 months from the White House, other Trump administration officials, and unnamed sources at major wirehouses have been mostly fake trade news, with one intention and one intention only: pump the stock market.
Investors discovered this week that an actual phase one trade deal might not occur this year; nevertheless, the signing of a full trade deal might not happen until after 2020. This was a shock to many PhDs on Wall Street, who have based their entire growth models for 2020 on a trade resolution. With no trade resolution likely and no massive rebound in growth, markets are setting up for a disappointment phase that could begin if an escalation of the trade war is seen on Dec. 15.
The Trump administration has learned this week that their control of the “trade optimism” narrative is becoming harder and harder.
For instance, Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue had to spill the beans on CNBC this morning and indicate that China isn’t purchasing US soybeans. Perdue said the latest export numbers for US soybeans this year have been rather depressing, citing China wasn’t living up to its purchase commitments and Brazil and Argentina “trying to infringe on our market time here.”
Perdue says he was surprised by how weak US soybean exports have been after harvest this year, citing China not living up to its purchase commitments and Brazil and Argentina “trying to infringe on our market time here.”
— Kayla Tausche (@kaylatausche) December 4, 2019
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Though if readers remember, President Trump tweeted in early October that he signed the most fantastic trade deal that was going to do wonders for “Great Patriot Farmers.”
The deal I just made with China is, by far, the greatest and biggest deal ever made for our Great Patriot Farmers in the history of our Country. In fact, there is a question as to whether or not this much product can be produced? Our farmers will figure it out. Thank you China!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 12, 2019
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As we’ve clearly outlined for readers in the last five months, China started to heavily source agriculture products from Brazil and Argentina, as a way to quickly diversify away from the US, though, at the same time, President Trump promoted huge deals for “patriot farmers.”
CHINA HAS ALREADY BEGUN AGRICULTURAL PURCHASES FROM OUR GREAT PATRIOT FARMERS & RANCHERS!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 13, 2019
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Start thinking about getting bigger tractors! https://t.co/MhmvNhAA4r
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 12, 2019
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And it seems that President Trump lied not just about the trade deal several months ago, but also lied about all the agriculture purchases China was executing.
The reason for President Trump threatening to impose metal tariffs on Brazil and Argentina is because China ditched US farmers for South American ones.
China isn’t going to source agriculture products from the US altogether, the reason: Beijing understands that President Trump could hold back purchases whenever he wants and call it a “national security” threat. So the fantasy about China purchasing all these agriculture products from the US was once again nothing more than a fabrication to pump stocks.
And props to CNBC’s Eamon Javers, who called out the Trump administration on Tuesday for their questionable trade deal President Trump tweeted in early October. Even the mainstream is starting to get it.
Given Trump’s new comment that he may want to wait until after ‘20 for a China trade deal, here’s an exchange I had with Kellyanne Conway at the WH yesterday. I asked her if the president was wrong to announce the trade deal in October, before it was actually done. pic.twitter.com/29P7556akj
— Eamon Javers (@EamonJavers) December 3, 2019
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Even the senior editor of China’s Global Times trolled President Trump Wednesday morning for pumping fake trade news: “I predict there is a high probability that President Trump or a senior US official will openly say in a few hours that China-US trade talks have made a big progress in order to pump up the US stock markets. They’ve been doing this a lot.”
I predict there is a high probability that President Trump or a senior US official will openly say in a few hours that China-US trade talks have made a big progress in order to pump up the US stock markets. They’ve been doing this a lot.😀
— Hu Xijin 胡锡进 (@HuXijin_GT) December 4, 2019
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What happens next could be a credibility issue forming where investors lose faith in the Trump administration for peddling an entire year of fake trade news with absolutely no progress.
The president has said it the best:
Fake News Equals the Enemy of the People!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 22, 2019
Tyler Durden
Wed, 12/04/2019 – 22:55 - The Destruction Of American Liberty
The Destruction Of American Liberty
Authored by Jacob Hornberger via The Future of Freedom Foundation,
The terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, were a watershed event for the United States, not only because of the large death toll and property destruction but, more important, because they spelled the death knell for American liberty.
Americans had already lost a large portion of their freedom when the federal government was converted into what is called a “welfare state,” a governmental system that is based on the concept of mandatory charity. Examples of mandatory-charity programs include Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, farm subsidies, education grants, corporate bailouts, foreign aid, and every other program by which the government takes money from people to whom it belongs and gives it to people to whom it does not belong.
There is no way to reconcile a system of mandatory charity with the principles of a free society. A genuinely free society is one in which people are free to keep everything they earn and decide for themselves what to do with their own money. An unfree society is one in which the government mandates that people be good and caring to others.
In 1913, Americans brought into existence the progressive income tax, which became the primary engine for funding America’s welfare state. To enforce the collection of the tax, Americans called into existence the IRS, which became one of the most tyrannical agencies in U.S. history. In the same year, the Federal Reserve was established, a central bank that would ultimately debase and destroy the gold-coin monetary system that the Constitution established and that had been America’s monetary system for well over a century.
Prior to the 9/11 attacks, Americans had lost another large portion of their freedom with the war on drugs, a governmental program that jails or fines people for possessing or distributing substances that the government doesn’t approve of. As the drug war failed to achieve its goal of a drug-free society, the government initiated an ever-increasing array of harsh enforcement measures that have further contributed to the destruction of freedom, including mandatory minimum sentences, asset-forfeiture laws, no-knock raids, and warrantless searches and seizures.
There is no way one can reconcile drug laws with the principles of a free society. In a genuinely free society, people have the right to ingest whatever they want, no matter how harmful, dangerous, or destructive a substance might be.
Americans have also lost a large portion of their freedom through government central planning and regulation of economic activity. Examples include trade and immigration controls, the Federal Reserve, and public schooling. There is no way one can reconcile socialist central planning and economic regulation with freedom. In a genuinely free society, people plan their own lives and coordinate their activities with others in a free-market environment.
It is not a coincidence that for the first 125 years of American life, there was no income tax, IRS, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, farm subsidies, education grants, drug laws, central planning, economic regulation, public schooling, Federal Reserve, or other parts of what can also be labeled the “paternalistic state.” Our American ancestors understood that those things violate the principles of liberty.
The federal government’s response to the 9/11 attacks completed the destruction of American liberty. Seizing on the attacks as an opportunity to expand power at the expense of freedom, U.S. officials, especially those in the national-security branch of the government, ended up with omnipotent power over the American people. When a regime wields omnipotent power, there is no way that people in that society can legitimately be considered free.
Irreconcilables
Owing to the 9/11 attacks, we now live in a society in which a vast, permanent, and ever-growing military establishment wields the power to take Americans into custody and incarcerate them in military dungeons or detention centers for as long as the military desires. All that military officials have to do is label the American detainee a “terrorist” or a “threat to national security.” Once that designation is made, there is nothing the person can do about it. He will find no relief in the federal courts because the courts have made it clear that they are not about to interfere with military operations, especially during time of war, including the ongoing, never-ending, post–9/11 “war on terrorism.”
That is what the José Padilla case was all about. That case established the power of the military to take Americans into custody and keep them incarcerated as part of the federal government’s “war on terrorism.” Since the war on terrorism is going to last for decades, perhaps forever, the military detention of American citizens as terrorists or as threats to national security will also last for decades or forever.
It is true that the military is not currently exercising its power by incarcerating Americans in military dungeons or detention centers. But whether a tyrannical power is being exercised is not the test of a free society. The test is whether the government wields omnipotent powers, ones that can be exercised later on during an “emergency” or “crisis.” If the government wields omnipotent powers, even if it isn’t exercising them, there is no way that people in such a society can legitimately be considered free.
For example, the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution expressly prohibits the federal government from depriving a person of liberty without due process of law. “Due process” is a phrase that stretches back to Magna Carta in 1215, when the barons of England forced their king to acknowledge that his powers over the English people were limited. Due process entails notice and trial. Thus, the Fifth Amendment prohibits the federal government from depriving people, including Americans, of liberty without notice and trial.
But as a consequence of the 9/11 attacks, that is precisely what the Pentagon now wields the power to do as part of its ongoing, never-ending war on terrorism. Despite the Fifth Amendment, the military now has the power to take Americans into custody and jail them forever without notice or trial, simply by labeling them “terrorists” or “threats to national security.”
As a consequence of the 9/11 attacks, the American people also now live under a government that wields the power to assassinate them, again without notice or trial. It is virtually impossible to find a more tyrannical power than the power to kill people, including a government’s own citizenry. That’s what the post–9/11 case of Anwar al-Awlaki was about — the power of the federal government to kill American citizens who are labeled “terrorists” or “threats to national security.” The federal judiciary has made it clear that as long as the government is waging its ongoing, never-ending, post–9/11 war on terrorism, the federal courts will not interfere with this extraordinary power.
Once again, the fact that U.S. officials are currently exercising this power primarily against foreigners does not affect the destruction of freedom here at home. A free society is measured not by whether a certain power is being exercised but rather by whether the government even possesses that power. That’s why the Fifth Amendment expressly prohibits the federal government from killing anyone without due process of law, which, again, means notice and trial. The idea behind that provision was that freedom necessarily entails a government that does not possess the power to assassinate people.
The aftermath of the 9/11 attacks also eviscerated the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution. Even before the attacks, the federal government had made inroads on the search-and-seizure provision of that Amendment by lowering the probable-cause requirement for searches entailing the gathering of foreign intelligence. That’s what the super-secret FISA court was all about. Meeting in secret and scared to death to second-guess any warrant request entailing national security, the FISA judges effectively became rubber-stamps for the national-security establishment. But at least there was a thin barrier between domestic criminal investigations and foreign-intelligence investigations.
That barrier came crashing down in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. That’s what the USA PATRIOT Act accomplished. It enabled U.S. officials to secure search warrants at a reduced standard for both intelligence investigations and criminal investigations and to do it before a super-secret court whose decisions could not, as a practical matter, be challenged by those who were being targeted for secret surveillance.
