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Debt Rattle November 4 2020

Nov 042020
 
 November 4, 2020  Posted by at 10:18 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  15 Responses »


Pablo Picasso Etude Pour Mercure 1924

 

• The Democrats and the Presstitutes Will Not Admit a Trump Win (PCR)
• Trump: Presidency Has Been ‘Mean’ And Filled With ‘Horrible People’ (Pol.)
• How Violence Became A Forecastable Event In America (Turley)
• Field Evaluation Of A Rapid Antigen Test For The Diagnosis Of COVID19 (medrxiv)
• Radio Host Crushes Leading UK Epidemiologist’s Credibility (ZH)
• No Matter Who Wins (Nate Hagens)
• China Halts Ant Group’s Mega IPO (R.)
• Jack Ma: Traditional Banks Are Operating With A ‘Pawn Shop’ Mentality (TC)
• US Pushes Greece To Stop Acting As China’s ‘Dragon’s Head’ Into Europe (SCMP)
• Refugee from Moria Camp Signs Professional Football Contract in Greece (GR)

 

 

Been following election news bits for hours now, and still nothing is sure. Both sides claim a win, both sides accuse the other of cheating.

I’d say Trump won, but then I just get more people claiming I’m a Trump supporter. Got another mail from an “ex-reader” asking me why I changed so much. Never occurs to these people that maybe they’re the ones who changed, not me. Sure, I’m not anti-Trump, but why should I? Everytime such mails come in, and the frequency has increased, there’s also always generous donations coming in. Balance.

Trump is doing much better then most of the pollsters said, but we’ll have to wait. There certainly is no landslide for either side. Some states just stopped counting mid-way in, and some counters took the ballots home with them.

I’ll cover this is a series of tweets I picked up along the way. I know it looks crap in mailing lists, but I still haven’t figured out why the tweets stopped appearing in mails. Something to do with javascript, but they did use to appear.

 

 

Trump wins in all demographics except white men.

 

 

@joelpollak “And so we have the anticipated scenario: on Election Night, it looks like a Trump victory based on votes counted so far, but there are enough uncounted states that Biden can tell his supporters that he will win. Media, lawyers, tech companies, and protesters will try to help him.”

 

 

Greenwald Biden Landslide

McEnany Rustbelt

@PpollingNumbers

Tucker zero credibility

Biden

 

 

Paul Craig Roberts from October 29. The documentary The Plot Against the President is no longer available on YouTube.

• The Democrats and the Presstitutes Will Not Admit a Trump Win (PCR)

If Trump wins the election, unless it is an overwhelming victory that cannot be challenged, the Democrats and the American media will not admit that Trump won. The plan in place is to blame Trump’s win on fraud and to use the tactics of the “Maidan Revolution” in Ukraine, recently employed again in Belarus, to prevent Trump’s inauguration. The documentary, The Plot Against the President, explains the “Russiagate” plot by the FBI, the Democrats, and the media to remove President Trump from office. The venality and corruption of FBI Director Comey, the American media, and Democrats, such as Adam Schiff, is scary. That such an obvious plot against American democracy involving the country’s security agencies and one of the two ruling political parties could go on for three years without a single question by the media proves that the Establishment will not tolerate a non-establishment President or those who support him and that the media dares not cross the Establishment.

The fact that Comey is not in prison testifies to the power of the Deep State. Had it not been for US Rep. Devin Nunes of the House Intelligence Committee the coup would have succeeded. The coup attempt is not over. The documentary, which consists of the testimony of members of the House Intelligence Committee, National Security officials, and outside experts, shows that both Democrats, especially Adam Schiff, and the US media simply denied that Independent Prosecutor Mueller and the House Intelligence Committee failed to find any evidence of the Russiagate charges. Adam Schiff stood before the American media and lied time and time again. The media knew he was lying and never called him on his lies. Not even once. The undeniable fact that Russiagate was a three-year hoax, an orchestrated deception to foreclose the Trump agenda, has not been admitted by Democrats or the presstitutes.

In other words, nothing is true unless the media admits it. And they don’t admit the truth. The Elite use the presstitutes to control the explanations and to keep the population in a false reality. As our Founding Fathers said, without a free and independent media, there is no liberty. The United States does not have a free and independent media. It has a propaganda ministry for the ruling Elite. Be sure you comprehend the implications, because you are about to see it again. If Trump wins the election, the media and the Democrat Party are not going to acknowledge the fact that Trump won–unless Trump’s win is so overwhelming that it cannot be challenged.

Virginia vote count stops, counters take ballots home with them.
https://twitter.com/JusticeMAGA/status/1323856601858494464

Read more …

Well, he’s been fair game for 5 years.

• Trump: Presidency Has Been ‘Mean’ And Filled With ‘Horrible People’ (Pol.)

President Donald Trump on Tuesday offered a bitter assessment of his tenure in the White House, saying the experience has been “mean” and marked by “horrible people.” The comments came in an Election Day interview on “Fox & Friends,” after co-host Ainsley Earhardt asked Trump whether he has enjoyed being president and if the job has been “worth it.” “Well, it’s been mean. It’s been — you’ve dealt with horrible people,” Trump replied, adding: “You deal with people that are very deceptive.” Trump, who participated in five campaign rallies Monday, sounded noticeably hoarse throughout his phone interview Tuesday, and seemed relatively despondent compared with his previous appearances on his preferred cable morning news show.


