Salvador Dali Self-portrait in the studio 1919
John Solomon’s account is really important in the impeachment hearings.. And everything he says is documented.
Watched quite a lot of the House hearing yesterday, and thought: this is a circus. Everyone knows Trump is guilty or not before they’ve seen anything, just depending on what party they belong to. And no, no fan of Adam Schiff.
• These Once-Secret Memos Cast Doubt On Joe Biden’s Ukraine Story (Solomon)
Former Vice President Joe Biden, now a 2020 Democratic presidential contender, has locked into a specific story about the controversy in Ukraine. He insists that, in spring 2016, he strong-armed Ukraine to fire its chief prosecutor solely because Biden believed that official was corrupt and inept, not because the Ukrainian was investigating a natural gas company, Burisma Holdings, that hired Biden’s son, Hunter, into a lucrative job. There’s just one problem. Hundreds of pages of never-released memos and documents — many from inside the American team helping Burisma to stave off its legal troubles — conflict with Biden’s narrative.
And they raise the troubling prospect that U.S. officials may have painted a false picture in Ukraine that helped ease Burisma’s legal troubles and stop prosecutors’ plans to interview Hunter Biden during the 2016 U.S. presidential election. [..] Some media outlets have reported that, at the time Joe Biden forced the firing in March 2016, there were no open investigations. Those reports are wrong. [..] the Ukraine Prosecutor General’s office still had two open inquiries in March 2016, according to the official case file provided me. [..] In a newly sworn affidavit prepared for a European court, Shokin testified that when he was fired in March 2016, he was told the reason was that Biden was unhappy about the Burisma investigation.
“The truth is that I was forced out because I was leading a wide-ranging corruption probe into Burisma Holdings, a natural gas firm active in Ukraine and Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, was a member of the Board of Directors,” Shokin testified. “On several occasions President Poroshenko asked me to have a look at the case against Burisma and consider the possibility of winding down the investigative actions in respect of this company but I refused to close this investigation,” Shokin added.
“..keeping him under investigation, at least through the November election, will increasingly erode the support of both Trump and the Republican party brand..”
• Democrats Reveal the Real Purpose of the Impeachment Investigation (PCR)
The Democrats know that there is no impeachable offense. What they intend to do is to use the investigation to look into every aspect of Trump’s life and try to make dirt out of things unrelated to his talk with the Ukrainian president. This “impeachment investigation” is a political act to help their candidate win the next presidential election. Democrats themselves describe it in this way. For example, here is how Rob Kall, the director of one of the progressive Democrat websites, described the purpose of the investigation: “The idea should be to keep the impeachment going as long as possible, with new testimonies and new releases of disclosures of alleged corruption and treason on a regular basis.
“Looking at impeachment as a process for removing the president is the wrong way of thinking about it. Looking at it as a key that gives access to investigative tools is the smarter, more strategic, way of looking at it. “Ideally, it will get so bad for Trump that the Republicans will end up putting up someone else to run in the general election. “But keeping him under investigation, at least through the November election, will increasingly erode the support of both Trump and the Republican party brand, making a Democratic takeover of the Senate and the White House, and an increased control of the House even more likely.” In other words, it is a political power play.
The outcome depends on whether Americans see the impeachment investigation as another orchestrated hoax like Russiagate or whether they fall for the hoax as they iniatially did with the Russiagate investigation. The United States does not have a media. It has a propaganda ministry that helps the ruling elites control the explanations that Americans are given. Polls show that Americans have lost confidence in the media. If so, the impeachment investigation will backfire on the Democrats.
Personally, I’m very much torn between tragedy and comedy.
• Chelsea, Reality Hope New Approval Of Whistleblowers Will Set Them Free (Onion)
Following a CIA officer’s much-applauded decision to disclose evidence that President Trump urged his Ukrainian counterpart to interfere in the 2020 election, former intelligence analysts Chelsea Manning and Reality Winner expressed confidence Thursday that the nation’s newfound appreciation for whistleblowers would get them out of jail. “Now that everyone really seems to like it when wrongdoing is exposed, I’m sure it’s just a matter of time before they clear my name and let me go,” Winner said by phone from a federal prison in Texas, echoing the sentiments of Manning, who told reporters she expected not only to be released from jail but also to be allowed to return immediately to active duty in the Army.
“Americans recognize that what this anonymous whistleblower did was both courageous and patriotic, so I’m sure to be commended for releasing a report on interference in the 2016 election, right? I was ahead of my time, really. I’m not saying there will be a parade in my honor, but I sure wouldn’t be surprised. I’ll be out of here in a day or two, and then, who knows? Maybe I’ll even run for public office.” At press time, sources confirmed a chipper Edward Snowden had informed officials in the Justice Department that he was finally ready to leave Moscow and fly back home.
