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Debt Rattle February 13 2026

Feb 132026
 
 February 13, 2026  Posted by at 10:18 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , ,  12 Responses »


Paul Cézanne Forest 1902-04


• When Did It Become OK for Half the Country to Disregard Federal Law? (Thorne)
• There Is No Future For White People (Paul Craig Roberts)
• CNN Thinks Black Voters Are ‘Too Dumb’, Scott Jennings Torches Them (Margolis)
• Homan Announces End Of Illegal Immigration Crackdown In Minnesota (JTN)
• A Good Way To Destroy Your Country: Rogan Blasts Dems’ Open Border Insanity (MN)
• Are The Ukrainian Peace Talks A Hoax? (Paul Craig Roberts)
• What the Heck Happened in El Paso? (Sarah Anderson)
• NYC Mayor Urges State Lawmakers to Pass Tax Hikes on Wealthy, Corporations (ET)
• US Negotiating Updated New START Treaty With Russia – Vance (RT)
• US Attorney In New York Appointed By Judges Quickly Fired By White House (JTN)
• What’s Behind Von Der Leyen’s Two-Tier EU Plan? (RT)
• The Collapse of American Education (Paul Craig Roberts)
• ‘Snow White’ Lost [GULP] How Much Money? (Stephen Green)

 


 

 


 


I often wonder that too.

• When Did It Become OK for Half the Country to Disregard Federal Law? (Thorne)

When did it become commonplace — celebrated, even — for half the country to simply disregard federal law? When did half the country conclude that it could just go ahead and subvert the will of the people, as expressed through the laws duly passed by their elected representatives, to its own preferences — even when these are in direct contradiction to federal statute? By “half the country,” I mean Democrats, of course. But seriously — how is this even a thing? It’s been going on for a long time, and it’s not just immigration law that these insurgents actively countermand. How many states have “legalized” recreational marijuana? Why do these people imagine they can “legalize” something that is a federal crime? (And no, I am not here to argue whether weed should be legal. If you don’t like the law, change it. You don’t get to ignore it in the meantime.)


Whatever happened to “No one is above the law?” Perhaps elitist leftists imagine that the lowly “brown” human beings they traffic and patronize are beneath the law. Or that foreign nationals present in the country illegally can simply override federal immigration law because they have already done so for such a long time. What other laws do officials, judges, and AGs routinely allow to be broken simply because the perpetrator has successfully done so for years? If I break into the museum and steal a Rembrandt, then I hang it on my living room wall and enjoy it for a certain number of years, does it then become mine to keep? What manner of incoherent lunacy is this?

Democrat activists don’t just ignore the law: They actively countermand it. On the municipal level, they create so-called sanctuaries, dedicated to impeding federal law enforcement wherever they can while aiding and abetting lawbreakers. On the state level, they afford benefits, licensure, voting rights, and more to illegal aliens who have no claim on such things. And on the national level, they invent things like DACA and the CBP1 app, using taxpayer money to facilitate the mass influx of illegal immigrants and “amnesty” scammers who have no business entering the country. But wherever the left has control, it subverts laws it dislikes.

The Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution is pretty clear on the matter: “This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.”

So what does the law say about immigration? Check out the list of reasons why immigrant wannabes must be refused entry into the country that is found in the Immigration and Nationality Act at 8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(4) (Section 212(a)(4)). They cannot be admitted if they are likely to become a public charge, have a history of mental illness, are unable to document vaccinations, have previous criminal convictions, and much more. But Democrats just wave them through. WT actual F? Thus, while I know it is vitally important that the SAVE Act passes, I also don’t imagine it will fix the problem of widespread Democrat election cheating right away. Democrat officials won’t submit to that law any more than they do the other federal laws they don’t like.

The tactic for getting away with this seems to be based on the fact that the insurgency is so widespread, so entwined into the culture, that half of Americans feel they are justified when they break or abet others who break federal law. With this lawlessness infecting so many, it becomes nigh unto impossible to rein it in. You certainly can’t arrest, try, convict, and penalize some 100 million people. You can’t even find a judge or a jury that reliably comes down on the side of the law. Resistance. Insurrection. Sedition. Insurgency. Rebellion. Treason. Mutiny. Insubordination. This behavior has many names, but it all comes down to the same problem: placing one’s own will above the will of the people who pass the laws, thereby breaking down the societal compact.

I hold out faith that the Trump administration is doing its part to break the cycle. It is not only enforcing immigration laws, but it is also hunting down the funding and organization behind the insurgency, hopefully resulting in arrests and decapitation of the movement. It is not only urging the passage of election integrity laws, but it is actively investigating past fraud and abuse, ideally in order to arrest and prosecute the ringleaders. Culturally, though, we have a long way to go to re-instill the concepts of civic duty, lawfulness, fairness, and shame in half the country.

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“As I have previously predicted, by 2050, 24 years from now, the only white people who will exist will be in zoos displayed as the oppressors of “sun people.”

• There Is No Future For White People (Paul Craig Roberts)

For decades, the white European ethnicities that comprise Western civilization have been under deadly attack. But the attack does not come from external enemies. It comes from internal enemies–the white gentile and Jewish educators who control the universities and historical narratives. mThe Western universities have defined Western civilization as racist, misogynist, antisemitic, and exploitative of people of color. The New York Times sponsors the 1619 Project that asserts that the United States was founded on racism. A sense of guilt has been implanted in the educated portion of the population living in Western civilization, and the guilt leaves them incapable of racial defense. A society whose enemies control its education and information has no chance of survival.