Reflecting further on his time in office, Trump said that his friends “used to call me Donald, [but] now they call me president,” and he argued that the United States itself was more “difficult to deal with” than America’s international adversaries. “They’ll go, ‘Mr. President, tell me, who’s the country that’s most difficult to deal with? Is it Russia? Is it China? Is it North Korea? Sir, is it North Korea?’” Trump said. “And I go, ‘No. Well, by far, the most difficult country to deal with is the U.S. It’s not even close,’” he continued. “And they all say, ‘You’ve got to be kidding.’ And I say, ‘No, I’m actually probably not kidding.’ We have very, very deceptive people.”

Read more …

So far so good. But then, both sides still think they can win.

• How Violence Became A Forecastable Event In America (Turley)

Driving around Washington, D.C. a couple days ago was a shocking experience. Block after block of businesses are boarded up and anything throwable or movable has been removed from the streets. In the meantime, faculty, staff, and students at George Washington University (where I teach) have been told to stockpile medicine and food “as you normally would for a hurricane or a snowstorm.” The reason? We are about to have a democratic election. The expectation is that is, unless it is a landslide for Biden, there will be rioting and arson in Washington and other cities. A warm front moving in with “possible election related disruptions” is being reported like an electoral meteorological event.

When exactly did election rioting become as forecastable as inclement weather? The forecast for rioting with a chance of passing looting and arson is being repeated across the country as if it is now an inconvenient truth of the political version of global warming. The most likely disruption would come a close election or Trump lead. That risk is heightened after Democratic leaders like House Majority Whip James Clyburn, D-S.C. declared on Sunday that the only way Democrat Joe Biden could lose the election would be “for voter suppression to be successful.” Thus, if Trump is close or winning on election night, it can only be due to unlawful conduct. When President Trump made such statements about stealing the election, the media went into full alert over his laying the foundation for a coup.

Yet, the media seems entirely comfortable with Clyburn’s pre-election declaration that either Biden wins or the election is invalid. The fact is that the odds are against President Trump. However, the current polling shows a tightening of the race in critical states. The country remains sharply divided with even the best Biden polls still showing a solid 45 percent for Trump. Yet, Democratic members like Clyburn are already stating that either Biden wins or the election is stolen. No wonder officials are declaring a violent front moving into major cities with political doppler readings with developing protest vortexes and political depressions. Yet, rioting is not an act of God, but the criminal acts of those who only embrace democratic elections to the extent that they result in the “right” outcomes.

Read more …

“NEW terrific study on rapid tests The importance of this figure canNOT be overstated! Rapid tests caught 80% of PCR positives but all missed had very low viral loads. Thus, as expected it will successfully capture ppl most likely to be contagious.”

• Field Evaluation Of A Rapid Antigen Test For The Diagnosis Of COVID19 (medrxiv)

Previous studies evaluating SARS-CoV-2 rapid antigen test (RAD), tests either used retrieved specimens, which had been cryopreserved for a wide range of times, were conducted at central laboratories or both [3-7]. To our knowledge this is the first report on the performance of a RAD assay conducted at POC. As such, it may provide a realistic view of how implementation of RAD tests in clinical practice can contribute to the management and control of the COVID-19 pandemics. When compared to RT-PCR, the Panbio™ COVID-19 AG Rapid Test Device assay yielded an excellent specificity and a fairly good overall sensitivity (79.6%); the latter slightly improved when the time to testing was less than 5 days since the onset of symptoms (80.6%).

This figure is less impressive than that claimed by the manufacturer (93%); however it is close (86.5%) to that reported by Linares and colleagues [3] in a mixed cohort including patients attended at the Emergency Department or primary healthcare centers and centralized testing at the hospital laboratory. Sensitivity of SARS-CoV-2 RAD assays has been reported to vary between 45%-97% [3-7]; yet, direct comparison between studies is hampered by relevant dissimilarities regarding clinical characteristics and age of patients, site of testing, type of specimen processed, and time to testing, among others. Interestingly, the sensitivity was higher in adults (82.6%) than in pediatric patients (62.5%). Previous studies found no age-related differences in SARS-CoV-2 RNA load in the upper respiratory tract [8]. Although speculative, dating the accurate onset of symptoms could have been less reliable in children than in adults.

[..] In summary, we found the Panbio™ COVID-19 AG Rapid Test Device to perform well as a POC for early diagnosis of COVID-19 in primary healthcare centers. More importantly, our data suggested that patients with RT-PCR-proven COVID-19 testing negative by RAD are unlikely to be infectious. Further studies are warranted to confirm this assumption. The inconsequentiality of false negative RAD results, from a public health perspective [12], would support the implementation of a laboratory diagnostic approach which excluded confirmatory RT-PCR testing for negative RAD tests in non hospitalized patients, even when the pretest probability is high. This would certainly alleviate laboratory workloads while dealing with RT-PCR supply shortages.

Read more …

The costs and risks of having a lockdown vs NOT having a lockdown. Nobody’s done the math. They didn’t even try.