The differences in fund-raising amounts are scary. The DNC is going to need Tulsi just for that.
• Wall Street To Dems: We’ll Sit Out, Or Back Trump, If Warren Nominated (CNBC)
Democratic donors on Wall Street and in big business are preparing to sit out the presidential campaign fundraising cycle — or even back President Donald Trump — if Sen. Elizabeth Warren wins the party’s nomination. In recent weeks, CNBC spoke to several high-dollar Democratic donors and fundraisers in the business community and found that this opinion was becoming widely shared as Warren, an outspoken critic of big banks and corporations, gains momentum against Joe Biden in the 2020 race. “You’re in a box because you’re a Democrat and you’re thinking, ‘I want to help the party, but she’s going to hurt me, so I’m going to help President Trump,’” said a senior private equity executive, who spoke on condition of anonymity in fear of retribution by party leaders.
The executive said this Wednesday, a day after Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that the House would begin a formal impeachment inquiry into Trump. During the campaign, Warren has put out multiple plans intended to curb the influence of Wall Street, including a wealth tax. In July, she released a proposal that would make private equity firms responsible for debts and pension obligations of companies they buy. Trump, meanwhile, has given wealthy business leaders a helping hand with a major corporate tax cut and by eliminating regulations. Warren has sworn off taking part in big money fundraisers for the 2020 presidential primary. She has also promised to not take donations from special interest groups.
She finished raising at least $19 million in the second quarter mainly through small-dollar donors. The third quarter ends Monday. Trump, has been raising hundreds of millions of dollars, putting any eventual 2020 rival in a bind as about 20 Democrats vie for their party’s nomination. Trump’s campaign and the Republican National Committee have raised over $100 million in the second quarter. A large portion of that haul came from wealthy donors who gave to their joint fundraising committee, Trump Victory. In August, the RNC raised just over $23 million and has $53 million on hand. The Democratic National Committee have struggled to keep up. The DNC finished August bringing in $7.9 million and has $7.2 million in debt.
No Greyerz yesterday, MS today. People do understand. But nobody acts.
• Fed Will Need To Grow Its Balance Sheet ‘Permanently’ – Morgan Stanley (CNBC)
The Federal Reserve’s asset purchases likely will total $315 billion over the next six months as it seeks to stabilize overnight funding markets and contain the movements of its target interest rate, according to projections from Morgan Stanley. Those permanent moves will be necessary because the current temporary purchases likely won’t be enough to stabilize the market for overnight purchase agreements, or repos, the bank said. The Fed just a month ago halted a process that saw a more than $600 billion reduction of the balance sheet, which consists mostly of Treasurys and mortgage-backed securities that it had acquired in its efforts to pull the U.S. economy out of the financial crisis.
“We maintain that these temporary repo operations will not prove to be a sufficient long-term solution to the recent funding pressure,” Morgan Stanley strategist Kelcie Gerson said in a note. “Ultimately, the Fed will need to increase the size of its balance sheet permanently.” The Morgan Stanley forecast is a bit smaller than one recently from Bank of America Merrill Lynch, which estimated balance sheet expansion at $400 billion this year. The balance sheet currently stands about $3.9 trillion, pushed by three rounds of asset purchases in a process known as quantitative easing. Starting in October 2017, the Fed started allowing some proceeds from its maturing bonds to roll off each month, with a corresponding decrease of bank reserves that has taken the total down to about $1.5 trillion, the lowest in more than eight years.
Another issue that nobody acts upon.
• US Annual Health Insurance Costs Hit Record High Above $20,000 (BBG)
The cost of family health coverage in the U.S. now tops $20,000, an annual survey of employers found, a record high that has pushed an increasing number of American workers into plans that cover less or cost more, or force them out of the insurance market entirely. “It’s as much as buying a basic economy car,” said Drew Altman, chief executive officer of the Kaiser Family Foundation, “but buying it every year.” The nonprofit health research group conducts the yearly survey of coverage that people get through work, the main source of insurance in the U.S. for people under age 65. While employers pay most of the costs of coverage, according to the survey, workers’ average contribution is now $6,000 for a family plan.
That’s just their share of upfront premiums, and doesn’t include co-payments, deductibles and other forms of cost-sharing once they need care. The seemingly inexorable rise of costs has led to deep frustration with U.S. health care, prompting questions about whether a system where coverage is tied to a job can survive. As premiums and deductibles have increased in the last two decades, the percentage of workers covered has slipped as employers dropped coverage and some workers chose not to enroll. Fewer Americans under 65 had employer coverage in 2017 than in 1999, according to a separate Kaiser Family Foundation analysis of federal data. That’s despite the fact that the U.S. economy employed 17 million more people in 2017 than in 1999.