It was in the 1960s, six or more decades ago, that left-wing students mentored by their professors marched on university campuses demanding “Western civ has to go.” By 2026 several generations have been inculcated with a negative view of the civilization in which they live. This leaves them as putty in the hands of the leftwing and the Zionists who have begun the erasure of the very concept of white ethnicity. A few years ago, A Scandinavian intellectual and documentary filmmaker gave us the story that the original Swedes were black people. We next heard that the first woman in Britain was black. And then we heard that William Shakespeare was a black Jewish feminist from Venice. This unfounded allegation has the silver lining of allowing Shakespeare to again be read and even taught.

But the elimination of white people from history proceeds rapidly. Shakespeare, the master of the British language, is not even British but a Venetian. In its update of its curriculum, Cambridge University has concluded that there is no such thing as an Anglo-Saxon. Nor are there English, Scottish or Irish. Cambridge University indoctrinates its students that white ethnicities are merely constructs. The department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic studies at the University of Cambridge teaches that ethnic nationalism is a myth. There never was a British, English, Scottish, Welsh, or Irish people with a coherent ethnic identity. White ethnicities are mere constructs. They are nothing real. Thus is identity, stripped from white ethnicities.

Tell me, please, University of Cambridge, if Beowulf is not an Anglo-Saxon piece of literature, what is it?Little doubt, the answer from Cambridge will be that Beowulf was a racist, anti-semite, misogynist, oppressor who killed the innocent Grendel because he/she was a person of color and a transgendered something, but certainly not the monster in the non-ethnic poem written by a black Jewish transgendered poet. In the new world being created, only Jews will have an ethnic reality. All gentile white ethnicities are constructs.

A French politician has said that the replacement of the French in France is nothing unusual. The French replaced the Romans just as the Romans replaced the Gauls. It is just normal for Arabs and Africans to replace the French.nIn Spain Spanish people led by a young Spanish woman welcome and encourage the replacement of the Spanish ethnicity by darker skinned boat people from Africa. She says that Spanish people are all horrible and need to be replaced. All over Western Europe, Western governments welcome the replacement of white ethnic nationalities by black immigrant-invaders. Yet the Western European governments want to go to war with Russia. Why? To preserve Europe for black immigrant-invaders?

Yes. The white Western elites are fighting for the conquest of Western civilization by black immigrant-invaders. In Scandinavia black immigrant-invaders largely escape charges for raping white women because mixed-race births help to replace white people. Rape of white women by black men is permitted as a white replacement tool. The way things are shaping up in Scandinavia it is permissible for an ethnic Swedish woman, which Cambridge University says does not exist, to abort a white baby, but it will be a hate crime for a white ethnic Swedish female to abort a baby of color. As I have previously predicted, by 2050, 24 years from now, the only white people who will exist will be in zoos displayed as the oppressors of “sun people.”

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“These ideas are popular with everyone but Democrats in Congress and the Democrats’ consultant class.”

• CNN Thinks Black Voters Are ‘Too Dumb’, Scott Jennings Torches Them (Margolis)

Scott Jennings wasn’t about to let Democratic operative Alencia Johnson get away with wild accusations about voter ID requirements, and the resulting exchange on CNN was a master class in dismantling talking points with simple, direct questions. Johnson kicked things off by claiming President Trump was “championing a bill that actually would take voting rights away from a lot of black people in this country.” But her argument immediately started to crumble when Jennings asked the most obvious question: “What voting rights is he taking away from black voters?” “The SAVE Act,” Johnson, a former advisor to Kamala Harris’s 2024 presidential campaign, insisted. “That is actually going to continue to disenfranchise overwhelmingly a lot of people of color.”


“How?” Jennings asked, justifiably perplexed. This is when Johnson tried to deflect, distancing herself from her own position. She claimed “There are so many civil rights organizations that have run the data” and invoked Chuck Schumer’s “Jim Crow 2.0” rhetoric. But Jennings wouldn’t let her off the hook. “How? You haven’t said how yet,” he pointed out. “I am talking about it. It’s the way that you’re putting new poll taxes on us.” Poll taxes? The SAVE Act does two things: It requires proof of citizenship when registering to vote and a photo ID to vote. That’s it. These ideas are popular with everyone but Democrats in Congress and the Democrats’ consultant class.

After multiple attempts to dodge, Johnson finally offered an answer: “It’s the way that we’re putting new poll taxes on this when you’re making people have to prove that they are citizens, that they have to prove with a voter ID.” Jennings couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Poll taxes?” he repeated incredulously. Johnson doubled down, calling it “kind of an idiom” and arguing that requiring people to prove citizenship makes it “harder for people to vote in this country.” That’s when Jennings lowered the boom.

He noted that 76% of black voters support requiring an ID to vote, along with 80% of Hispanic voters and 83% of Americans overall. “Are you saying that black voters are too dumb to know what’s good for them?” Jennings asked. “I mean, it sounds pretty condescending.”

The exchange perfectly illustrated how easily leftist claims about voter ID laws collapse under the slightest scrutiny. Johnson came loaded with buzzwords — Jim Crow 2.0, poll taxes, disenfranchisement — but couldn’t articulate a single concrete way the SAVE Act would actually prevent eligible voters from casting ballots, and even more particularly, why it would disproportionately affect minority voters. We all know what this opposition to basic election integrity reforms is really about. Democrats don’t want basic, commonsense election integrity reforms because they rely on a rigged system where it’s easy to steal elections. They invoke Jim Crow to try to scare Democrats, particularly black Democrats, into thinking that these basic safeguards are racist, but, as Jennings pointed out, the polling shows that not even minorities buy this argument.