From John Day, TAE resident physician, a few days ago: “COVID-19 is here to stay [..] It has become endemic. It’s never going away. There is no way to make it go away. Immunity lasts something like 6 months, though some reinfections occur before that. A good vaccine will always be 6 months away. Then you will need another, different one in 6 more months, but the first one is still 6 months away. “

• Radio Host Crushes Leading UK Epidemiologist’s Credibility (ZH)

In the most thorough demolition of an ‘expert’ epidemiologist who unabashedly advised the UK government of the desperate need for a second lockdown to “suppress” the virus, Independent SAGE member Professor Gabriel Scally was completely unable to respond when LBC’s Maajid Nawaz cornered him on how severely a lockdown would cost the nation. As LBC’s Seán Hickey reports, Maajid asked whether the member of the Independent SAGE considers “the potential cost and deaths from having a lockdown and weigh them up.” Professor Scally insisted that “you can’t have a response to this virus that doesn’t take into account the economic factors, social factors and the psychological factors” and his department would definitely take these factors into consideration.

He reiterated the over-used mantra that the bottom line is that “we have to stop the virus – we have to stop it spreading,” and a second national lockdown is the best way to do so. However, when pushed on the cost, Scally told Maajid he hasn’t seen it, to which Maajid asked the epidemiologist after explaining that the sum is £2.4billion a day whether such funds could be spent elsewhere. “I would imagine as a public health expert you would have some idea,” Maajid noted. And that’s when Scally lost all ‘science’ credibility and barked back at Maajid: “Oh, don’t be silly, you are really now being stupid…” Which Maajid did not take kindly to the President of Epidemiology & Public Health at the Royal Society of Medicine’s response.

“Is the scientific evidence for why we need to go into lockdown being compared with the scientific evidence for what happens if we don’t and then the death that can come from lockdown versus the death that can come from not locking down compared and the costs compared so we can have a holistic approach to it. Have you done that work?” “I would have done that work if I was a member of cabinet,” Professor Scally said, when Maajid Nawaz turned the screw.

Read more …

Long from my old friend Nate.

• No Matter Who Wins (Nate Hagens)

Humans – during periods of growth – and contraction – self-organize around energy. Oil is central but our entire energy balance sheet is going to be a critical issue in the coming decade. Under a Biden win, various Green New Deal schemes will massively scale renewable energy. In many ways this is good news, because it will be good for GDP, it will create jobs, and grow our supply of low carbon energy. But there are many problems with this because it won’t be approached systemically. Briefly: 1) renewable energy isn’t renewable, it’s rebuildable, 2) only 20% of (current) energy mix is electricity which is the type of energy produced from most renewables 3) the higher % of RE in our mix the more important back up (NG and coal) become – and the US is facing an impending gas shortage as US drilling has plummeted. (the largest growth component of supply was the associated gas from tight oil production), 4) the full system cost of integrating RE into the grid is higher than consumers currently pay, weighing on the economy 5) all RE plans expect a LARGER economy in the future when (see above) most realistic scenarios using systemic inputs point to a smaller economy.

Still, renewables are our only hope – they are mature, robust and inexpensive vis-à-vis even a decade ago. The problem will be how to ‘add renewables to a smaller and more complex system’. No matter who wins the election, we will have to face a more complex and less certain energy future. One of the silver linings (if you will) of the pandemic is that now a great number of people personally are aware US GDP/ 330 million does not represent how well we are doing as individuals or as a nation. The constant media reminders that the SP500 and Dow Jones just made all-time highs is incongruous with most peoples real lived experience (and most of whom have zero money in the stock market).

Whether one understands or agrees with the risks of climate change, energy depletion or limits to growth, tens of millions of people are now hungry for living a decent life with access to basic needs, while doing something good. The coming decades – by definition but also by desire – are going to be more about well-being than they are about growing our consumption of stuff. No matter who wins the election, our nation needs to embark on a deep conversation about what our cultural goal is – we are going to need complementary metrics to the econometric measures quantifying how much energy we burned. What is all this energy for is a question that should be part of our national discourse.

Read more …

And people thought the US would do it.

• China Halts Ant Group’s Mega IPO (R.)

China suspended Ant Group’s $37 billion stock market listing on Tuesday, thwarting the world’s largest IPO with just days to go, in a dramatic move that left investors and bankers scrambling for answers.

Fraser Howie, independent commentator and author of several books about china’s financial system: “It is embarrassing for Ant Group, it also looks bad for sponsors and the exchange and regulators.The SSE (Shanghai Stock Exchange) says the suspension is based on changes of structure which breach the listing disclosure rules. How could this happen? No excuse at all for such failings around disclosure. Or perhaps this is really politics at play, the state is reining in the private sector in the most embarrassing of ways but that I think is somewhat foolish an approach. Ant Group should be regulated as a financial company but China has made a major push to open its markets and welcome foreigners and then this happens. The world’s largest IPO, China’s most famous tech group and this mess. Everyone looks foolish.”

Dave Wang, portfolio manager, Nuvest Capital, Singapore: “For now, markets will sell off Alibaba and likely Tencent as well as other relevant exposures like HSCEI Tech due to anticipation of Ant’s listing. Chinese banks may be a beneficiary and given they are underowned, we could see a rally. More details will come and if this is an isolated incident to Ant, then the new economy stocks that have done well so far should be fine, which is the base case now. If not, markets may start to price in uncertainty on tighter regulations on private enterprises and we could see a significant pull back on Chinese growth stocks.”