Yeah, it’s the Guardian, and yeah, it may be a little less bad than they say, but the Tories’ lack of preparedness for what they themselves promote is nuts regardless.
• Quarter Of UK Rural Businesses ‘Could Be Bankrupted By No-Deal Brexit’ (G.)
As many as one in four rural businesses could be left facing bankruptcy in a no-deal Brexit, and the staunchly Conservative rural vote may be in doubt as a result, the head of the UK’s landowners’ group has warned on the eve of the Tory party conference. Farmers are particularly vulnerable to a no-deal Brexit because tariffs would be levied on exports, imports of cheap food could flood the market, and because decisions must be made now which will have an impact for the next year. Arable farmers are putting crops in the ground now for spring, and livestock farmers are preparing to breed sheep and other livestock for next year.
Tim Breitmeyer, president of the Country Land and Business Association, said farms and the rural businesses that rely on them were not in a position to absorb the shock of Brexit, and estimates suggested a large number would be in danger. “Agriculture is not making very much money. In many cases, they’re losing [money] without the single farm payment [subsidy]. If you have a tariff to add to your problems, if you have increased costs to add to your problems, it’s only going to make matters worse and tip some businesses over the top,” he told the Guardian. “Now I don’t know whether that’s 15% or 25% but I’m absolutely sure there will be quite a few farming businesses for which it actually just tips them into receivership.”
China was never going to let Iran fall. But now Trump’s sanctions policies drive it straight into Beijing hands: “Chinese firms will maintain the right of the first refusal to participate in any and all petrochemical projects in Iran, including the provision of technology, systems, process ingredients and personnel required to complete such projects.”
• China’s Giant $400 Billion Iran Investment Complicates US Options (F.)
Amidst historic U.S. – Iran tensions, Beijing is doubling-down on its strategic partnership with Tehran, ignoring U.S. efforts to isolate the Islamic Republic from global markets. Following an August visit by Iran Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif to Beijing, the two countries agreed to update a 25-year program signed in 2016, to include an unprecedented $400 billion of investment in the Iranian economy – sanctions be damned. The capital injection, which would focus on Iran’s oil and gas sector, would also be distributed across the country’s transportation and manufacturing infrastructure. In return, Chinese firms will maintain the right of the first refusal to participate in any and all petrochemical projects in Iran, including the provision of technology, systems, process ingredients and personnel required to complete such projects.
According to an exclusive interview with Petroleum Economist, a senior source in Iran’s petrochemical sector had this to say about the new agreement: “The central pillar of the new deal is that China will invest $280 billion developing Iran’s oil, gas and petrochemicals sectors… there will be another $120 billion investment in upgrading Iran’s transport and manufacturing infrastructure, which again can be front-loaded into the first five-year period and added to in each subsequent period should both parties agree.” This comes at a time when Washington is exerting its so-called ‘maximum pressure’ strategy against Iran, which aims to change its international behavior by bringing oil exports down to zero.
Makes me think of how Britain fought back vs Germany, and Viernam vs the US. Once your entire economy moves into self-defense mode, -almost- anything is possible.
• Yemen’s Houthis Are Bringing Down A Goliath (Escobar)
“It is clear to us that Iran bears responsibility for this attack. There is no other plausible explanation. We support ongoing investigations to establish further details.” The statement above was not written by Franz Kafka. In fact, it was written by a Kafka derivative: Brussels-based European bureaucracy. The Merkel-Macron-Johnson trio, representing Germany, France and the UK, seems to know what no “ongoing investigation” has unearthed: that Tehran was definitively responsible for the twin aerial strikes on Saudi oil installations. “There is no other plausible explanation” translates as the occultation of Yemen. Yemen only features as the pounding ground of a vicious Saudi war, de facto supported by Washington and London and conducted with US and UK weapons, which has generated a horrendous humanitarian crisis.
So Iran is the culprit, no evidence provided, end of story, even if the “investigation continues.” Hassan Ali Al-Emad, Yemeni scholar and the son of a prominent tribal leader with ascendance over ten clans, begs to differ. “From a military perspective, nobody ever took our forces in Yemen seriously. Perhaps they started understanding it when our missiles hit Aramco.” [..] “Past Yemeni governments had missiles, but after 9/11 Yemen was banned from buying weapons from Russia. But we still had 400 missiles in warehouses in South Yemen. We used 200 Scuds – the rest is still there [laughs].”