The 9/11 attacks led to expanded mass-surveillance powers for the NSA, enabling this secretive agency to conduct warrantless surveillance on the American people. Operating under a misguided concept of patriotism involving unswerving allegiance to the government, some of America’s telecommunications companies were induced to illegally betray their clients by illegally providing their personal data to federal officials.
It is still impossible for Americans to know precisely what the NSA is doing to spy on them, given the highly secretive nature of the agency and the refusal of the federal courts to permit any piercing of its operations, especially since NSA officials know that nothing bad will happen to them if they are later caught violating the law or lying about it to prevent disclosure. That’s what the James Clapper episode was all about. When that director of National Intelligence was caught lying to Congress about illegal surveillance of the American people, neither Congress nor the Justice Department dared to seek a criminal indictment against him.
There is no way to reconcile a society in which a regime wields the omnipotent power to conduct secret surveillance on the citizenry with a genuinely free society. Freedom necessarily entails an absolute protection of privacy.
And then there is torture, which, although conducted by the military, is actually the specialty of the Central Intelligence Agency, which is the third component of the national security establishment (the other two being the military and the NSA). While the CIA had engaged in torture before the 9/11 attacks, it was always done secretly and with the understanding that the torture was illegal. With the 9/11 attacks, the CIA and the Pentagon were effectively given a license to torture people, including Americans, with impunity.
Both Pentagon and CIA officials know that they can torture anyone they want with impunity. As long as the person being tortured is labeled a “terrorist” or a “threat to national security,” military officials and CIA officials know that no one is going to be prosecuted for torture. Indeed, when the CIA knowingly, intentionally, and deliberately destroyed its videotapes depicting its torture of people, it did so with full certainty that no one would be prosecuted for destroying evidence of criminal misconduct. The CIA is simply too powerful for that.
It is worth noting that the post–9/11 power to torture people extends to American citizens. That principle was established in the José Padilla case, where the military knowingly, intentionally, and deliberately — and with impunity — subjected Padilla to psychological torture with the aim of causing him permanent mental damage.
It is impossible to reconcile a system in which the government wields the omnipotent power to torture people with the principles of a free society. Freedom necessarily entails a system in which the government lacks even the power to torture. That is why the Eighth Amendment expressly prohibits the federal government from inflicting “cruel and unusual punishments” on people.
The way we were
It wasn’t always this way in America. For more than 150 years, the American people lived under a governmental system in which federal officials lacked the power to deprive them of life, liberty, or property without due process of law and the power to torture them. While federal officials would, from time to time, violate the express restrictions on power enumerated in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, everyone understood that such violations constituted breaches of the law rather than an established legal structure within the law.
In fact, if the proponents of the Constitution had told the American people after the Constitutional Convention that the Constitution was bringing into existence a national-security state in which federal officials would wield the power to assassinate, indefinitely detain, spy on, and torture them, as well as a welfare state that would mandate charity, to put them into jail for drug possession, and to centrally control and manage their economic activity, they would have summarily rejected the deal and continued operating under the Articles of Confederation, the governmental system under which they had been operating and one in which the powers of the federal government were so weak that it didn’t even have the power to tax.
That’s how our American ancestors who established this country wanted it. They understood that the greatest threat to the freedom and well-being of the citizenry lies with their own government. The reason they accepted the Constitution is that they were assured that it would bring into existence a government of few and limited powers — that is, only those that were enumerated within the document itself. To make certain that federal officials got the point, the American people demanded that the Constitution immediately be amended to expressly prohibit federal officials from destroying their rights and liberties.
For more than 100 years, there was no mandatory charity, including Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, farm subsidies, education grants, and foreign aid, income taxation, IRS, economic regulations, minimum-wage laws, price controls, central management of economic activity, immigration controls, Federal Reserve, fiat (i.e., paper) money, public (i.e., government) schooling, drug laws, gun control, and most of the federal departments, agencies, and programs under which Americans today live.
More important, there was no Pentagon, vast military establishment, foreign military bases, CIA, NSA, or FBI. Therefore, there were no endless undeclared wars, torture, indefinite detention, spying on the citizenry, foreign military bases, coups, conscription, draft registration, alliances with foreign dictatorships, foreign aid, or assassination programs.
Americans had chosen a type of governmental system known as a limited-government republic, which is the opposite of a welfare state and a national-security state. Americans kept everything they earned and decided for themselves what to do with it. They weren’t subject to indefinite detention, torture, conscription, regulations, drug laws, secret surveillance, or endless undeclared wars. The citizens, not the federal government, were sovereign.
Losing liberty
That all came to an end, first with the adoption of the progressive income tax and the Federal Reserve, followed by the conversion of the federal government to a welfare state and, later, the conversion to a national-security state. Those two conversions began the road toward the destruction of American liberty, a destruction that was completed after the 9/11 attacks.
The justification that Americans were given for the conversion of the federal government from a limited-government republic to a national-security state was that the federal government needed to wage a Cold War against America’s World War II partner, the Soviet Union. Once the Cold War was over, however, the Pentagon, CIA, and NSA opposed the reconversion of the federal government to a limited-government republic.
Instead, after the Cold War suddenly and unexpectedly ended, the Pentagon and the CIA went into the Middle East and began wreaking death and destruction in that part of the world, knowing full well that such actions were likely to produce massive anger and rage that could manifest itself in terrorist counterstrikes. They waged the Persian Gulf War, killing countless thousands of Iraqis. They intentionally bombed the water- and sewage-treatment plants in Iraq, with the aim of spreading infectious illness among the populace. They imposed and enforced one of the most brutal sanctions regimes in history, one that killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children. They openly declared that the deaths of half a million Iraqi children were “worth it.” They maintained “no-fly zones” over Iraq, which they used to kill more Iraqis. They stationed U.S. troops near Muslim holy lands. They unconditionally supported the Israeli government.
They knew exactly what they were doing. In his pre–911 book Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire, the noted scholar Chalmers Johnson, warned that if they continued with their interventionist policies in the Middle East, the result would be a major terrorist attack on American soil. Here at FFF, we were publishing op-eds prior to the 9/11 attacks saying the same thing. Others were issuing the same warning.
Moreover, U.S. officials were warned by actual events. There were the pre–9/11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, the USS Cole, and the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, all of which, the terrorists had openly declared, were motivated by the death and destruction that U.S. officials were wreaking in their post–Cold War interventions in the Middle East.
Yet none of those pre–9/11 warnings and attacks induced U.S. officials to cease and desist their interventionist policies. When the 9/11 attacks came, U.S. officials were being clearly disingenuous when they declared that the terrorists had been motivated by hatred for America’s freedom and values.
It was no surprise when U.S. officials seized upon the 9/11 attacks as an opportunity to complete the destruction of American liberty. Of course, that’s how people throughout history have lost their liberty at the hands of their own governments — during crises and emergencies, when fearful people are eager and willing to trade their liberty for “security” and government officials are eager and willing to oblige them.
What must be done to regain our liberty?
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The first step is for Americans to come to the realization that they are no longer a free people.
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The second step is for a sufficient number of Americans to fervently desire to regain their freedom.
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The third step is the repeal, abolition, and end of all mandatory-charity programs, central planning of economic activity, economic regulations, drug laws, and trade and immigration controls.
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The fourth step is the dismantling of the national-security state — i.e., the Pentagon, military-industrial complex, the CIA, and the NSA — and the restoration of a limited-government republic to our land.
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The final step is the repeal of the taxes that fund America’s welfare-warfare state.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 12/04/2019 – 22:35 -
- Elon Musk's Father Has A Baby With His Step-Daughter, 40 Years His Junior
Elon Musk’s Father Has A Baby With His Step-Daughter, 40 Years His Junior
As goes the news cycle, sometimes one piece of news can begat another.
And in this case, amidst all the talk about Elon Musk referring to Vern Unsworth as “pedo guy” and standing trial for it, Google searches for “Elon Musk” and “pedo” turned up another very interesting result: a little covered article by The Telegraph that claims Elon Musk’s 72 year old father, Errol Musk, has a baby with his 30 year old step daugther, Jana Bezuidenhout, whom he has known since she was 4.
Errol Musk Errol married Jana’s mother Heide when Jana was four but says he doesn’t consider her to be his stepdaughter because she had been “raised away from the family for long periods of time.”
Errol Musk also described the baby he had with Jana as “exquisite”. He also had two children with Jana’s mother, before divorcing her after 18 years of being married. Errol claims that Jana contacted him in 2017 after splitting up with a boyfriend.
“We were lonely, lost people,” Errol Musk said. “One thing led to another — you can call it God’s plan or nature’s plan.”
Two months later, Jana was pregnant. Paternity tests confirmed that Errol Musk was, indeed, the father.
“Jana is a delightful girl and a wonderful mother. She said I had changed her life,” Errol said.
Jana Bezuidenhout Elon Musk has always seemed to have tension with his father, calling him a “terrible human being” in a Rolling Stone magazine interview. As of The Telegraph’s report in 2018, Musk had not spoken to his father in over a year.
Elon said of his father: “You have no idea about how bad. Almost every crime you can possibly think of, he has done. Almost every evil thing you could possibly think of, he has done.”
Recall, during Elon’s examination yesterday while on trial, Musk was asked by his own attorney about his childhood in South Africa.
“It wasn’t good,” Musk responded.
Surprise moment when @elonmusk own attorney asked him to describe his childhood in South Africa. Musk paused. And paused. Said in a thick voice, “It wasn’t good.” He left at 17.