Francis Lun, CEO of Geo Securities : “The Communist Party has shown the tycoons who’s boss. Jack Ma might be the richest man in the world but that doesn’t mean a thing. This has gone from the deal of the century to the shock of the century. Jack Ma got ahead of himself by criticising the commercial banks and the regulatory regime.”

Read more …

Some background to the Ant Group IPO fail.

• Jack Ma: Traditional Banks Are Operating With A ‘Pawn Shop’ Mentality (TC)

Whenever Alibaba founder Jack Ma makes a speech, it often becomes a hot topic. This past week, the Chinese internet has been abuzz with a speech of his. This time though, he seems to have gotten more brickbats than praise. At the Bund Summit in Shanghai last weekend, while Ma self-deprecatingly said that he was an unofficial and non-professional member of the financial sector, he nonetheless criticised the financial supervision system in front of top financial leaders like Zhou Xiaochuan, former governor of the People’s Bank of China, and Yi Gang, current governor of the People’s Bank of China. His fiery speech quickly made the rounds on the internet and sparked debate in the financial circle.


In his speech, Ma referred to the Basel Accords – a set of internationally agreed banking supervision regulations – as a “club for the elderly” and stated that these regulations should not apply to China, which does not have a mature financial ecosystem yet. He also claimed that the world now “only focuses on risk control, not on development”. As a representative figure of innovation in China’s financial industry, Ma believes that innovation comes with a price. He said: “Risk-free innovations stifle innovation.” He also added this blunt criticism: “Your risk-free departments are putting the entire economy at the risk of non-development.” Ma further criticised traditional banks for operating with a “pawn shop” mentality, saying that they will be unable to support the financial needs of the future world.

Read more …

Still can’t read the name “Geoffrey Pyatt” without getting nauseous.

• US Pushes Greece To Stop Acting As China’s ‘Dragon’s Head’ Into Europe (SCMP)

As Europe was fighting a seemingly unmanageable Covid-19 outbreak in September, Greece’s Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis rolled out the red carpet for an inconspicuous foreign guest. Neither a state leader nor a health expert called in to fight the virus, Adam Boehler heads the US International Development Finance Corporation, created last year and hailed by Washington as an alternative to China’s Belt and Road Initiative, the multibillion-dollar Beijing plan to fund infrastructure projects and expand trade ties around the world. Fresh in his job, Boehler’s visit – quickly followed by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo – was a clear signal of Washington’s concern over China’s expanding interest and influence in Europe, especially Greece.

The country is home to one of the most iconic belt and road projects: the port of Piraeus, among Europe’s biggest and now controlled by China’s state-owned shipping giant Cosco. Greece may be on the fringe of the European Union geographically, but it has become a key focus in the intensifying scramble for global influence between the US and China, which has spilled over into Europe, Southeast Asia, Africa and Latin America. “China itself has identified [Greece] as the dragon’s head of the Belt and Road Initiative in Europe,” the US ambassador to Greece, Geoffrey Pyatt, told local newspaper I Kathimerini earlier this year. “We’re going to have a debate in terms of how we get the balance right in dealing with the challenge that China presents. China’s not going to go away.”

Boehler’s specific goal was to convince Mitsotakis that Greece’s second-largest but near-bankrupt shipyard in Elefsina – just 13km west of Piraeus – should accept investment from the US body, lest it “fall into the wrong hands”, according to a diplomatic source briefed on the matter, who declined to be identified. US companies are reportedly interested in buying controlling stakes in Alexandroupoli port, according to local media. Alexandroupoli is being privatised by the Greek state and, while much smaller than Piraeus, is strategically located near the border with Turkey. Washington has piled the pressure on Greece regarding the future of Piraeus, said to be the oldest port in Europe and just 12km (7 miles) from the capital Athens. That showed when Cosco found itself struggling to get approval from Greek authorities to build a fourth container terminal in the port.

The Chinese shipping giant has said it will invest 600 million euros (US$698 million) in the Piraeus port to make it the biggest commercial shipping hub in Europe. This would also allow it to boost its stake in the port to 67 per cent from the 51 per cent it bought in 2016 for 280.5 million euros under a deal with HRADF, Greece’s privatisation agency. Greek officials have reassured Beijing that the delay in expansion approval was caused by local opposition based on archaeological and environmental concerns, not global politics.

Read more …

Let’s end with some good news.

• Refugee from Moria Camp Signs Professional Football Contract in Greece (GR)

The Historic Greek football club Panionios announced on Tuesday that a refugee from the West African nation of Guinea signed a contract to play with the team in late October. Twenty-two-year-old Alia Camara came to Greece on a boat from Turkey when he was just 17 years of age. He traveled to Turkey from his home country after he was promised a contract with a football team there. Since it had been Camara’s dream to play football, naturally he eagerly accepted the deal — which turned out to be a scam which left the teenager penniless. Upon arriving in Greece, Camara was sent to Moria, Greece’s notoriously overcrowded refugee camp, the largest in Europe, which burned down after a series of fires in September.

While in the camp, located on the Greek island of Lesvos, Camara explained his situation to everyone he could — including his love for football, the scam he fell victim to in Turkey, and his desire to play the sport in Greece. With the help of a Greek couple, whom he calls his parents, who heard his story, Camara was able to submit his papers to legally reside in Greece, and was put in contact with Panionios, the historic Greek football club. Panionios, the oldest such club in Greece, was founded in 1890 in Smyrna, in what is now Turkey. After the destruction of the city in 1922, the surviving Greek residents of the city, including the entire club, were forced to relocate to Greece as refugees.