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“.. it’s less of a sanctuary state for criminals.”

• Homan Announces End Of Illegal Immigration Crackdown In Minnesota (JTN)

White House border czar Tom Homan on Thursday announced the end of the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration in Minnesota. “As a result of our efforts here, Minnesota is now less of a sanctuary state for criminals,” Homan said at a news conference, The Associated Press reported. “I have proposed and President Trump has concurred, that this surge operation conclude.” U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement launched the crackdown, called Operation Metro Surge, on Dec. 1.


According to federal authorities, the crackdown focused on the Minneapolis-St. Paul metro area, and led to the arrest of more than 4,000 people. “The surge is leaving Minneapolis safer,” Homan said. “I’ll say it again, it’s less of a sanctuary state for criminals.”

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“… letting in unvetted masses isn’t mercy; it’s a calculated move to entrench power, sidelining American workers and safety.”

• A Good Way To Destroy Your Country: Rogan Blasts Dems’ Open Border Insanity (MN)

Joe Rogan has zeroed in on the Democrats’ border fiasco, calling it a direct path to America’s downfall by inviting criminals and chaos across the line. The podcast powerhouse argues that while the U.S. was built by immigrants, unchecked entry under Democratic policies is flooding the nation with murderers and cartel thugs, all in an effort to populate cities with voters loyal to the left—pure political gamesmanship at the expense of public safety. Rogan laid out the stark reality of America’s immigration roots clashing with today’s border free-for-all. “The whole thing is tough now because we’re a country that’s established by immigrants, but you can’t have an open border. You can’t just have anybody come through because there’s going to be a bunch of criminals that come through, and you don’t want that. You don’t want your country to be more crime infested,” Rogan said.


“You don’t want your country to have murderers and cartel members just coming into the country and now getting citizenship and being able to vote and organizing, and that’s crazy. That’s a good way to destroy your country,” Rogan urged. He further accused Democrats of turning illegal immigration into a cynical tool for power grabs, overwhelming sanctuary cities and stacking the deck in swing states. “When you just let everybody in, and you let in 10 million people, and how do you — unless they get arrested while they’re here — what do you do? And even then, like a lot of them during the Biden administration, they were getting let go. In sanctuary cities [they would let] people go. It’s just crazy,” Rogan said.

He added, “Because they just want a bunch of people in these swing states for the census. So they get more congressional seats, and if they get these people and give them the ability to vote, now you have a built-in voter base. You can just rig the election.” This critique comes amid the fallout from Biden-era policies like the CHNV migrant parole program, which fast-tracked over 530,000 nationals from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela into the U.S. with legal status and work permits—straining resources and enforcement to the breaking point. Contrast that with President Trump’s 2025 crackdown, where executive actions on border security prompted over two million illegal migrants to self-deport, slashing southern border encounters to historic lows.

It’s a clear win for America First priorities, proving that strong enforcement works when leaders actually prioritize citizens over political stunts. Rogan’s takedown highlights the danger in Democratic compassion claims: preaching open arms while cities buckle under crime waves and resource drains. These policies erode the very fabric of fair elections and national sovereignty. As Rogan points out, letting in unvetted masses isn’t mercy; it’s a calculated move to entrench power, sidelining American workers and safety. Democrats’ border negligence is a betrayal of the American people, paving the way for more crime, division, and electoral manipulation.

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According to PCR, there should have been more Ukrainian victims, earlier. To prevent more later.

“Putin made an extraordinary strategic error when he refused early in the game to put down a strong Russian foot.”

• Are The Ukrainian Peace Talks A Hoax? (Paul Craig Roberts)

The so-called Ukrainian peace talks have puzzled me for sometime. For the conflict to be resolved requires Trump and Putin to work out an agreement between themselves, but this necessary meeting has not occurred. Trump has said repeatedly that he wants the issue resolved, but his terms have never been clear other than demanding a cease fire before the terms of the agreement are known. It is not clear that Trump has taken trouble to understand what Putin means by the root cause of the problem or that the real problem is the absence of a mutual security agreement between Russia and the West.

Perplexingly, the “peace process” has been characterized by Trump blaming Putin for not accepting a cease-fire in place of a negotiated agreement and adding more Russian sanctions as a punishment. This has never struck me as indicating any seriousness on Trump’s part toward finding a solution, and it has puzzled me that Putin continues to see hope in such an unpromising process. Russian foreign minister Lavrov has come around to my point of view. He says the negotiations continue in words, but not in deeds, which is a polite way of saying that the negotiations have lost their purpose.mLavrov has noticed what I have been pointing out for sometime, and that is that there is dialogue on paper but pressure in practice.

I called attention to the fact that it is inconsistent for Washington to allegedly pursue peace in Ukraine while it foments regime change in former provinces of the Soviet Union that border the Russian Federation. Washington seeks to win the allegiance of these provinces away from Russia as is currently underway in Armenia. These efforts follow Washington’s recent attempt at color revolution in former Soviet Georgia. To allegedly negotiate peace in Ukraine, while stirring up trouble elsewhere on Russia’s border gives the lie to the Ukrainian “peace process.” Just last Monday American vice president Vance was in Armenia on a high profile visit chipping away with American offers Armenia’s economic engagement with Russia.