— janewells (@janewells) December 4, 2019
Tyler Durden
Wed, 12/04/2019 – 22:15 - "We're Sitting Ducks" – Australian Politicians Warn Of Threat From Chinese Regime
“We’re Sitting Ducks” – Australian Politicians Warn Of Threat From Chinese Regime
Authored by Mimi Nguyen Ly via The Epoch Times,
More than a dozen Australian senators voted Tuesday calling for an investigation into Australia’s relationship with China, with one politician saying that Australia is a “sitting duck” to foreign influence from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
“We’re sitting ducks here. We’re leaving ourselves open and we’re letting the Communist Party in China come in here and undermine our democracy,” Jacqui Lambie, an independent Australian senator, said late Tuesday in response to a motion to start a Senate inquiry into Australian’s relationship with China.
The motion, led by crossbencher Rex Patrick, was supported by all the other crossbenchers: Senators Lambie, Stirling Griff, Pauline Hanson, Malcolm Roberts, and Cory Bernardi. Senators from the Greens party also supported the motion.
The motion, which required a 23 majority vote to pass, failed at 15 votes. No senators from Australia’s two major political parties—the Liberal and Labor parties—indicated their support. A total of 38 votes were cast against the motion.
Patrick said that the inquiry should examine all aspects of Australia’s relationship with China, including trade relations between the two countries, Chinese investment in Australia’s infrastructure and agriculture, and the influence and alleged interference in Australia, which includes the CCP-linked activities in Australian university campuses, as well as the CCP’s role in cyberattacks.
‘Existential Threat’
Prior to the vote, Lambie accused the Liberal and Labor parties of lacking the courage to protect Australia from Chinese foreign influence, saying that such parties have not only been influenced by money from the CCP, but also have been causing Australia to be more economically dependent on China.
Both Lambie and Patrick noted how Duncan Lewis, the former Director General of Security at the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), told Nine newspapers in November that the CCP is seeking to take over Australia’s political systems through “insidious” foreign interference investigations.
“It’s about time the people in this place woke up to China’s attempts to infiltrate our economy and our democracy,” Lambie said, later adding, “Everyone knows that the communist Chinese government uses money to influence our political processes.”
Lambie cited multiple examples of such alleged attempts, including a case earlier this year where AU$100,000 ($68,284) in cash was donated to the New South Wales Labor party that became part of an investigation by the state’s corruption watchdog.
“Now we’ve heard that Chinese attempts to infiltrate our politics go even further … They’re not just trying to influence politicians with money; they’re trying to get elected to sit in this chamber … wherever they can buy or get seats in the Australian parliament, they’re coming,” Lambie said.
“There are no security checks, there’s little to stop it from happening. It’s absolutely beyond shocking.”
“People are literally showing up dead. Someone who was supposedly cultivated by the Chinese government to run as a Liberal Party candidate in the Commonwealth Parliament has shown up dead,” Lambie added. “Nothing’s been proven but it’s really concerning … I think we all know what’s going on here.”
Bo “Nick” Zhao, a Melbourne luxury car dealer, was found dead in a Melbourne motel room in March. His death is under investigation. Zhao had earlier told ASIO that he was offered “a seven-figure sum” to run for a seat in Australia’s federal parliament.
“What is clear is that China is actively trying to reshape our democracy, and no one seems to be talking about that seriously enough. Honestly, where’s your courage? What are you scared of? This is not some wacky conspiracy theory. This is happening,” Lambie said.
“This is an existential threat to our society, and Australians are scared,” she later said. “They’re scared that our country is being bought up … it is being bought up.”
Patrick noted how the Director General of Security Mike Burgess “couldn’t bring himself to actually name” China last week when he announced an ASIO investigation into allegations that the CCP tried to implant Zhao into Canberra.
“Obviously, there are considerable diplomatic sensitivities involved and we have allowed ourselves to become hugely economically dependent on the export of raw materials to the Chinese market,” Patrick said.
“But it is a worrying thing when debate in this parliament is politically constipated for fear of reaction from Beijing.”
On trade, Lambie expressed disappointment and said that Liberal and Labor parties have failed to manage Australia’s economic dependence on China.
“The major parties have turned a blind eye … We’re selling off Australian values for a quick buck,” she said.
“A third of Australian exports are China-bound. We ship out more than $120 billion in iron ore and coal exports to China and our universities—shame on them!—rake in over $32 billion from international students.
“All up, we trade nearly $194 billion worth of goods and services between China and Australia—more than we trade with Japan and the United States combined. Who does that? Who leaves us in a position like that? All that money is making us complacent. There’s no reason for us to be singularly focused on China.”
Prior to the vote, the Greens’ Senator Nick McKim said that the Liberal and Labor parties were “riddled with CCP influence as they are, riddled with dirty CCP money as they are—are going to collude, once again, to vote such an inquiry down.”
“I’m telling you now, you’re all standing on the wrong side of history here. History will be written one day,” McKim added.
“History will record those who stood up and tried to address this situation, and history will record those who rolled over and let the CCP tickle their collective bellies. And unfortunately, it remains the case that both major parties in this place will be on the wrong side of history.”
Tyler Durden
Wed, 12/04/2019 – 21:55 - China Set To Make History With Record Number Of Bond Defaults In 2019
China Set To Make History With Record Number Of Bond Defaults In 2019
While China is bracing for what may be a historic D-Day event on December 9, when the “unprecedented” default of state-owned, commodity-trading conglomerate Tewoo with $38 billion in assets may take place, it has already been a banner year for Chinese bankruptcies.
According to Bloomberg data, China is set to hit another dismal milestone in 2019 when a record amount of onshore bonds are set to default, confirming that something is indeed cracking in China’s financial system and “testing the government’s ability to keep financial markets stable as the economy slows and companies struggle to cope with unprecedented levels of debt.”
After a brief lull in the third quarter, a burst of at least 15 new defaults since the start of November have sent the year’s total to 120.4 billion yuan ($17.1 billion), and set to eclipse the 121.9 billion yuan annual record in 2018.
The good news is that this number still represents a tiny fraction of China’s $4.4 trillion onshore corporate bond market; the bad news is that the rapidly rising number is approaching a tipping point that could unleash a default cascade, and in the process fueling concerns of potential contagion as investors struggle to gauge which companies have Beijing’s support. As Bloomberg notes, policy makers have been walking a tightrope as they try to roll back the implicit guarantees that have long distorted Chinese debt markets, without dragging down an economy already weakened by the trade war and tepid global growth.
“The authorities have found it hard to rescue all the companies,” said Wang Ying, a Shanghai-based analyst at Fitch Ratings, perhaps envisioning at least two banks that have experienced depositor runs in the month of November in the aftermath of an unprecedented succession of bank failures earlier in the year.
It’s not just banks however: this year’s debt woes have spread to a broad array of industries, from property developers and steelmakers to new-energy firms and software makers. The types of borrowers facing repayment difficulties has also expanded from private companies and local state-run firms to business arms of universities, an obscure and loosely regulated corner of China’s corporate world.
China’s two latest defaults involved just such a company; on Monday Peking University Founder Group shocked investors after failing to repay a 2 billion yuan bond. The same day, Tunghsu Optoelectronic Technology, a maker of photoelectric display components, also failed to deliver early repayment on both interest and principal for a 1.7 billion yuan note.
Meanwhile, as we reported last week, the signs of stress have ominously spread to China’s offshore market, which has so far been more insulated from defaults: next week, Tewoo Group, a Fortune 500 company and major commodities trader from the northern city of Tianjin, is set to become the most high profile state-owned enterprise to default in the dollar bond market in more than two decades.
The company has recently offered a debt restructuring plan that entails deep losses for investors or a swap for new bonds with significantly lower returns, the first of its kind for an offshore SOE issuer. On December 9, Tweoo bondholders need to decide if they accept a distressed exchange offer on a $300 millionbond that is likely to default on Dec. 16.
Still, despite the drumbeat of bad news, analysts remain cheerful and claim the threat of a systemic debt crisis in China remains distant.
“I don’t think it is a tipping point,” Bank of Singapore managing director Todd Schubert said. “China is a big market with a lot of issuers. In a functioning capital market, one would naturally expect some defaults.”
And while China is set to make a new record in the amount of default, the lack of a substantial increase from last year means that China’s onshore default rate is expected to remain the same as last year’s 0.5%, according to S&P.
Not that Beijing has much of a choice of course: faced with a non-financial corporate debt pile that swelled to a record 165% of GDP year, Chinese policy makers are selectively allowing more bond failures in part to impose increased discipline on borrowers and investors. But not too much discipline, as the alternative could be a panic across the country’s bond market.
“Rising defaults should be a natural part of credit-market cycle,” said Anne Zhang, head of Asia fixed income for JPMorgan Private Bank. “It is long-term positive for any market to develop a good pricing mechanism for risks.”
The problem is that for Beijing it still remains a highly selective process, picking winners and losers at will; to be sure, the process would be less rocky for investors if policymakers could improve the transparency around defaults, according to Cindy Huang, an analyst at S&P Global Ratings.
“The regulators’ intention is to reduce moral hazard” while at the same time ensuring any defaults “won’t undermine socioeconomic stability or trigger systemic risks,” said Ivan Chung, head of greater China credit research and analysis at Moody’s, adding that whereas state support may be available for companies engaged in social welfare projects, for those that are more commercial in nature, “government support may not be so forthcoming.”
“So far, defaults and recovery can be unpredictable,” Huang said. “This will hinder market confidence and weaken the healthy development of China’s credit market.”
Which is why when it comes to Chinese corporate defaults, there is just one certainty looking ahead: there will be many more of them. In fact, Moody’s expects 40-50 new defaults in 2020, up from 35 this year. Considering that China is set to post its first sub-6% GDP growth year in history in 2020, this will prove an overly optimistic forecast.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 12/04/2019 – 21:35 - No Setup? Horowitz To Claim Mifsud Wasn't US Asset, Yet Papadopoulos Says He's Italy's Spook
No Setup? Horowitz To Claim Mifsud Wasn’t US Asset, Yet Papadopoulos Says He’s Italy’s Spook
The Washington Post reports that Attorney General William Barr’s hand-picked prosecutor could not confirm that Russiagate figure Joseph Mifsud is a US intelligence asset – thus, according to the Post, the Russiagate counterintelligence investigation against the Trump campaign could not have been a setup.