Panionios, along with many refugees from Smyrna, found a new home in the Athenian suburb of Nea Smyrni (New Smyrna). The connection between Camara’s refugee status and the club’s history moved the owners of Panionios, who offered the talented young player a contract to play for the team.

Read more …

 

 

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Greenwald Corbyn

Panda dogs

Fish crossing road

 

 

 

 

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Debt Rattle March 31 2019

Mar 312019
 
 March 31, 2019  Posted by at 9:41 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , ,  14 Responses »


Banksy Devolved Parliament 2009

 

• Boris Johnson and Michael Gove Under Fire On Vote Leave’s Law-Breaking (G.)
• EU Will Delay Brexit To Allow Another Referendum (Ind.)
• May Risks ‘Total Collapse’ Of Government In Brexit Impasse – Sunday Times (R.)
• Furious Tory MPs Tell May: We’ll Block Snap Brexit Election (G.)
• Corbyn Accuses Government Of ‘Bullying’ MPs (G.)
• The Insanity of Global Trade (Roar)
• Chelsea Manning’s Lawyers File An Appeal Against Her Detention (Canary)
• Who Is Paying For Monsanto’s Crimes? We Are (G.)
• $80 Million Roundup Verdict Is Only $2.5M After Taxes, New IRS Math (F.)
• EU Bans UK’s Most-Used Pesticide Over Health And Environment Fears (G.)
• How The Lion Lost Its Strength (G.)
• Chicxulub: Stunning Fossils Record Dinosaurs’ Demise (BBC)

 

 

For anyone who wanted to stop Brexit, this seemed the way out: show illegal activity. Plenty appears to be there, but it’s been swept under the carpet. Why hasn’t it been investigated much more?

• Boris Johnson and Michael Gove Under Fire On Vote Leave’s Law-Breaking (G.)

Conservative leadership candidates Boris Johnson and Michael Gove are facing growing calls to account for illegal behaviour by the official Vote Leave Brexit campaign. The group has dropped its appeal against the Electoral Commission’s ruling that it broke the law by channelling hundreds of thousands of pounds of donations to an ostensibly independent campaign group, BeLeave. When the Observer revealed evidence a year ago that Vote Leave had broken spending rules, Johnson attacked the report on Twitter as “utterly ludicrous” and said it had “won … legally”. A Johnson adviser said on Saturday that the former foreign secretary would not comment on the end of the appeal.

There has been no government response to the appeal being dropped and little media coverage. And while national broadcasters and newspapers gave prime coverage to Vote Leave chief executive Matthew Elliot when he launched an aggressive media campaign against the watchdog’s initial findings, few covered the decision to to end the appeals process in any depth. After the announcement, whistleblower Shahmir Sanni, who was outed by a member of Theresa May’s team, lost his job and was vilified as a fantasist after his revelations about Vote Leave’s spending, said: “The [end of the appeal] feels extremely vindicating, but the way the media has responded to it has been extremely disappointing. The only excuse they had is that they were appealing. Now we know they broke the law, they need to be held to account.”


Liberal Democrat MP Layla Moran said the confirmation that Vote Leave had broken the law underlined the need for a second referendum. “It is now incumbent on the government to act. We have heard minister after minister say the referendum is valid. This is proof it was not,” she said. “Going ahead with Brexit in these circumstances would be the biggest betrayal of our democracy of all.”

Read more …

Britain can only do what the EU will allow.

• EU Will Delay Brexit To Allow Another Referendum (Ind.)

EU leaders are prepared to let Britain delay Brexit again to allow time for a second referendum, The Independent understands. After parliament rejected Theresa May’s deal for a third time, the bloc called a summit on 10 April – two days before the UK is on course to leave without a deal. And senior Brussels officials familiar with leaders’ thinking say that barring a credible plan to get a majority for the withdrawal agreement, the UK would be given more time only if it was for another clear option such as a general election or a referendum. The EU has already warned that a further extension, which could run until at least the end of the year, would also require the UK to take part in European parliament elections scheduled for the end of May.


As reported by The Independent, the prime minister is considering a general election as a way out of the Brexit chaos in Westminster, where MPs have rejected all options – including a no-deal Brexit. Senior officials in Brussels have made clear that an extension would also be justified if it was to make time for a referendum. Indicative votes in the Commons this week showed relatively strong support for a confirmatory referendum among MPs, with numbers such that only around a dozen more would need to be convinced to back one to pass it. One senior EU official said there were “three possible justifications” for a long extension emerging in member states’ thinking following their summit last week.

Read more …

Obviously. But a lot more could collapse.

• May Risks ‘Total Collapse’ Of Government In Brexit Impasse – Sunday Times (R.)

British Prime Minister Theresa May risks the “total collapse” of her government if she fails to get her battered Brexit deal through parliament, the Sunday Times newspaper said, amid growing speculation that she might call an early election. Underscoring the tough choices facing May to break the Brexit impasse, the newspaper said at least six pro-European Union senior ministers will resign if she opts for a potentially damaging no-deal departure from the EU. But at the same time, rival ministers who support Brexit were threatening to quit if May decides to stay close to the EU with a customs union or if she sought a long delay to Brexit, the Sunday Times said.