Another peculiar aspect of this so-called “peace negotiations” is the two people who are conducting them. One, representing Trump, is Witkoff an American real estate developer. The other, representing Putin, is the American– Russian Kirill Dmitriev, an Atlanticist Integrationist in charge of the small $10 billion Russian sovereign investment fund. Both are trying to negotiate money deals, not the elimination of armed conflict. The Kremlin’s line is that it is a double-track policy to see if economic deals can be made, regardless of whether the Ukrainian situation can be resolved.

This strikes me as utter nonsense, and it seems to strike Lavrov the same way. Lavrov notes that Washington is interfering with Russian oil exports by illegally seizing Russian-flagged tankers at sea in international waters, and by applying sanctions to India for its oil and weapons deals with Russia. Clearly, Washington is increasing pressures on Russia. What basis does Putin have for continuing to pretend and to deceive the Russian people that Ukrainian peace negotiations are almost concluded? Why is a popular leader destroying his own credibility, or allowing Dmitriev and Witcoff to destroy his credibility?

Putin made an extraordinary strategic error when he refused early in the game to put down a strong Russian foot. It remains to be seen what consequences the world will pay for this extraordinary strategic blunder by the president of Russia..

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“Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), who doesn’t have the sense God gave a goose..”:

• What the Heck Happened in El Paso? (Sarah Anderson)

On Tuesday night, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued a NOTAM that imposed a Temporary Flight Restriction (TFR) over El Paso, Texas, and nearby southern New Mexico, including El Paso International Airport and Doña Ana County International Jetport in Santa Teresa, N.M. It cited “special security reasons,” and it banned all types of flights, including, in some cases, medevacs, up to 18,000 feet for the next 10 days (until February 20). Early Wednesday morning, the FAA suddenly announced that “the temporary closure of airspace over El Paso has been lifted” and “there is no threat to commercial aviation,” allowing all flights to resume as normal.


So, what happened? The Donald Trump administration says that Mexican cartel drones breached the U.S. border. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy posted on X:

“The FA and [Department of War] acted swiftly to address a cartel drone incursion. The threat has been neutralized, and there is no danger to commercial travel in the region. The restrictions have been lifted and normal flights are resuming.” This sounds reasonable. El Paso sits right on the United States-Mexico border, and cartel drones are a rapidly growing threat. They’re used to smuggle in drugs, like fentanyl and methamphetamine, and they’re used to scout areas, looking for law enforcement. They’re also used in human trafficking coordination.

According to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), 27,000 drones were detected within 500 meters of the border in the last six months of 2024. But others aren’t buying it, and by “others” I mean Democrats, Mexico’s Narco-President Claudia Sheinbaum, and the MSM. Rep Veronica Escobar, a Texas Democrat whose district includes El Paso, complained that she wasn’t notified, and urged the FAA to reverse the decision, stating that she felt there was no threat to the community. “The highly consequential decision by FAA to shut down the El Paso Airport for 10 days is unprecedented and has resulted in significant concern within the community,” she said.

“From what my office and I have been able to gather overnight and early this morning there is no immediate threat to the community or surrounding areas.” Sheinbaum, during her morning press conference, stated that she had no information about any of this either but would like the U.S. to share it with her. The Associated Press, however, claims it has the real scoop… from anonymous sources. It claims that the shutdown “stemmed from the Pentagon’s plans to test a laser to shoot down drones used by Mexican drug cartels” and that it “caused friction with the Federal Aviation Administration, which wanted to ensure commercial air safety, and the two agencies sought to coordinate.”

It also claims that a meeting between the Department of War (DOW) and the FAA was scheduled for later in February, but the DOW was eager to test the laser, so the FAA responded with the shutdown. It goes on to explain that some people missed their Valentine’s Day weekend flights. Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), who doesn’t have the sense God gave a goose, piled on by saying it’s “the lack of coordination that’s endemic in this Trump administration.” And then, yet another story came out, which has been published by various outlets, like CBS and Fox News, stating that what actually happened was that the military thought it was taking out a drone, but it turned out to be a mylar party balloon. This led to concerns from the FAA, and that’s why the airspace was eventually closed. This was confirmed by, again, anonymous sources and has been mocked online by both sides of the political aisle.

So, which was it? Catel drones, a misidentified balloon, or a little spat between two government agencies — maybe some combination of all three? No one seems to know for sure. Given the players involved, I’m not one to blindly trust the federal government, but I am more inclined to trust Duffy over Duckworth and “anonymous sources.”

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Socialism in America is like snow in the desert.

• NYC Mayor Urges State Lawmakers to Pass Tax Hikes on Wealthy, Corporations (ET)

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani called on state lawmakers Wednesday to approve a 2 percent personal income tax increase on the city’s wealthiest residents as well as a hike in the corporate tax rate in a bid to close a multibillion-dollar budget gap. The mayor testified in a New York State Senate 2026 budget hearing about how the city’s projected deficit had decreased from $12 billion to $7 billion. He attributed the improvement to “assuming an aggressive posture on savings without compromising city services, incorporating updated revenue and bonus estimates, and using in-year reserves.”


Mamdani said nonetheless that New York remains “placed on a ledge,” and needs more revenue from high earners and businesses. “I believe the wealthiest individuals and most profitable corporations should contribute a little more so that everyone can live lives of dignity,” Mamdani, a democratic socialist, said in prepared remarks. “That’s why—along with raising the corporate tax—I’m asking for a 2 percent personal income tax increase on the most affluent New Yorkers.”