The revelation comes from the Post‘s Matt Zapotosky and Devlin Barrett (the latter of whom had a direct line to former FBI attorney Lisa Page according to her text messages), and will reportedly appear in the forthcoming report by DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz.
In short, Horowitz asked US Attorney John Durham if Mifsud was a US intelligence asset “deployed to ensnare the campaign,” to which Durham – who is conducting a separate review of the 2016 US election – responded that his investigation “had not produced any evidence that might contradict the inspector general’s findings on that point,” according to the Post.
Of note, Mifsud told (or seeded) 2016 Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos with the rumor that Russia had ‘dirt’ on Hillary Clinton, on April 26, 2016. Two weeks later, he repeated it to Australian diplomat (and Clinton ally) Alexander Downer at a London bar, who relayed the Kremlin ‘dirt’ rumor to Australian authorities, which alerted the FBI – kicking off the official counterintelligence operation against the Trump campaign, dubbed Operation Crossfire Hurricane.
That said, the Post adds “The Washington Post has not reviewed Horowitz’s entire report, even in draft form. It is also unclear if Durham has shared the entirety of his findings and evidence with the inspector general, or merely answered a specific question.”
Papadopoulos, meanwhile, has posited that Mifsud is (or was) an Italian intelligence asset “who the C.I.A. weaponized,” according to an October New York Times report. Moreover, Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani told Fox News in April that Mifsud was “a counterintelligence operative, either Maltese or Italian,” who may have participated in a “counterintelligence trap” against the Trump campaign aide.
Notably, AG Barr himself traveled to Italy in Mid-September to discuss Mifsud, and was reportedly told by the head of the Italian Security Intelligence Department, Gennaro Vecchione, that Mifsud was not one of their assets.
According to a former Italian government official, Barr first met with Gennaro Vecchione, the head of Italy’s Security Intelligence Department, on Aug. 15, essentially to establish contact, and returned Sept. 27 for a second meeting with the heads of Italy’s domestic and foreign intelligence services.
Barr, the official said, “asked if Italian intelligence knew anything about Mifsud and if the Italians were aware of his role” in the Russia investigation “in terms of being involved in Italian intelligence itself or if he was politically tied with Italian political leaders allied with the Democrats.” The Italians, the official said, “explained that there is no involvement by the Italian intelligence services in this — and the fact that we don’t have any evidence of this plot.”
“They confirmed no connections, no activities, no interference,” the official said. –Washington Post, Oct. 6
As we have noted ad-nauseum, Mifsud has bragged about being a member of the Clinton Foundation. Meanwhile, here is a timeline of Mifsud’s interactions with Papadopoulos, via The Markets Work:
We know that Papadopoulos met multiple times with Mifsud in the first half of 2016:
- March 14 2016 – Papadopoulos first meets Mifsud in Italy – approximately one week after finding out he will be joining the Trump team.
- March 24 2016 – Papadopoulos, Mifsud, Olga Polonskaya and unknown fourth party meet in a London cafe.
- April 18 2016 – Mifsud introduces Papadopoulos to Ivan Timofeev, an official at a state-sponsored think tank called Russian International Affairs Council.
- April 26 2016 – Mifsud tells Papadopoulos he’s met with high-level Russian government officials who have “dirt” on Clinton. Papadopoulos will tell the FBI he learned of the emails prior to joining the Trump Campaign.
- May 13 2016 – Mifsud emails Papadopoulos an update of “recent conversations”.
Note: Papadopoulos and Mifsud reportedly both worked at the London Centre of International Law Practice. –The Markets Work
So – was Mifsud an asset of any state intelligence apparatus – or was he working with any on behalf of Hillary Clinton?
Oh, John: all the weaponized assets you sent my way [Joseph Mifsud, Alexander Downer, Stefan Halper] are all being outed from London, Rome and Canberra. Those governments are now actively cooperating with the Trump administration and have flipped on you. Your role will be exposed
— George Papadopoulos (@GeorgePapa19) May 22, 2019
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And let’s not forget that during Operation Crossfire Hurricane, the FBI sent operative Stephen Halper and a mysterious woman named “Azra Turk” to befriend and conduct espionage on Papadopoulos for events which took place on UK soil – and which AG Barr has said he considers spying.
Halper – who was paid more than $1 million by the Pentagon while Obama was president – contacted Papadopoulos on September 2, 2016 according to The Daily Caller – and would later fly him out to London under the guise of working on a policy paper on energy issues in Turkey, Cyprus and Israel – for which he was ultimately paid $3,000. Papadopoulos met Halper several times during his stay, “having dinner one night at the Travellers Club, and Old London gentleman’s club frequented by international diplomats.”
As the New York Times noted om May, the London operation “yielded no fruitful information,” while the FBI has called their activities in the months before the 2016 election as both “legal and carefully considered under extraordinary circumstances,” according to the report.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 12/04/2019 – 21:15 - Natgas Ready To Soar? Next Cold Pattern Could Spark Energy Demand For 118 Million Americans
Natgas Ready To Soar? Next Cold Pattern Could Spark Energy Demand For 118 Million Americans
The Global Forecast System (GFS) weather model shows for the next 6-10 days, below-average temperatures could be seen up and down the East Coast. The result of colder than average temperatures would increase energy demand for nearly 118 million people, reported Ed Vallee, head meteorologist at Empire Weather, adding that increased energy demand could put a bid in natural gas spot prices.
“We continue to watch for much colder risks next week across the Mid Continent as the pattern re-shuffles. This will bleed into key heating demand areas of the Great Lakes and Northeast later in the 6-10 day period, upping demand risk with temperatures well below normal. Beyond this time frame into mid-month, most data remains cooler than normal, especially in the northern tier of the country, and into the Northeast. This would allow heating demand to remain elevated, but upcoming weather data and forecasts will help drive price action as this challenging forecast period is sorted out,” said Vallee.
GFS day 11. One run change. 20+°F of change across the Plains.
Live tweeting this model and/or following it is a fool’s errand at best. Yikes!#natgas $UNG pic.twitter.com/PvPqQ7xqtB
— Ed Vallee | Empire Weather LLC (@EdValleeWx) December 4, 2019
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Cold risk into Mid-December is legitimate, but there are plenty of questions.
We continue to advise clients on the risks to the forecast in our live blog.
However, we keep our information in house, not for free on Twitter.
Work with us: https://t.co/oA0DEWck4Z#natgas $UNG pic.twitter.com/erEDGAEjxN
— Ed Vallee | Empire Weather LLC (@EdValleeWx) December 4, 2019
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Heating degree days (HDD) for the Northeast shows an above-trend reading through next week, which the amount of energy it takes to heat a building will jump.
HDD readings for the Southeast are also above trend, spiking in the latter parts of next week.
Natural gas spot prices for Algonquin Citygate (New York) and Transco (New York) have been elevated for the last month thanks to colder weather in the Northeast.
NYMEX Henry Hub Natural Gas spot prices have remained in a descending channel for November and into early December. Warming conditions and oversupply issues remain significant fundamental issues weighing on prices. Though if energy demand on the East Coast picks up in the next 6-10 day period, spot prices could start to stabilize.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 12/04/2019 – 20:55 - Why Apocalyptic Claims About Climate Change Are Wrong
Why Apocalyptic Claims About Climate Change Are Wrong
Authored by Michael Shellenberger via Forbes.com,
Environmental journalists and advocates have in recent weeks made a number of apocalyptic predictions about the impact of climate change. Bill McKibben suggested climate-driven fires in Australia had made koalas “functionally extinct.” Extinction Rebellion said
“Billions will die” and “Life on Earth is dying.”
Vice claimed the “collapse of civilization may have already begun.”
Few have underscored the threat more than student climate activist Greta Thunberg and Green New Deal sponsor Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The latter said,
“The world is going to end in 12 years if we don’t address climate change.”
Says Thunberg in her new book,
“Around 2030 we will be in a position to set off an irreversible chain reaction beyond human control that will lead to the end of our civilization as we know it.”
Sometimes, scientists themselves make apocalyptic claims.
“It’s difficult to see how we could accommodate a billion people or even half of that,” if Earth warms four degrees, said one earlier this year. “The potential for multi-breadbasket failure is increasing,” said another. If sea levels rise as much as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicts, another scientist said, “It will be an unmanageable problem.”
Apocalyptic statements like these have real-world impacts. In September, a group of British psychologists said children are increasingly suffering from anxiety from the frightening discourse around climate change. In October, an activist with Extinction Rebellion (”XR”) — an environmental group founded in 2018 to commit civil disobedience to draw awareness to the threat its founders and supporters say climate change poses to human existence — and a videographer, were kicked and beaten in a London Tube station by angry commuters. And last week, an XR co-founder said a genocide like the Holocaust was “happening again, on a far greater scale, and in plain sight” from climate change.
Climate change is an issue I care passionately about and have dedicated a significant portion of my life to addressing. I have been politically active on the issue for over 20 years and have researched and written about it for 17 years. Over the last four years, my organization, Environmental Progress, has worked with some of the world’s leading climate scientists to prevent carbon emissions from rising. So far, we’ve helped prevent emissions increasing the equivalent of adding 24 million cars to the road.
I also care about getting the facts and science right and have in recent months corrected inaccurate and apocalyptic news media coverage of fires in the Amazon and fires in California, both of which have been improperly presented as resulting primarily from climate change.
Journalists and activists alike have an obligation to describe environmental problems honestly and accurately, even if they fear doing so will reduce their news value or salience with the public. There is good evidence that the catastrophist framing of climate change is self-defeating because it alienates and polarizes many people. And exaggerating climate change risks distracting us from other important issues including ones we might have more near-term control over.