Al-Emad breaks down Houthi weaponry into three categories: the old missile stock; cannibalized missiles using different spare parts (“transformation made in Yemen”); and those with new technology that use reverse engineering. He stressed: “We accept help from everybody,” which suggests that not only Tehran and Hezbollah are pitching in. Al-Emad’s key demand is actually humanitarian: “We request that Sana’a airport be reopened for help to the Yemeni people.” And he has a message for global public opinion that the EU-3 are obviously not aware of: “Saudi is collapsing and America is embracing it in its fall.”
On the energy front, Persian Gulf energy traders that I have relied upon as trustworthy sources for two decades confirm that, contrary to Saudi Oil Minister Abdulazziz bin Salman’s spin, the damage from the Houthi attack on Abqaiq could last not only “months” but even years. As a Dubai-based trader put it: “When an Iraqi pipeline was damaged in the mid-2000s the pumps were destroyed. It takes two years to replace a pump as the backlogs are long. The Saudis, to secure their pipelines, acquired spare pumps for this reason. But they did not dream that Abqaiq could be damaged. If you build a refinery it can take three to five years if not more.
“The secret probe is the consequence of a criminal complaint filed by Assange himself, in which he accuses Morales and the company of the alleged offenses involving violations of his privacy and the secrecy of his client-attorney privileges, as well as misappropriation, bribery and money laundering.”
• Spanish Security Company Spied On Julian Assange In London For US (El Pais)
Undercover Global S. L., the Spanish defense and private security company that was charged with protecting the Ecuadorian embassy in London during the long stay there of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, spied on the cyberactivist for the US intelligence service. That’s according to statements and documents to which EL PAÍS have had access. David Morales, the owner of the company, supposedly handed over audio and video to the CIA of the meetings Assange held with his lawyers and collaborators. Morales is being investigated for this activity by Spain’s High Court, the Audiencia Nacional.
The judicial investigation into the director of UC Global S. L. and the activities of his company were ordered by a judge named José de la Mata, and they began weeks after EL PAÍS published videos, audios and reports that show how the company spied on the meetings that the cyberactivist held in the embassy. The secret probe is the consequence of a criminal complaint filed by Assange himself, in which he accuses Morales and the company of the alleged offenses involving violations of his privacy and the secrecy of his client-attorney privileges, as well as misappropriation, bribery and money laundering.
Morales, a former member of the military who is on leave of absence, stated both verbally and in writing to a number of his employees that, despite having been hired by the government of then-Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa, he also worked “for the Americans,” to whom he allegedly sent documents, videos and audios of the meetings that the Australian activist held in the embassy. “We are playing in another league. This is the first division,” he told his closest colleagues after attending a security fair in the US city of Las Vegas in 2015 where he supposedly made his first American contacts. Despite the fact that the Spanish firm – which is headquartered in the southern city of Jerez de la Frontera – was hired by Senain, the Ecuadorian intelligence services, Morales called on his employees several times to keep his relationship with the US intelligence services a secret.
The owner of UC Global S. L. ordered a meeting between the head of the Ecuadorian secret service, Rommy Vallejo, and Assange to be spied on, at a time when they were planning the exit of Assange from the Ecuadorian embassy using a diplomatic passport in order to take him to another country. This initiative was eventually rejected by Assange on the basis that he considered it to be “a defeat,” that would fuel conspiracy theories, according to sources close to the company consulted by this newspaper. The meeting took place on December 21, 2017 in the meeting room of the diplomatic building and was recorded both on video and audio by cameras installed by Morales’ employees.
This is absolutely nuts. You need 100,000 at the very least, or mayhem will ensue. And the US can easily absorb those numbers. There are a million people coming, minimum, each year.
• Trump Administration Proposes Historically Low Refugee Limit (AP)
The Trump administration wants to cap the number of refugees admitted into the United States to the lowest number since the resettlement program was created in 1980. A State Department proposal released Thursday would put a cap on the number of refugees at 18,000 for the fiscal year that starts Oct. 1. Of those refugee admissions spots, 5,000 would be set aside for persecuted religious minorities — an attempt to bolster President Donald Trump’s heightened focus on global religious freedom — and 1,500 would be set aside for nationals of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, who are seeking asylum in the United States in far greater numbers.
Last year, the administration placed the cap at a record low of 30,000. The historically low limits have drawn protests from human rights groups as well as government officials. “To cut the number of refugees the U.S. will accept to this low of a number reflects nothing more than this administration’s attempts to further hate, division and prejudice in a country that once valued dignity, equality and fairness,” said Ryan Mace, Grassroots Advocacy and Refugee Specialist at Amnesty International USA. The group dismissed arguments that the U.S. lacks the capacity to adequately vet and settle refugees, calling this “a purely political decision.”
Whistleblowers: WikiLeaks has never revealed a source.
Home › Forums › Debt Rattle September 27 2019