The mayor will release the city’s preliminary budget next Tuesday. He conjectured the personal tax surcharge, proposed to affect those earning more than $1 million annually, would close the remaining deficit by nearly half of what’s remaining. Mamdani also underscored his campaign pledge to increase the state’s corporate tax rate from 7.25 percent to 11.5 percent. Gov. Kathy Hochul and the legislature must approve any tax changes.

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Putin and Trump trust each other to get it done?!

• US Negotiating Updated New START Treaty With Russia – Vance (RT)

The US is continuing negotiations with Russia on an updated version of the New START treaty, Vice President J.D. Vance has confirmed. The strategic arms control agreement officially expired on February 5 after no formal extension was reached. Speaking to journalists on Wednesday in Azerbaijan, Vance stated that nuclear non-proliferation talks are ongoing and that the treaty will be different from its previous iteration. “It’s going to change compared to where it was, and that’s part of the negotiation that we’re engaging in with the Russians,” he said.


Preventing the spread of nuclear weapons remains a core priority for the administration of US President Donald Trump, Vance said, and that “more regimes across the world getting nuclear weapons” is the “worst thing that can happen” for the American people. Vance’s confirmation comes after Axios reported last week that US and Russian officials discussed the treaty on the sidelines of Ukraine peace talks in Abu Dhabi. A US official told the outlet that the sides had agreed to “operate in good faith” and begin discussions on updating the agreement, with some sources indicating a provisional six-month observance of the treaty’s terms.

Signed in 2010, New START puts caps on the number of strategic nuclear warheads and launchers that can be deployed and establishes monitoring mechanisms for both Russian and American arsenals. It was initially set to expire in 2021 but was extended for five years at the time. However, Moscow suspended the verification mechanisms of the treaty in 2023, citing Ukrainian strikes on elements of Russia’s nuclear deterrence and accusing the West of being actively involved.

Last September, Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed extending the treaty for one more year, provided that Washington reciprocated. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the initiative “remained unanswered.” Moscow has repeatedly warned of the dangers of allowing the treaty to lapse. Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who signed the original treaty, stated that “the world could enter a dangerous new phase of uncertainty” if the agreement expired, predicting that the global nuclear club will likely expand.

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Weird. They’re not sure who appoints who?

• US Attorney In New York Appointed By Judges Quickly Fired By White House (JTN)

A U.S. attorney who was appointed by federal judges in New York was quickly fired by the White House. On Wednesday, Donald T. Kinsella, 79, was appointed as U.S. attorney for the Northern District of New York in a private ceremony, The New York Times reported. Then, Kinsella said, he received an email from a White House official hours later, telling him that he was being removed from the post. Kinsella told The Times that he did not yet know whether the White House email carried the force of law, and that he would discuss it with the district judges in the morning and go from there.


Before Kinsella’s appointment, the Trump administration had suggested it would fire any prosecutor chosen by district judges. It is unclear whether there is any recourse for the Northern District judges. “Judges don’t pick U.S. Attorneys, @POTUS does. See Article II of our Constitution. You are fired, Donald Kinsella,” Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche posted on X on Wednesday.mKinsella is a former criminal chief of the U.S. attorney’s office for the Northern District of New York, which prosecutes crime in cities such as Albany, Syracuse, and Utica.

He was to replace John A. Sarcone III, whom a judge found last month to be serving in the position unlawfully. Sarcone dropped the title of acting U.S. attorney this week, as his 210-day term had expired, and his office’s website now lists him as first assistant, typically the title of a U.S. attorney’s top deputy. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer criticized Kinsella’s firing. “Everyone knows Trump only cares about one quality in a U.S. attorney: complete political subservience,” Schumer said. “The people of upstate New York deserve a qualified, independent prosecutor, not another political loyalist.”

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The European Commission president won’t let individual member states stand in the way of her maximalist goals…

She’ll blow up the union yet.

• What’s Behind Von Der Leyen’s Two-Tier EU Plan? (RT)

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen wants groups of EU countries to pass ambitious economic reforms without the consent of the entire bloc. The move is about trade, regulations, and – of course – Ukraine.nEU leaders will meet in Belgium’s Alden Biesen castle on Thursday to discuss the bloc’s moribund economy. The meeting comes two years after former European Central Bank President Mario Draghi released a report calling on Brussels to slash regulations and invest up to €800 billion annually, or face “slow agony” as the economies of China and the US pull ahead.


Von der Leyen immediately opposed borrowing Draghi’s recommended €800 billion, given that her EU member underlings have yet to come up with the €90 billion to be borrowed for Ukraine that was announced last December. However, in a letter to the bloc’s leaders on Monday, she proposed a “deep house cleaning” of red tape and regulations, new trade deals along the lines of the one signed with India this month, and the elimination of remaining trade barriers between member states.

One paragraph in the letter stands out: “Our ambition should always be to reach agreement among all 27 Member States. However, where a lack of progress or ambition risks undermining Europe’s competitiveness or capacity to act, we should not shy away from using the possibilities foreseen in the treaties on enhanced cooperation.” In a speech to the European Parliament in Strasbourg on Wednesday, von der Leyen made her position even more clear. The commission, she said, will “crack down” on “unnecessary” national laws standing in the way of her reforms.