I feel the need to say this up-front because I want the issues I’m about to raise to be taken seriously and not dismissed by those who label as “climate deniers” or “climate delayers” anyone who pushes back against exaggeration.
With that out of the way, let’s look whether the science supports what’s being said.
First, no credible scientific body has ever said climate change threatens the collapse of civilization much less the extinction of the human species.
“‘Our children are going to die in the next 10 to 20 years.’ What’s the scientific basis for these claims?” BBC’s Andrew Neil asked a visibly uncomfortable XR spokesperson last month.
“These claims have been disputed, admittedly,” she said. “There are some scientists who are agreeing and some who are saying it’s not true. But the overall issue is that these deaths are going to happen.”
“But most scientists don’t agree with this,” said Neil. “I looked through IPCC reports and see no reference to billions of people going to die, or children in 20 years. How would they die?”
“Mass migration around the world already taking place due to prolonged drought in countries, particularly in South Asia. There are wildfires in Indonesia, the Amazon rainforest, Siberia, the Arctic,” she said.
But in saying so, the XR spokesperson had grossly misrepresented the science.
“There is robust evidence of disasters displacing people worldwide,” notes IPCC, “but limited evidence that climate change or sea-level rise is the direct cause”
What about “mass migration”?
“The majority of resultant population movements tend to occur within the borders of affected countries,” says IPCC.
It’s not like climate doesn’t matter. It’s that climate change is outweighed by other factors. Earlier this year, researchers found that climate “has affected organized armed conflict within countries. However, other drivers, such as low socioeconomic development and low capabilities of the state, are judged to be substantially more influential.”
Last January, after climate scientists criticized Rep. Ocasio-Cortez for saying the world would end in 12 years, her spokesperson said
“We can quibble about the phraseology, whether it’s existential or cataclysmic.”
He added, “We’re seeing lots of [climate change-related] problems that are already impacting lives.”
That last part may be true, but it’s also true that economic development has made us less vulnerable, which is why there was a 99.7% decline in the death toll from natural disasters since its peak in 1931.
In 1931, 3.7 million people died from natural disasters. In 2018, just 11,000 did. And that decline occurred over a period when the global population quadrupled.
What about sea level rise? IPCC estimates sea level could rise two feet (0.6 meters) by 2100. Does that sound apocalyptic or even “unmanageable”?
Consider that one-third of the Netherlands is below sea level, and some areas are seven meters below sea level. You might object that Netherlands is rich while Bangladesh is poor. But the Netherlands adapted to living below sea level 400 years ago. Technology has improved a bit since then.
What about claims of crop failure, famine, and mass death? That’s science fiction, not science. Humans today produce enough food for 10 billion people, or 25% more than we need, and scientific bodies predict increases in that share, not declines.
The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) forecasts crop yields increasing 30% by 2050. And the poorest parts of the world, like sub-Saharan Africa, are expected to see increases of 80 to 90%.
Nobody is suggesting climate change won’t negatively impact crop yields. It could. But such declines should be put in perspective. Wheat yields increased 100 to 300% around the world since the 1960s, while a study of 30 models found that yields would decline by 6% for every one degree Celsius increase in temperature.
Rates of future yield growth depend far more on whether poor nations get access to tractors, irrigation, and fertilizer than on climate change, says FAO.
All of this helps explain why IPCC anticipates climate change will have a modest impact on economic growth. By 2100, IPCC projects the global economy will be 300 to 500% larger than it is today. Both IPCC and the Nobel-winning Yale economist, William Nordhaus, predict that warming of 2.5°C and 4°C would reduce gross domestic product (GDP) by 2% and 5% over that same period.
Does this mean we shouldn’t worry about climate change? Not at all.
One of the reasons I work on climate change is because I worry about the impact it could have on endangered species. Climate change may threaten one million species globally and half of all mammals, reptiles, and amphibians in diverse places like the Albertine Rift in central Africa, home to the endangered mountain gorilla.
But it’s not the case that “we’re putting our own survival in danger” through extinctions, as Elizabeth Kolbert claimed in her book, Sixth Extinction. As tragic as animal extinctions are, they do not threaten human civilization. If we want to save endangered species, we need to do so because we care about wildlife for spiritual, ethical, or aesthetic reasons, not survival ones.
And exaggerating the risk, and suggesting climate change is more important than things like habitat destruction, are counterproductive.
For example, Australia’s fires are not driving koalas extinct, as Bill McKibben suggested. The main scientific body that tracks the species, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, or IUCN, labels the koala “vulnerable,” which is one level less threatened than “endangered,” two levels less than “critically endangered,” and three less than “extinct” in the wild.
Should we worry about koalas? Absolutely! They are amazing animals and their numbers have declined to around 300,000. But they face far bigger threats such as the destruction of habitat, disease, bushfires, and invasive species.
Think of it this way. The climate could change dramatically — and we could still save koalas. Conversely, the climate could change only modestly — and koalas could still go extinct.
The monomaniacal focus on climate distracts our attention from other threats to koalas and opportunities for protecting them, like protecting and expanding their habitat.
As for fire, one of Australia’s leading scientists on the issue says,
“Bushfire losses can be explained by the increasing exposure of dwellings to fire-prone bushlands. No other influences need be invoked. So even if climate change had played some small role in modulating recent bushfires, and we cannot rule this out, any such effects on risk to property are clearly swamped by the changes in exposure.”
Nor are the fires solely due to drought, which is common in Australia, and exceptional this year. “Climate change is playing its role here,” said Richard Thornton of the Bushfire and Natural Hazards Cooperative Research Centre in Australia, “but it’s not the cause of these fires.”
The same is true for fires in the United States. In 2017, scientists modeled 37 different regions and found “humans may not only influence fire regimes but their presence can actually override, or swamp out, the effects of climate.” Of the 10 variables that influence fire, “none were as significant… as the anthropogenic variables,” such as building homes near, and managing fires and wood fuel growth within, forests.
Climate scientists are starting to push back against exaggerations by activists, journalists, and other scientists.
“While many species are threatened with extinction,” said Stanford’s Ken Caldeira, “climate change does not threaten human extinction… I would not like to see us motivating people to do the right thing by making them believe something that is false.”
I asked the Australian climate scientist Tom Wigley what he thought of the claim that climate change threatens civilization. “It really does bother me because it’s wrong,” he said. “All these young people have been misinformed. And partly it’s Greta Thunberg’s fault. Not deliberately. But she’s wrong.”
But don’t scientists and activists need to exaggerate in order to get the public’s attention?
“I’m reminded of what [late Stanford University climate scientist] Steve Schneider used to say,” Wigley replied.
“He used to say that as a scientist, we shouldn’t really be concerned about the way we slant things in communicating with people out on the street who might need a little push in a certain direction to realize that this is a serious problem. Steve didn’t have any qualms about speaking in that biased way. I don’t quite agree with that.”
Wigley started working on climate science full-time in 1975 and created one of the first climate models (MAGICC) in 1987. It remains one of the main climate models in use today.
“When I talk to the general public,” he said, “I point out some of the things that might make projections of warming less and the things that might make them more. I always try to present both sides.”
Part of what bothers me about the apocalyptic rhetoric by climate activists is that it is often accompanied by demands that poor nations be denied the cheap sources of energy they need to develop. I have found that many scientists share my concerns.
“If you want to minimize carbon dioxide in the atmosphere in 2070 you might want to accelerate the burning of coal in India today,” MIT climate scientist Kerry Emanuel said.
“It doesn’t sound like it makes sense. Coal is terrible for carbon. But it’s by burning a lot of coal that they make themselves wealthier, and by making themselves wealthier they have fewer children, and you don’t have as many people burning carbon, you might be better off in 2070.”
Emanuel and Wigley say the extreme rhetoric is making political agreement on climate change harder.
“You’ve got to come up with some kind of middle ground where you do reasonable things to mitigate the risk and try at the same time to lift people out of poverty and make them more resilient,” said Emanuel.
“We shouldn’t be forced to choose between lifting people out of poverty and doing something for the climate.”
Happily, there is a plenty of middle ground between climate apocalypse and climate denial.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 12/04/2019 – 20:35 - 3 Victims Injured, Shooter "Contained" At Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard
3 Victims Injured, Shooter “Contained” At Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard
Live Feed:
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Summary:
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Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard on lockdown
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3 people injured: 2 critical, 1 stable
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Shooter “contained” – some reports that he took his own life
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As we detailed earlier, Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard in Hawaii is on lockdown after multiple victims have been reported in an active shooter situation.
Sources tell Hawaii News Now that several civilians are among the gunshot victims. The Mirror reports that two victims are said to be critical, while a third is stable.
JBPHH security forces have responded to a reported shooting at the Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard. The incident occurred at approximately 2:30 p.m. Due to the ongoing security incident, access/gates to #JBPHH are closed. We will update when we have further information. pic.twitter.com/6uZulGOUTx
— Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam (@JointBasePHH) December 5, 2019
The base’s 15th Wing confirmed, there was a shooter on the base. It said on Facebook:
“ALERT: There is an active shooter on base, please seek a secure location until further notice.”
A PA system is urging people to take cover. Base personnel also received text messages alerting them of the situation. Witnesses tell Hawaii News Now that the shooting happened at Drydock 2. First responders were called to the scene about 2:30 p.m. local time (730pm ET).
One witness said he was at his desk when he heard loud pops.
“I kind of recognize that as gunshots,” the witness.
“I looked out in time to see the shooter … shoot himself.”