May’s Brexit strategy is in tatters after the exit deal she hammered out with other EU leaders was rejected for a third time by the House of Commons on Friday, the day that Britain was supposed to leave the bloc. [..] The Mail on Sunday newspaper said May’s advisors were divided over whether she should call an early election if she fails to win support for her Brexit deal from parliament in the coming week. The newspaper said a possible “run-off” vote could take place on Tuesday in parliament between May’s deal and whatever alternative emerges as the most popular from voting by lawmakers on Monday. That meant an election could be called as early as Wednesday, the newspaper said …


The Sunday Telegraph said senior members of the Conservative Party did not want May to lead them into a snap election, fearing the party would be “annihilated” at the polls if she faced down parliament over Brexit in the coming months. An opinion poll in the Mail on Sunday gave the opposition Labour Party a lead of five percentage points over the Conservatives. That lead fell to three points if voters were offered the chance to vote for a new group of independent lawmakers who have not yet created an official party.

Read more …

“The threat of an election immediately angered both pro-Brexit and pro-Remain MPs. May would need a two-thirds majority in the Commons to secure one..”

• Furious Tory MPs Tell May: We’ll Block Snap Brexit Election (G.)

Conservative MPs from across the party are threatening to vote down any attempt by Theresa May to lead them into a snap election, warning it would split the Tories and exacerbate the Brexit crisis. In a sign of the collapse in authority suffered by the prime minister, cabinet ministers are among those warning that there will be a serious campaign by Conservative MPs to vote against an election headed by May, a move she hinted at last week to break the Brexit deadlock. The threat of an election immediately angered both pro-Brexit and pro-Remain MPs. May would need a two-thirds majority in the Commons to secure one, meaning a serious rebellion by Tories could block it. May would then be forced to secure an election by backing a no-confidence vote in her own government, which only requires a simple majority of MPs.


Foreign Office minister Alan Duncan said: “If we have a general election before Brexit is resolved, it will only make things worse.” Antoinette Sandbach, a Tory MP who backs another referendum being held on any deal agreed by parliament, said she would vote against calling an election. “The answer is not a general election, and I would vote against that. We need to find a way forward in parliament and then put that to the people in a confirmatory referendum.” Mark Francois, a member of the European Research Group of pro-Brexit MPs, said there was “not a chance” that Conservative MPs would back an election under May. “‘Of course they wouldn’t – not after last time. And remember, she needs a super majority to do it.”

Read more …

Then call for a national government, you twit.

• Corbyn Accuses Government Of ‘Bullying’ MPs (G.)

The Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, has accused the government of running down the clock and “bullying and threatening” MPs as it tried to force through Theresa May’s Brexit deal. Speaking in Newport, south Wales, before a byelection on Thursday, Corbyn also refused to say what his party’s parliamentary tactics would be during a second round of indicative votes due to take place on Monday. He said that the option of giving the public a confirmatory referendum on any Brexit deal “is the Labour position so far, but there hasn’t been enough support for that across the floor in the House of Commons”. During this week’s indicative votes, the option for a public vote was whipped by Labour but was defeated by 295 to 268 votes, with 27 of the party’s MPs rebelling.


Corbyn said: “The absolute priority at the moment is to end this chaos the government has brought us to by their endlessly running down the clock and basically bullying and threatening people. The bullying hasn’t worked, the threats haven’t worked. It’s time now for the sensible people to take over.” He cautioned: “This is a very dangerous period, because if we crash out without a deal then the supply chains get interrupted, jobs are at stake, and also the sense of security of many EU nationals living in Britain, and of course British people living across Europe.” [..] “However people voted in the referendum, no one voted to lose their jobs, no one voted to be worse off, and no one voted to deregulate our society.”

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Maximizing waste production is our economic model. Lovely video.

• The Insanity of Global Trade (Roar)

The way trade works in the global economy is often absurd. Food routinely gets shipped halfway across the world to be processed, then shipped back to be sold right where it started. Mexican calves — fed imported American corn — are exported to the United States to be butchered, and then the meat is exported back to Mexico for sale. More than half of the seafood caught in Alaska gets processed in China, and much of it is sent right back to American grocery store shelves. Compounding the insanity of this “re-importation” is the equally head-scratching phenomenon of “redundant trade”. This is a common practice whereby countries both import and export identical quantities of identical products in a given year.

For instance, in 2007, Britain imported 15,000 tons of chocolate-covered waffles, while exporting 14,000 tons. In 2017, the US both imported and exported nearly 1.5 million tons of beef and nearly half a million tons of potatoes. On the face of it, this kind of trade makes no economic sense. Why would it be worth the immense cost — in money as well as fuel — of sending perfectly good food abroad only to bring it right back again? The answer lies in the way the global economy is structured. Direct and indirect subsidies for fossil fuels, on the order of $5 trillion per year worldwide, allow the costs of shipping to be largely borne by taxpayers and the environment instead of the businesses that actually engage in it. This allows transnational corporations to take advantage of differences in labor and environmental laws between countries, not to mention tax loopholes, in service of making a bigger profit.


The consequences of this bad behavior are already severe, and set to become worse in the coming decades. Small farmers, particularly in the Global South, have seen their livelihoods undermined by influxes of cheap food from abroad. Trade agreements have made it impossible for companies to compete in the global economy unless they base their operations in places with the weakest protections for workers and the environment. And all the while, the share of global carbon emissions produced by commercial shipping is set to rise to 17 percent by 2050, if action isn’t taken to curb our addiction to trade.