The EU’s Amsterdam and Nice treaties allow a minimum of nine member states to cooperate on certain policy initiatives without the consent of the rest of the bloc. According to the EU’s legal database, “the procedure is designed to overcome stalemate where a particular proposal is blocked by one or more Member States who do not want to take part. It does not, however, allow for an extension of powers outside those permitted by the EU Treaties.” Member states cannot veto the establishment of enhanced cooperation groups, except on matters of defense and the bloc’s common foreign policy.

What is the letter really about?
According to von der Leyen, her proposed reforms are so important that they risk delay or dilution if subjected to the bloc’s normal unanimity requirement. However, her letter neglects to mention a key European industry that would benefit from “enhanced cooperation”: the weapons industry. Last month, German Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil proposed creating “a Europe of two speeds,” in which Germany, France, Poland, Spain, Italy and the Netherlands – the so-called ‘E6’ – would collaborate on defense spending, lobby for increased military expenditure in the EU’s next multiannual budget, and raise money to turn “defense into an engine for growth.”

“Europe has to become stronger and more resilient,” Klingbeil said in a letter to his French counterpart, Roland Lescure. “Work towards this goal needs to be sped up in all dimensions. Continuing as before is not an option.” Klingbeil’s proposal would likely face staunch opposition from Europe’s dissident center. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, and Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis have all spoken out against the EU’s increased militarization. By recruiting three more countries and using the mechanisms of enhanced cooperation, the E6 could bypass this opposition and form an ideologically-aligned bloc within the bloc.

Why is this important for Germany?
Strengthening the European arms industry is an existential matter for Germany. Berlin’s decision to abandon Russian gas imports has left the country reeling, with its economy contracting in 2023 and 2024, and flatlining last year. Industrial giants such as BASF, Bosch, and Volkswagen have closed factories in Germany, but the weapons sector is booming. Rheinmetall, Germany’s largest defense contractor, has seen its stock rise more than 1,750% since January 2022, largely on the back of massive orders of 155mm ammunition and Leopard tank components for Ukraine. Airbus and Thyssenkrupp, both of which have substantial defense divisions, are up around 200%. Rheinmetall is now Germany’s sixth-largest company by market capitalization, outranking Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz, and BMW.

According to some estimates, defense spending has accounted for as much as 20% of total EU economic growth since 2022. nUkraine benefits in material terms from every Rheinmetall shell it fires and tank it repairs at the company’s facility near Lviv. Kiev also benefits from any political decision that lets its most fervent supporters in Europe – namely the European Commission, France, Germany, and Poland – act without interference from the rest of the bloc. For example, when the European Commission proposed a €90 billion debt-funded loan to Ukraine last year, it was opposed by Hungary, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic. The EU Council used enhanced cooperation to issue the loan last month, with the first payment to Kiev expected in April.

Von der Leyen has used the Ukraine conflict to dramatically centralize power in the EU. Aside from using enhanced cooperation to issue a loan that Kiev will never be able to repay, the EC president has proposed an end to the unanimity requirement for foreign policy and defense decisions, and until this week planned to create a dedicated intelligence unit under her control, citing the supposed threat of Russian “hybrid warfare. Now that the EU economy is buckling under the weight of the commission’s decisions, namely its abandonment of cheap Russian oil and gas, von der Leyen is yet again tearing up the rulebook to achieve her goals. Ahead of Thursday’s meeting in Belgium, it seems that the much-vaunted unity of the bloc is of little concern to her if it stands in the way of her ambitions.

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“As the current generation being educated is content to ask AI for answers, they will never be able to answer a question themselves..”

• The Collapse of American Education (Paul Craig Roberts)

Forty percent of US fourth graders cannot read. Even fewer can read at their grade level. One teacher responsible for 110 eighth graders reports that only two can read at grade level. Teachers report that kids are not capable of comprehending the content of written material, and that thinking and working out the answer to a problem is beyond their ability.


https://www.bitchute.com/video/M8fPk94kCupI

The 15 minute video in the URL above is worth your time. It shows us that we are raising a generation that is incapable of functioning in any job, or understanding domestic and foreign concerns that require public input in a democracy. In effect, without an educated and thinking public, there can be no democracy. Therefore, the failure of education means the replacement of our political system with something else. The information in the video blames technology, especially artificial intelligence, which is beginning to undermine the comprehension powers of adults as well. The latter part of the video might strike some as a case for better teacher pay, but as the video makes clear pay is not the reason teachers are leaving education.

The adverse impact of artificial intelligence on learning is just the latest stage in the collapse of education. In previous articles, I have dated the decline in education from the destruction of neighborhood schools. People of the same socio-economic class fit together in more manageable ranges of ability. This makes it possible to hold all students in class to the same standard. Some do better than others, but there are not large differences that result in many who cannot fit within the standard range.

The neighborhood schools were destroyed by social engineering or the integration of different socio-economic classes under the same standard. The result was there were too many who could not meet the standard. Instead of questioning the policy, the blame was placed on racism. To avoid racism the educational standards were lowered. This let the Genie out of the bottle. Other deterioration followed, and the classroom degenerated into chaos and loss of teacher control. Today teachers say they are behavioral managers, not teachers.

Another adverse development was the creation of education departments in universities. In my early schooling years, education degrees were new on the scene. Those who taught my generation had degrees in the subjects that they taught. The math teacher had a math degree.The history teacher had a degree in history. The English teacher had an English degree, and so on. Most of the teachers were teaching because they love their subject, and their appreciation of the subject often passed on to the students and gave them an interest in math, history, language. Teachers had competence in the subject matter instead of in educational theory.