Developing…
Tyler Durden
Wed, 12/04/2019 – 20:21 -
- Trump-Bezos Round 2: Amazon Faces Broad Antitrust Probe Of Cloud Business
Trump-Bezos Round 2: Amazon Faces Broad Antitrust Probe Of Cloud Business
Having lodged a formal complaint (cough, bad loser, cough) after losing the hotly contested contract to provide cloud computing services to the Pentagon, it appears the richest man in the world is about to face round 2 against the most powerful man in the world as Bloomberg reports that, according to people familiar with the matter, U.S. antitrust enforcers have broadened their scrutiny of Amazon beyond its retail operations to include its massive cloud-computing business.
The contract was a big win for Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, who has prioritized cloud computing.
As a reminder, in August (before the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure, or JEDI, deal was concluded) the Pentagon’s Inspector General has launched a probe into key aspects of the bid process – including potential conflicts of interest, after The WSJ publicized evidence showing that senior Amazon executives met with senior DoD officials, including then-Defense Secretary James Mattis, to discuss the project before the bidding even began.
The deal did not go Bezos’ way, and so – as is the norm in today’s world, they cried foul and lodged a formal complaint:
“Numerous aspects of the JEDI evaluation process contained clear deficiencies, errors, and unmistakable bias – and it’s important that these matters be examined and rectified.”
But now, as Bloomberg details, investigators at the U.S. Federal Trade Commission have been asking software companies recently about practices around Amazon’s cloud unit, known as Amazon Web Services.
Specifically, the outreach by the FTC signals that the agency, which is already looking at Amazon’s conduct in its vast online retail business, is taking a broader look at the company to determine whether it could be violating antitrust laws and harming competition.
One issue the FTC could look at is whether Amazon has an incentive to discriminate against those software companies, which sell their products to clients of AWS, while at the same time competing with Amazon. The fear is that Amazon could punish the companies that work with other cloud providers and favor those that it works with exclusively.
The dynamic echos that in Amazon’s retail marketplace, where third-party sellers depend on the platform to reach customers because of its size, but in many cases they also compete with Amazon’s own products. That’s a conflict that threatens competition, according to critics.
Clash of the Titans? How long before Amazon lodges another formal complaint about being under an antitrust probe? We are sure not long, but for now, “Bezos vs Trump 2: This Time It’s Personal” is set to accelerate in the coming months…
As for Amazon, the loss of the $10 billion award over 10 years doesn’t stand out as critical, considering the company reported $242 billion in revenue and $11.4 billion in net income over the 12 months ended March 31. But, as we noted previously, a loss of government confidence in AWS (which generated $2.2 billion of net income in the first quarter, up 57% year-over-year and representing two thirds of the consolidated total) could be significant.
As a D.C.-based observer told ADG in April:
“The AWS story, as sold to enterprise customers and the Street, is built upon the [C.I.A] reference case and the cash that has come in from that deal.”
Gartner puts AWS’s market share at 48% and Microsoft’s at 16 – we wonder how long before that changes?
Tyler Durden
Wed, 12/04/2019 – 20:15 - Cartel Violence Explodes – Has Mexico Finally Lost All Control?
Cartel Violence Explodes – Has Mexico Finally Lost All Control?
Authored by Sarah Cowgill via LibertyNation.com,
On the heels of President Donald Trump’s attempts to designate Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs), an attack uncomfortably close to U.S. soil has the Mexican government scrambling and the president fuming. At least 22 died over the weekend as rival cartels struggling for Northern Mexico turf dominance clashed with local law enforcement in Villa Union, Coahuila, an hour’s drive from Eagle’s Pass, TX. The brazen attack seemingly was directed at the Mexican government to send a warning as to who is in charge.
The town of Villa Union was, in effect, shredded, riddled with bullets, as a heavily armed group of alleged cartel members stormed the community in a convoy of trucks. When they attacked local government offices, the federales attempted to intervene. Fleeing, the cartel kidnapped locals and their vehicles, including a hearse on the way to a funeral.
To Designate Or Not
Mexican officials fear that an FTO designation will allow unilateral interventions across the southern border. But Trump is undeterred, saying as much in a recent interview with Bill O’Reilly:
“They will be designated. I’ve been working on that for the last 90 days. Designation is not that easy. You have to go through a process, and we are well into that process.”
At first, there was a lukewarm reception to Trump’s FTO declaration, but now more U.S. government officials support the idea. Former Acting ICE Director Tom Homan believes it’s time for an intervention on Mexican soil. Although he credited the Mexican law enforcement response, he pointed out a failing that allows cartel violence to creep closer to the United States:
“They’re not well-trained, they’re not well-equipped, and they certainly don’t have the expertise at dismantling large criminal organizations like the U.S. law enforcement does. We’ve proven that in Panama with [ruler Manuel] Noriega, we proved that in Colombia with [Pablo Escobar]. The United States can go down to Mexico and help them address this crisis once and for all.”
That is, if the cartels are FTO designated. But securing a commitment from Mexico President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador — who has been clear in denouncing the terrorist label as none of Trump’s business – is simply a pipe dream so far. Lopez emphatically stands his ground, telling the United States to rethink any offensive action in Mexico: “Our problems will be solved by Mexicans. We don’t want any interference from any foreign country.”
And then we have a dissenting opinion from Ambassador David Johnson, vice president of the International Narcotics Control Board and former assistant secretary of state for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs. He is lobbying to stay the course:
“Terrorists use violence to expand a political goal. These criminals are interested in money, not politics. They don’t want the responsibility and headaches that come with political control since it could interfere with their profit-maximizing goals. The key reason for not labeling them terrorists is because that is not what they are. They are in it for the money. Period.”
Derek Maltz, former special agent in charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration Special Operations Division in New York, is all for doing whatever it takes to stem the flow of violence. He declared, “Designating the cartels as terrorists and implementing a focused operational plan will save a tremendous amount of lives.”
Trump Is Stubbornly Dug In
Trump has made it his mission to stop illegal immigration, illicit drug trade, human trafficking, and violence on the north side of the shared border. A safer Mexico creates a safer America. With the recent uptick in violence in Mexico, it would seem the country should embrace the help it so desperately needs. Perhaps putting away control issues and focusing on the greater good would make Lopez Obrador and Trump shake hands and get the job done.
Else we may see the violence enacted in Villa Union cross our border.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 12/04/2019 – 19:55 - "Is Something Going Wrong? Is Something Broken?" Quants Running "Scared" As Nothing Makes Sense
“Is Something Going Wrong? Is Something Broken?” Quants Running “Scared” As Nothing Makes Sense
It was a year where the S&P put the mini bear market of December 2018 in the dust, and after a dramatic reversal which saw most central banks flip from hawkish to dovish throughout the year…
… the MSCI World index is just shy of its January 2018 highs, and the S&P has returned an impressive 24% (despite the jittery start to December), and stands at all time record highs, despite, paradoxically, a year of record equity fund outflow.
On paper, this should have been a great year for investors after a dismal 2018. In reality, however, 2019 has been just as painful for not just for hedge funds, which have substantially underperformed the S&P again and in October saw a record 8 consecutive months of outflows, the most since the financial crisis…
… but especially for quants, which after a relatively solid year, suffered the September quant crash that destroyed most of their YTD gains, and have generally been unable to find their bearings in a year in which nothing seemed to work.
It’s also Georg Elsaesser, a Frankfurt-based fund manager at Invesco, is trying to calm down his newbie quant clients as choppy stock moves make life difficult for anyone trading factors, which wire up all those systematic portfolios on Wall Street.
“Some of them are kind of scared,” Elsaesser told Bloomberg. “They’re asking the questions: Is something going wrong? Is something broken?”
Well actually, the answer is yes: the market is broken, and you can thank central banks for that.
The problem is that the rules-based method of investing based on grouping of stocks by traits like their value, momentum, or balance sheet quality, is misfiring again this year, even more so than it in 2018, when quants suffered their worst year since the financial crisis, and left quant icons such as Cliff Asness’ AQR, suffering its biggest loss since inception.
Here is another problem: while the broader stock market, propped up by central bank stimulus, rate cuts and “NOT QE”, has been on a tear, a peek below the calm surface reveals a tempest of position reversals and catastrophic, at time, performance as a slew of traditional long-short styles are in the red. Market-neutral portfolios have lost 1% this year, according to a Hedge Fund Research index.
While there are numerous, often conflicting, explanations why factor portfolios disappointed in 2019, one can offer some generalizations. Persistent caution over the growth outlook whipsawed riskier trades like value and small caps which slumped all year then soared at the start of September, momentum trades worked all year then got crushed in September, the most shorted stocks soared, and the most heavily owned stocks barely outperformed.
Another, more practical explanation, is that in a world where factors are supposed to offer diversification of risk, they did just the opposite, and the correlation between the most popular factors such as growth, value, size, dividend yield, momentum and volatility exploded. As Goldman wrote in its 2020 year ahead outlook, the average realized pairwise correlation of our factors has reached levels only achieved twice in the last 30 years: in 2Q 2009 as the equity market bottomed in the Financial Crisis and in 1Q 1997 as the Tech Bubble began to build. These elevated correlations underscore the importance that risk sentiment in driving recent market rotations, but more importantly explain why, well, nothing worked, as all of these often conflicting strategies eventually ended up offsetting each other.
The soaring correlations can also be explained by the bond market: as interest rates dominated factor returns this year, diversification benefits weakened according to analysts at Nomura Instinet.
In light of this dismal repeat performance, it is easy to see why Elsaesser is on the defensive: he is one of many in the systematic community trying to win back hearts with the pitch that factors are time-tested, designed for the long haul and backed by some of the smartest folk in finance and academia (so was LTCM). But as the investing style closes a year to forget, patience is wearing thin among the market-neutral crowd, which plight Bloomberg covered in an article this morning.
“The experienced investors say it’s normal noise in the long run,” Elsaesser said. “But it certainly means we need to explain more.”
You certainly do: after yet another year of carnage for quants, billions of dollars are fleeing the industry which as recently as a few years ago was considered the “next big thing” on Wall Street, now that fundamental analysis no longer matters (again, thanks to central banks).