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So far, the law has not been on Chelsea’s side. Or actually, it has. It just doesn’t count for much anymore.

• Chelsea Manning’s Lawyers File An Appeal Against Her Detention (Canary)

Chelsea’s Manning’s legal team have filed an appeal on her behalf. They’ve asked that the fourth circuit court order her release from detention. On 8 March, Manning refused to testify in front of a grand jury about Julian Assange and WikiLeaks. Judge Claude Hilton found that Manning was in contempt of court and ordered her jailed. Manning will walk free when she either chooses to testify or the grand jury finishes its work. As a result, Manning could be held in jail for a further 18 months. Her support group Chelsea Resists! published a statement about the appeal. It said that her legal team are basing the appeal on three issues. Firstly, it said: “Judge Hilton denied Chelsea’s motion asking the government to disclose the existence of any unlawful surveillance without actually considering the evidence.”

This is important, it argued, because “evidence derived from unlawful surveillance may not be used in a grand jury”. Secondly, it claimed judge Hilton did not get assurances that the government’s subpoenaing of Manning was “properly motivated”. Chelsea Resists! said: “Prosecutors may not use the grand jury for the primary purpose of preparing for trial of an already-secured indictment. Chelsea raised concerns that the government did not need her testimony to further their investigation, and that rather they intended to use the subpoena to preview and perhaps undermine any testimony she might give at trial for an already-pending indictment.” It said this is “an abuse of process” which would void the initial subpoena. It argued that the judge “did not consider the facts or the law on this motion”.


For now, the US government is still holding Manning in detention. As The Canary previously reported, her support group has also accused the government of torturing her. According to Chelsea Resists!, prison authorities confine Manning to her cell for 22 hours a day. It says that “this treatment qualifies as Solitary Confinement” which “amounts to torture” when maintained for over 15 days. In its latest statement, it also said that this confinement: “..is especially egregious given that Chelsea has not been charged with or convicted of a crime.” The US government previously held Manning in solitary confinement from May 2010 to April 2011.

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“..US district judge Vince Chhabria [..] said there were “large swaths of evidence” showing that the company’s herbicides could cause cancer. He also said there was “a great deal of evidence that Monsanto has not taken a responsible, objective approach to the safety of its product..”

• Who Is Paying For Monsanto’s Crimes? We Are (G.)

The chickens are coming home to roost, as they say in farm country. For the second time in less than eight months a US jury has found that decades of scientific evidence demonstrates a clear cancer connection to Monsanto’s line of top-selling Roundup herbicides, which are used widely by consumers and farmers. Twice now jurors have additionally determined that the company’s own internal records show Monsanto has intentionally manipulated the public record to hide the cancer risks. Both juries found punitive damages were warranted because the company’s cover-up of cancer risks was so egregious.


The juries saw evidence that Monsanto has ghost-written scientific papers, tried to silence scientists, scuttled independent government testing, and cozied up to regulators for favorable safety reviews of glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup. Even the US district judge Vince Chhabria, who oversaw the San Francisco trial that concluded Wednesday with an $80.2m damage award, had harsh words for Monsanto. Chhabria said there were “large swaths of evidence” showing that the company’s herbicides could cause cancer. He also said there was “a great deal of evidence that Monsanto has not taken a responsible, objective approach to the safety of its product… and does not particularly care whether its product is in fact giving people cancer, focusing instead on manipulating public opinion and undermining anyone who raises genuine and legitimate concerns about the issue.”

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Oh dear…

• $80 Million Roundup Verdict Is Only $2.5M After Taxes, New IRS Math (F.)

Another Roundup verdict is in. This time, jurors found that Monsanto failed to warn users its product was dangerous and awarded Edwin Hardeman $200,000 for economic losses, $5 million for past and future pain and suffering, and $75 million in punitive damages. Last year, jurors gave $289 million to a man they say got cancer from Monsanto’s Roundup. That verdict was later reduced, and is on appeal. But the latest case is federal, and suggests that others could be headed for big numbers. The jury had already concluded that the weedkiller was a substantial factor in causing Mr. Hardeman’s non-Hodgkins lymphoma. Monsanto faces over 10,000 claims, and can be expected to continue fighting hard. But even if Monsanto pays up, new tax rules could swallow up many of the verdicts plaintiffs might be hoping to collect. Wait until you see the new tax math.

Under President Trump’s tax bill passed in late 2017, there is a new tax on litigation settlements: no deduction for legal fees. Amazingly, many legal fees can no longer be deducted. That means many plaintiffs must pay taxes even on monies their attorneys collect. Of course, the attorneys must also pay tax on the same money. Here’s the new math. Hardeman was awarded a bit over $5 million in compensatory damages, and $75M in punitive damages. The combined contingent fees and costs Mr. Hardeman pays his attorneys might total as much as 50%. If so, the plaintiff would get to keep half, or $2.5 million of the $5 million compensatory award. Since it is for his claimed non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, that part for physical injuries should not be taxed.