Today we already experience the decline in competence of graduates. Checkout clerks are not permitted to exchange for customers the equivalent in smaller bills for a larger one, because they don’t know how to do it. Customer service representatives are very limited in the help that they can provide. A real problem has to be moved up a level or two to a supervisor. To get an issue resolved today can require 30 minutes or one hour or half a day. I remember when issues were resolved in three minutes and that whoever answered the phone had the authority to resolve the issue. Today the time it takes to resolve the simplest issue is extraordinary.

As the current generation being educated is content to ask AI for answers, they will never be able to answer a question themselves. Everyone will think the same, which will be whatever AI answers. Therefore, those who control the database for AI will control understanding. Moreover, there will be no one capable of challenging the narrative in the AI database. The consequences of this is extraordinary. Everyone will think the same. Diversity will not exist. Those who control the database will have total control. Humanity simply ceases to exist.These are the real problems that we face, not whether we should destroy Iran for Israel, or whether Gaza should be turned into a resort. Does the fact that the real issues are unaddressed mean that the educational collapse has already gone so far that we can no longer think clearly and comprehend the real threats that we face?

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“:Nobody can say for sure because nobody actually knows, not even the people who signed the checks.”

• ‘Snow White’ Lost [GULP] How Much Money? (Stephen Green)

You had to figure that Disney’s live(ish)-action Snow White reboot would lose money, but even my eyes watered when I read this morning that the oft-derided musical lost about $170 million. But get this, had Disney not produced the movie in the U.K. — and received a reported $65 million (!!!) in tax credits — then Snow White would have lost the Mouse House a jaw-dropping $235 million……and entered the Hollywood Hall of Shame as one of the 10 biggest money-losing movie of all time, somewhere between Disney’s 2012 stinker, John Carter, and Peter Berg’s Battleship from the same year.
I could go over all the reasons with you again — bad concept, Rachel Zegler, bad script, Rachel Zegler, bad casting, Rachel Zegler, bad new songs, Rachel Zegler, budget-busting reshoots, Rachel Zegler, budget-busting (and unnecessary) CGI dwarves, and also Rachel Zegler — but we’ve been over all this before. Instead, let me ask one vital question that nobody at Disney seems to have asked themselves or one another: How is it even possible to lose that much money on a picture that could have been shot for probably $100 million, with another $50 million in marketing costs? That’s an easy one: Disney spent a well-reported $336 million to produce a frickin family musical, and another estimated $100 million to market it.

Factor in those U.K. tax credits and the movie theater’s take, Snow White needed to sell around $740 million in tickets for Disney to break even. That’s almost Star Wars money. For a family musical. Absurd! At a more reasonable budget — back when studios still cared about that kind of thing — Disney would have started making money at something closer to $260 million. Had there been any grownups in charge at Disney able to enforce some cost-discipline, a $100 million Snow White would have been a much better movie than the one they made for more than three times that much. Budgets — real budgets — force everyone involved to deliver value. Disney’s reckless corporate bosses just sign the checks and pray for the best, it seems.

But there’s a bigger story to tell. Let’s look at another big loser, John McTiernan’s The 13th Warrior. It’s impossible to say exactly where it places on the list of All-Time Box Office Bombs, thanks to Hollywood’s notorious accounting gimmickry. It might have lost as “little” as $130 million (adjusted for inflation), or as much as $243 million (ditto). John Carter might be the biggest flop of all time at $274 million in today’s dollars, or maybe in 11th place at $153 million. Nobody can say for sure because nobody actually knows, not even the people who signed the checks. That’s Hollywood for you, but Snow White wasn’t shot in Hollywood. In order to qualify for the U.K.’s lavish film-production tax credits, studios like Disney must follow the U.K.’s accounting rules — and the Brits don’t put up with the tricks that we do. So you can pretty much take it to the bank that Snow White did indeed lose $170 million.

But here’s the biggest part of the story. Adjusted for inflation, and applying a bit of Kentucky windage to account for Hollywood accounting witchery, eight or maybe nine of the biggest box-office losers of all time were released in just the last 15 years.Probably seven of the next 10 did, too. In fact, out of the 139 biggest box office bombs listed on Wikipedia (for losing about $100 million or more in today’s dollars), 123 of them were made since 2000. Folks, Hollywood as we know it was born in the 1920s, and those studios basically printed money for 80 years.

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Debt Rattle September 8 2025

Sep 082025
 
 September 8, 2025  Posted by at 10:06 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , ,  48 Responses »


Banksy Bataclan emergency door 2018

 

• Putin and Trump ‘Will Prevent WWIII’ – Kremlin Envoy Dmitriev (RT)
• Macron’s Government Is Collapsing. Ukraine Should Worry (RT)
• Putin Notes an Underlying Issue Within Ukraine that Impedes Negotiation (CTH)
• Peace in Ukraine ‘Easier Without Brussels Hawks Fueling War’ (Sp.)
• Orban: EU’s Next 7-Year Budget to Become Last One If Bloc Does Not Change (Sp.)
• THE CAMP OF THE SAINTS (Paul Craig Roberts)
• Trump Astride at 7 Months (Victor Davis Hanson)
• Truth About CV19 Vax Awakens Public – Karen Kingston (USAW)
• Thoughts on Robert F Kennedy Jr Congressional Testimony (CTH)
• Trump Threatens ‘War’ On Chicago Over Immigration (RT)
• 29 Million Deaths Linked To EU and US Sanctions (RT)
• US in ‘Very Deep Negotiations’ With Hamas to End Gaza Conflict – Trump (ET)
• Globalists’ Attacks on Russia Linked to Its Rich Natural Resources – Dmitriev (Sp.)
• Gold & Silver Sniffing Out Risk & Fear – Bill Holter (USAW)
• Bessent Doubles Down On Tariffs, Predicts Economic Surge (ZH)
• Once Were Relevant (el gato malo)

 

 

BLM

Optimus

Conor
https://twitter.com/CilComLFC/status/1964731216751648805

Chicago
https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/1964735109900439575

 

 

 

 

Do let’s start the day, and the week, with some optimism.