Sure enough, outflows have soared, and may also have hit industry performance. Market-neutral equity hedge funds lost nearly $4 billion YTD, according to Eurekahedge. Institutions even redeemed $54 billion from long-only quantitative stock funds in the first three quarters, according to eVestment.
However, outflows will continue as long as days like Sept 9 occasionally emerge out of the blue.
On that day, the S&P 500 Index closed flat, equity volatility cruised around its five-year average and commodities were unexciting. Yet factor investors experienced the biggest rotation in a decade after value briefly broke out of its funk at the expense of high-flying momentum stocks. As we showed then, that one day was the most painful for quant funds since the great quant crash of August 2007! And worst of all, nobody knew just why it happened as swiftly as it did.
As a result, Bloomberg writes that quants who failed to diversify into winners like low volatility – which until the September shock would be most of them – are in “soul-searching mode.” Are factors like value structurally broken? Can market-neutral styles roar back to life over the long haul?
The best summary of how nothing for quants has worked this year (and last year) came from Ian Heslop, London-based head of global equities at Merian Global Investors, who did his best LTCM impression: “Some of the themes we expected to diversify our returns in a period of underperformance of value haven’t worked as well.”
That said, it’s not been all gloom. A handful of long-only factor strategies are posting 20%-plus gains this year. But they’re still lagging cap-weighted indexes. Sanford C. Bernstein estimates systematic long-only managers have lagged their benchmark by 2% points on average.
The pain is most acute for market-neutral quants, whose strategies including factor styles gained a paltry 1.2% this year as of Nov. 26 compared with 9.8% for equity long-short funds and 8.7% for discretionary macro funds, according to Credit Suisse data. Recent research by Robeco showed that it was the short legs of factor strategies that have been a drag on performance this year, arguing the value of the investing style mostly comes from the long leg.
Well yes: this is another way of saying that in a manipulated, centrally-planned market, there is no need for short pair trades, i.e., there is no need to hedge. Incidentally, this is precisely what we said all the way back in 2013 when we wrote that the only alpha-generating strategy in a broken market is to go short the most held names and go long the most shorted ones. 6 years later, Bank of America is writing just how correct we were, pointing out that going against the Wall Street crowd has never been more profitable…
And yet, even though we write about this year after year, there will always be those who could never have possibly anticipated this:
“Whether this has been driven by flow events or not, it is finite, it’s very unusual,” said Heslop. His $4.5 billion Merian Global Equity Absolute Return Fund has seen its assets shrink by more than half this year.
Then there are those who have been betting – year after year – on mean reversion, certain that value was poised for a rebound. They too were left disappointed. As Bloomberg notes, and as we cautioned, since reviving briefly in September, the factor has flatlined since despite JPM’s Marko Kolanovic predicting the value to momentum rotation is a “once in a decade opportunity.” Here, as Bloomberg accurately notes, its outlook continues to divide quant land between bears citing low yields and weak growth, and bulls touting cheap relative valuations.
Alas, neither strategy is beating the S&P500 which is the one asset class directly propped up by central banks.
So where do we stand now?
Well, after another disastrous year for the sector, some quants are revamping strategies. At Merian, Bloomberg notes that Heslop’s team this year tweaked models to penalize exposure to highly correlated factors and to make allocations more defensive against downside risks; it is now on the hunt for smarter definitions of value. The irony, of course, is that most of Heslop’s peers are also doing precisely the same thing, and the outcome will be yet another year of underperformance for quants who are not only fighting themselves, but are also locked in a fight for survival against central banks who have turned the logic of investing and Finance 101 on its head.
Some funds are also deploying alternative data and machine learning in a bid to re-invent now widely known factor strategies. That said, such newfangled methods are a contentious move for a community that’s netted billions riding established factors back-tested over decades. Invesco’s Elsaesser for one is skeptical.
“It’s like a perfect storm for factors at the moment, but they have done what you would expect them to do,” he said. “We’ve seen these drawdowns; we’ve seen them recover. We know the essence of them is the very strong factor logic.”
There is just one problem: when you have a centrally planned market, you don’t have logic. We wonder just how many more year it will take the best and the brightest to finally grasp this simple observation which we have been pounding the table on since our inception in 2009…
Tyler Durden
Wed, 12/04/2019 – 19:35 - "…The Road-Map Ahead Is A Market Crash, Followed By Obscene Fiscal Stimulus…"
“…The Road-Map Ahead Is A Market Crash, Followed By Obscene Fiscal Stimulus…”
Via AdventuresInCapitalism.com,
Investing is all about probabilities. If the perceived odds of an event are high, certain securities will be priced based on those expected probabilities. The corollary is that when an event is perceived as almost impossible, securities do not price in any chance of it occurring. If that event does occur, all sorts of securities need to re-price—often quite rapidly. I like to spend my time pondering what potential events the market completely ignores. Of all potential economic outcomes, the one that is least anticipated and least priced in, is an uptick in inflation.
It is said that generals always fight the last war. In terms of macro-portfolio wars, Japan’s experience with deflation colors all views. This seems odd to me because we have over two millennia of history showing inflation and currency debasements to be universal constants, with one outlier in Japan. The question is if Japan is the new normal or a true outlier?
Academics have studied the causes and effects of inflation ever since emperors and kings fixated on halting its effects. Despite a massive body of work, there is little agreement amongst experts on the causes of inflation. Since I tend to ignore “experts,” let me start by giving you the Kuppy definition of inflation. “Inflation is when too much of a certain currency chases a scarce resource and pushes its price higher when defined in terms of that currency.” Using that definition, we’ve actually had rather dramatic inflation over the past decade—it just hasn’t shown up yet in the core consumer goods that central bankers are often concerned about.
Did they time-stamp the cyclical low in yields?
When a country prints money, no one knows where within the economic ecosystem it will ultimately flow. If a resource is scarce, it tends to experience inflation—when it is artificially scarce, it has even more extreme inflation. Just think of where the money printing has ended up this cycle; bonds (central banks restricted supply by buying them), stocks (PE and buybacks have restricted supply), gateway city residential housing (local municipalities have restricted supply), medical costs (systematic dysfunction has restricted supply), vintage wines (they aren’t being produced anymore), college education (supply restricted again), I can go on, but you get the point. Meanwhile, traditional inflation stalwarts like food and energy have remained suppressed due to technological advancements, reduced logistical costs and excess liquidity, which has allowed capacity to overshoot and lead to price deflation. To say that we’ve not had inflation over the past decade is wrong, we just haven’t had inflation in places that are key components of the CPI basket.
However, that may be changing. I believe that the number of sectors with restricted supply are starting to expand. Let’s look at labor, which historically has been a primary source of inflation. It’s no secret that US unemployment is at historic lows, laborers now have bargaining power and wages are rapidly increasing—with increases made more extreme by minimum wage laws, healthcare inflation and new mandates in various states. The cost of labor goes into almost every finished good—particularly in a labor-intensive service economy. Politicians on both sides seem willing to pass laws that give labor a bigger share of the pie—what will that do to inflation?
Now think of energy; it’s a crazy world out there and global energy security is no longer guaranteed. Prices have been suppressed for the past few years by excess production due to uneconomic shale—that’s clearly reversing as the funding has been cut off. Where do you think energy prices go if shale growth flat-lines or goes in reverse? What about when key producing regions devolve into chaos? Tanker rates are also expanding—that increases energy prices as well.
Now think about consumer goods; the past few decades were all about increased globalization where manufacturing migrated to the cheapest possible location. Trade wars and regional balkanization upend this trend. Now there ought to be an implicit geopolitical risk premium priced into gross margins on every good. Supply chain disruptions further increase costs. If globalism was deflationary, isn’t the reverse inflationary?
Think about what venture capital has done to costs. Thousands of businesses are losing hundreds of billions a year to gain market share in rather prosaic industries. Think about what Uber has done to transport costs or Chewy has done to the cost of dog food. These are all subsidized by VC firms so they can dump IPOs on unsuspecting retail bag-holders. As these businesses are forced to raise pricing in order to become sustainable, what will that do to consumer inflation? Won’t all sorts of sectors also gain pricing power, now that they don’t have to compete with someone who sells a Dollar for 80 cents hoping to make it up with volume? Isn’t the collapse of the Ponzi Sector bubble inherently inflationary?
What about all the supply restriction as ESG takes its toll on economies? If you can’t get permits to build a new coal mine or oil pipeline, yet demand keeps growing, won’t pricing increase as well?
I can go on and on. All the trends that were deflationary are slowly going in reverse. We haven’t seen the effects of this show up in the data yet, largely because the global economy is rapidly deteriorating, which is putting a brake on the demand side. However, even with the global economy slowing, inflation is starting to tick up in the US. Can the rest of the world be far behind us?
Of course, government policy drives all of this. I think it is obvious that we’ve finally reached the limits of monetary policy. Does the ECB taking rates 10 basis points more negative do anything but accelerate the bankruptcy of the Eurozone banking system? Does it increase consumption or capital expenditures? Of course not. If anything, it just starves the system of capital by taking everyone’s return on capital investment down towards zero and below. Who invests when expected returns are negative? What the world needs is a big reset of the system where leveraged firms default, solvent firms pick up the pieces and get to earn excess returns due to their past fiscal sobriety. Since we live in a democracy, that won’t happen, instead we will have extreme fiscal stimulus in order to kick the can further down the road.
In October, I spent 15 hours in the Sheremetyevo airport in Moscow (damn connecting flight never showed). It hasn’t seen a dollar of cap-ex in years, but it’s still light years ahead of LaGuardia or LAX. Just wait until corporations learn how much they can make from a never-ending airport renovation project. Now multiply that by hundreds of airports in America that desperately need capital investment. Now add bridges, roads, bullet trains, water infrastructure and our electrical grid. Why are all the lobbyists trying to get us into wars with third world nations? Corporations would make more money fixing our infrastructure and it’s going to be a lot less politically contentious.