Then, of the $75 million punitive award, $37.5 million goes to legal fees and costs, and $37.5 million to Hardeman. So before taxes, the plaintiff’s take home is $40 million. What about after taxes? The $75 million in punitive damages are fully taxable, with no deduction for the fees to his lawyer. Between federal taxes of 37% and California taxes of up to 13.3%, Hardeman could lose about 50% to the IRS and California Franchise Tax Board. That makes his after-tax (and after legal fee) haul from an $80 million verdict only $2.5 million.

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Everything dies baby that’s a fact. We live in a death culture.

• EU Bans UK’s Most-Used Pesticide Over Health And Environment Fears (G.)

One of the world’s most common pesticides will soon be banned by the European Union after safety officials reported human health and environmental concerns. Chlorothalonil, a fungicide that prevents mildew and mould on crops, is the most used pesticide in the UK, applied to millions of hectares of fields, and is the most popular fungicide in the US. Farmers called the ban “overly precautionary”. But EU states voted for a ban after a review by the European Food Safety Authority (Efsa) was unable to exclude the possibility that breakdown products of the chemical cause damage to DNA. Efsa also said “a high risk to amphibians and fish was identified for all representative uses”.

Recent research further identified chlorothalonil and other fungicides as the strongest factor linked to steep declines in bumblebees. Regulators around the world have falsely assumed it is safe to use pesticides at industrial scales across landscapes, according to a chief scientific adviser to the UK government. Other research in 2017 showed farmers could slash their pesticide use without losses, while a UN report denounced the “myth” that pesticides are necessary to feed the world.


A European commission spokeswoman said: “The [chlorothalonil ban] is based on Efsa’s scientific assessment which concluded that the approval criteria do not seem to be satisfied for a wide range of reasons. Great concerns are raised in relation to contamination of groundwater by metabolites of the substance.” Chlorothalonil has been used across the world since 1964 on barley and wheat, as well as potatoes, peas and beans. The ban will be passed formally in late April or early May and then enter into force three weeks later, the commission spokeswoman said.

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Inbreeding.

• How The Lion Lost Its Strength (G.)

For more than a century, explorers and settlers have warned about the likely impact of the hunting of lions and other wild animals in Africa. One of the most prescient, Frederick Selous, the inspiration for the character Allan Quatermain in the novels of H Rider Haggard, wrote in 1908 that “since my first arrival in 1871, I had seen game of all kinds gradually decrease and dwindle in numbers to such an extent that I thought that nowhere south of the Great Lakes could there be a corner of Africa left where the wild animals had not been very much thinned out”.

Now researchers have uncovered the impact of that predation on the lion. Lion numbers and range have plunged – but it appears their genetic fitness has also declined. An alarming new study has revealed that lions shot by colonial hunters more than 100 years ago were more genetically diverse than the ones that now populate Africa. The discovery is worrying because it indicates that the species’ fight to survive may be even more difficult than had been previously thought. “Loss of genetic diversity means that lions are now less able to withstand new diseases or environmental problems, such as heatwaves or droughts,” said lead author Simon Dures, of the Zoological Society of London. “It means that we will have to be even more careful about how we try to protect them.”


In the late 19th century there were about 200,000 members of Panthera leo roaming the savannahs of Africa. Then European colonialists arrived and began shooting lions – the most social of all cats – in their thousands, first as sport and later to protect the cattle that the newcomers had begun to farm. With fewer than 20,000 of these majestic predators left on the continent, the species has now been designated as “vulnerable”.


Lions have lost some of their ability to cope with diseases, environmental changes or other threats. Photograph: Heinrich van den Berg/Getty Images

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Always fascinating.

• Chicxulub: Stunning Fossils Record Dinosaurs’ Demise (BBC)

Scientists have found an extraordinary snapshot of the fallout from the asteroid impact that wiped out the dinosaurs 66 million years ago. Excavations in North Dakota reveal fossils of fish and trees that were sprayed with rocky, glassy fragments that fell from the sky. The deposits show evidence also of having been swamped with water – the consequence of the colossal sea surge that was generated by the impact. Robert DePalma, from the University of Kansas, and colleagues say the dig site, at a place called Tanis, gives an amazing glimpse into events that probably occurred perhaps only tens of minutes to a couple of hours after the giant asteroid hit the Earth.


Fossilised fish piled one atop another as they were flung ashore by the seiche

When this 12km-wide object slammed into what is now the Gulf of Mexico, it would have hurled billions of tonnes of molten and vaporised rock into the sky in all directions – and across thousands of kilometres. And at Tanis, the fossils record the moment this bead-sized material fell back down and strafed everything in its path. Fish are found with the impact-induced debris embedded in their gills. They would have breathed in the fragments that filled the water around them. There are also particles caught in amber, which is the preserved remnant of tree resin. It is even possible to discern the wake left by these tiny, glassy tektites, to use the technical term, as they entered the resin.


Dating the tektites gives an age for the impact – 65.76 million years ago

Geochemists have managed to link the fallout material directly to the so-called Chicxulub impact site in the Gulf. They have also dated the debris to 65.76 million years ago, which is in very good agreement with the timing for the event worked out from evidence at other sites around the world. From the way the Tanis deposits are arranged, the scientists can see that the area was hit by a massive surge of water. Although the impact is understood to have generated a huge tsunami, it would have taken many hours for this wave to travel the 3,000km from the Gulf to North Dakota, despite the likely presence back then of a seaway cutting directly across the American landmass.


The outer rim (white arc) of the crater lies partly under Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula

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