If you think deflation is a fact of life, you clearly haven’t paid attention to history. Governments around the world have experienced a unique decade where they ran deficits and printed money without “bad inflation” which upsets voters. They think this is a new normal with no consequences. It isn’t. They’re already panicking with the S&P a few ticks from all-time highs. Soon politicians will go into ludicrous mode with fiscal stimulus.
What will fiscal stimulus do to the equity market? I’m reminded of the 1970s—inflation is no friend to most stocks. What happens to trillions in negative yielding long-dated bonds if inflation ticks up? What happens to bond proxies like global large-cap equity indexes or real estate? What happens to risk-parity funds that are leveraged a few times over expecting bonds and equities to increase over time? What if both legs of the trade drop at the same time? No one is ready for inflation, but I believe it’s coming. Maybe not today or next week, but there is a powder keg of monetary supply just waiting to be unleashed by governments who think that inflation can never happen again. At first, markets will cheer a bit of inflation—then they’ll panic. The markets often do whatever the fewest people are positioned for. Who’s positioned for inflation? That’s about as contrarian as buying Argentine sovereign debt.
I think the road-map ahead is a market crash, followed by obscene fiscal stimulus. As always, I’m trying to think a few steps ahead here. I’m making a list of beat-down sectors who benefit from this change in government policy. I want to be ready to buy as soon as they get serious about unleashing the stimulus.
You need a crisis that’s severe enough that both political parties can agree on stimulus. We’re not there yet, but we will be. If you thought QE was nutty, wait until you see what drunken sailor mode looks like. Inflation is coming. Be VERY careful if you own assets with duration risk.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 12/04/2019 – 19:15 - For First Time Since 2012, A China IPO Flopped…
For First Time Since 2012, A China IPO Flopped…
On Wednesday, a Chinese IPO closed below its listing price for the first time since 2012, signaling that the public’s former unquestionable love affair with risk and equities is fading as the economy continues to decelerate,.
- LUOYANG JALON MICRO-NANO NEW MATERIALS SAYS TRADING IN SHARES TO DEBUT ON DEC 4 IN SHANGHAI
Luoyang Jianlong Micro-Nano New Materials shares debuted on the Shanghai Stock Exchange on Wednesday. The stock immediately dropped 7% in the first hour of trading, closing down 2% on the session.
Luoyang Jianlong’s disastrous IPO debut was the first time a mainland Chinese stock closed below its listing price since 2012. The last time this happened, Haixin Foods plunged 8% below its first day listing price in 4Q12.
“Luoyang Jianlong’s debut flop sends a clear signal to the market that buying into IPOs has become more and more risky,” said Jiang Liangqing, a money manager at Ruisen Capital Management in Beijing.
“It will become more difficult for companies to raise money from the capital market as the deteriorating performances of new listings will deter investors,” he said. “On the other hand, it shows that things are becoming increasingly market-driven.”
For at least a decade, China’s IPO market has been one of the strongest in the world, with every newly public stock closing at or near limit-up. Though now it seems large-cap IPOs are showing signs of waning interest from investors as the economy continues to decelerate through year-end, and likely to continue slowing into 1H20. To counter the IPO market bust, China has tried to calm markets by increasing domestic firms with more access to credit to keep equity markets humming along.
State-run media outlets have published frontpage stories telling investors not to worry about the IPO market, and enough liquidity will be provided through 2020.
China’s economy is growing at the weakest point in nearly three decades. A massive turn up in growth in China and across the world is unlikely in early 2020, mostly due to China’s credit impulse faltering.
We warned back in September that the global IPO market was going bust, mostly due to the synchronized global slowdown that has deterred investors from buying IPO shares in companies that don’t make money ahead of a recession.
The rebellion against unicorn IPOs in the US in 2019 shows that investors have lost interest in speculative growth companies. Some of the high-profile US IPO flops this year have been Uber and Lyft. In September, the Peloton IPO plunged 7% below its offering price, making it the third-worst trading debut for a large US IPO since 2008.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 12/04/2019 – 18:55 - How Dumb Have We Become? Chinese Students Are 4 Grade Levels Ahead Of US Students In Math
How Dumb Have We Become? Chinese Students Are 4 Grade Levels Ahead Of US Students In Math
Authored by Michael Snyder via The End of The American Dream blog,
How in the world is America supposed to remain “the greatest country on Earth” when other nations are absolutely running circles around us when it comes to education? As you will see below, one survey found that 15-year-old students in China are almost four full grade levels ahead of 15-year-old students in the United States in mathematics. This is one of the most damning indictments of our education system that I have ever come across, and it is yet another clear indication that what we are doing is simply not working. Our children are not being given the tools that they need to compete in our modern society, and we have only ourselves to blame.
Perhaps you are thinking that the survey must be flawed somehow.
Well, this wasn’t some fluky survey that was only given to a handful of students. Every three years, the Program for International Student Assessment evaluates 15-year-old students all over the world in a variety of subject areas, and in 2018 approximately 32 million students participated…
The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) is a survey given to 15-year-old students around the world every three years, which tests the core subjects of reading, mathematics, and science. In 2018, 79 countries and economies participated, representing about 32 million 15-year-olds.
When your sample size is 32 million students, I think that it is safe to say that the results of the survey should be taken seriously.
And what the survey discovered is that U.S. students continue to fall behind in math. In particular, we have fallen way, way behind the Chinese. The following comes from Psychology Today…
There is no excuse for the US when students in Beijing-Shanghai-Jiangsu-Zhejiang (B-S-J-Z) performed near four grade levels ahead of US students in mathematics.
In addition, the survey also discovered that the “most disadvantaged” students in China actually performed on par with the average U.S. student…
“The 10% most disadvantaged students in Beijing-Shanghai-Jiangsu-Zhejiang (B-S-J-Z) or in Macao or Estonia… those students actually do as well or better than the average student in the US. So clearly some countries do better with their disadvantaged students, where you see less variability with students from the most privileged backgrounds,” said Andreas Schleicher.
What in the world has happened to us?
We used to have the best education system in the entire world, but now we have become a nation of drooling idiots that can’t even think straight.
Let me give you an example. According to Fox News, a police officer in Los Angeles was recently caught sexually fondling a dead woman by his own body-cam…
The veteran Los Angeles cop, who is assigned to downtown’s Central Division, was caught on his own body-cam footage allegedly fondling the dead woman, and his supervisors have reviewed the video, according to the Los Angeles Times.
The alleged incident took place when the LAPD officer and his partner responded to a call about a possible dead woman in a residential unit, the newspaper reported, citing sources.
That is dumb on so many levels, and now that police officer’s career is over.
Let me give you another example of how dumb we have become. South Dakota has decided to crack down on the meth epidemic in their state, but unfortunately not a lot of thought was put into the advertising slogan for the campaign…
The state of South Dakota has a new anti-drug campaign, but its slogan is raising eyebrows.
Because it is “Meth. We’re on it.”
Which could be taken the wrong way.
You think?
Of course it is much dumber to actually be on meth. Approximately 24 million Americans have taken an illegal drug within the last 30 days, and it is getting worse with each passing year.
I know that I am being very hard on the United States in this article, but there is no excuse for what has happened to us.
We were once a great light to the rest of the world, but today a large chunk of our population can barely read, write, speak or function in society. Just consider the following numbers…
#1 One recent survey found that 74 percent of Americans don’t even know how many amendments are in the Bill of Rights.
#2 An earlier survey discovered that 37 percent of Americans cannot name a single right protected by the First Amendment.
#3 Shockingly, only 26 percent of Americans can name all three branches of government.
#4 During the 2016 election, more than 40 percent of Americans did not know who was running for vice-president from either of the major parties.
#5 North Carolina is considering passing a law which would “mean only scores lower than 39 percent would qualify for an F grade” in North Carolina public schools.
#6 30 years ago, the United States awarded more high school diplomas than anyone in the world. Today, we have fallen to 36th place.
#7 According to the Pentagon, 71 percent of our young adults are ineligible to serve in the U.S. military because they are either too dumb, too fat or have a criminal background.
#8 For the very first time, Americans are more likely to die from an opioid overdose than they are in a car accident.
#9 One study discovered that one-third of all American teenagers haven’t read a single book in the past year.
#10 A recent survey found that 45 percent of U.S. teenagers are online “almost constantly”.
#11 Today, the average American spends 86 hours a month using a smartphone.
#12 Overall, the average U.S. adult “logs 6 hours, 43 minutes of total screen time daily”.
#13 In more than half of all U.S. states, the highest paid public employee in the state is a football coach.
#14 During one seven day period last summer, a total of 16,000 official complaints about human feces were submitted to the city of San Francisco. And apparently the problem is very real because one investigation found 300 piles of human feces on the streets of downtown San Francisco.
#15 Every 24 hours, more than a third of all Americans eat fast food.
#16 Less than half of all Americans know which country used atomic bombs at the end of World War II.
#17 Even though we fought a war in Iraq for eight long years, 6 out of 10 young adults cannot find Iraq on a map of the Middle East. And that same survey found that 75 percent of our young adults cannot locate Israel.
#18 Today, the average college freshman in the United States reads at a 7th grade level.
Are you convinced yet?
As a society, we have become exceedingly “dumbed down”, and we can even see this at the highest levels of our government. Just take a look at some of the people we have representing us in Congress. If George Washington, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were alive today, what do you think that they would make of our current crop of politicians?
When our founders spoke, their language was so elegant. But of course we couldn’t have politicians speak to us that way today because nobody would be able to understand what they were saying.
Our society is literally in a death spiral, but nobody seems to have a way to stop it.
Educating our children properly is one of the most basic things that needs to be addressed, but unfortunately the left has total control of our public schools now, and that means that there is no hope of a major turnaround any time soon.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 12/04/2019 – 18:35
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