• Putin and Trump ‘Will Prevent WWIII’ – Kremlin Envoy Dmitriev (RT)

Russian President Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart, Donald Trump, are bringing the end of the Ukraine conflict closer, Kirill Dmitriev, a presidential aide on international economic affairs, has said. He added that the diplomatic efforts of the two men could prevent World War III. Dmitriev, who is also the head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), the country’s sovereign wealth fund, wrote on X on Saturday: “Stalin, Roosevelt & Churchill won WWII. Putin & Trump will prevent WWIII.” He accompanied his post with a picture of the Soviet, US, and British leaders made during the historic 1945 Yalta Conference, which laid the foundations for the post-war order after the defeat of Nazi Germany.

https://twitter.com/kadmitriev/status/1964424166498619598?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1964424166498619598%7Ctwgr%5E4cb35d87737794ec695f4472c5464573d6efc307%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rt.com%2Frussia%2F624235-putin-trump-prevent-wwiii%2F

He also pushed back against former US ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul, who suggested that Moscow is not serious about negotiations to end the conflict and urged more Western weapons for Ukraine. “Wrong. Peace is close precisely because of Trump-Putin dialogue. Idiotic [former US President Joe] Biden’s approaches failed. Isolation attempts failed. Sanctions failed. Dialogue, respect, understanding each other, problem-solving to find [a] long-term solution is the way,” Dmitriev said. Breaking a long hiatus in top-level talks between the US and Russia, Putin and Trump have held several phone conversations and met face-to-face in Alaska in mid-August.

While no ceasefire agreement was reached at the Alaska summit, the two sides praised the engagement as highly productive. Following the talks, Trump said that Ukraine cannot hope to join NATO or reclaim Crimea. On Friday, Putin struck a cautiously optimistic tone about the prospects for ending the conflict, noting that “there is light at the end of the tunnel,” but noted that if no diplomatic solution is found, “we will have to reach all the goals through arms.” Moscow has insisted that a sustainable resolution to the conflict is possible only if Ukraine commits to neutrality, demilitarization, denazification, and recognizes the new territorial reality on the ground.

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“Kiev’s guarantees are cast into doubt, and Moscow can argue convincingly that Europe’s talk of peace is inseparable from its rush to militarize.”

• Macron’s Government Is Collapsing. Ukraine Should Worry (RT)

France’s government is once again on the verge of collapse. Prime Minister Francois Bayrou faces near-certain defeat in a confidence vote over a disputed austerity plan, a showdown that threatens President Emmanuel Macron’s authority at home and casts doubt on Paris’ ability to deliver on its ambitious promises abroad – including security guarantees for Ukraine.

France in meltdown – how bad is it this time? Bayrou has staked his survival on a confidence vote scheduled for Monday, September 8. At issue is an austerity package worth €44 billion, meant to shrink France’s deficit from 5.4% of GDP in 2025 toward 4.6% in 2026. Under EU fiscal rules, the official ceiling is 3%, so Brussels is pressuring Paris to cut deeper. But the plan – which includes reducing public holidays and raising healthcare contributions – has triggered anger at home. Trade unions are preparing strikes, while opposition parties from the far left to the far right have pledged to vote against Bayrou. With his government already in a minority, few in Paris believe he can survive.

Macron’s friend, savior, or dead weight? Francois Bayrou is one of the most familiar names in French politics. He leads the centrist Democratic Movement (MoDem) and has been mayor of the city of Pau since 2014. Back in 2017, his endorsement was crucial for Macron, giving the then-upstart candidate credibility in the political center. As president, Macron briefly made him justice minister, and after Michel Barnier was forced out in late 2024, Bayrou was elevated to prime minister to hold together Macron’s fragile coalition. But with his budget collapsing and support evaporating, the man once hailed as a stabilizer is now being blamed for dragging Macron further into crisis.

How did one budget plan blow up the PM’s career? In France, governments can invoke Article 49.3 of the Constitution to force a bill through the National Assembly, the lower house of parliament, without a vote. The mechanism has existed since 1958 and is legal, but risky: once Article 49.3 is triggered, opposition lawmakers have 24 hours to file a no-confidence motion. If that motion passes, the government falls. Bayrou’s decision to use 49.3 turned his €44 billion austerity plan into a survival gamble. Bayrou chose confrontation over compromise. By tying his austerity program directly to a confidence vote, he hoped to project resolve. The package included unpopular measures such as cutting public holidays and raising healthcare charges. Instead of rallying deputies behind him, the move united nearly every opposition faction. The far-right National Rally, the Socialists, and the leftist France Unbowed all declared they would vote him out, filing no-confidence motions that set up a showdown on Monday. What was meant to be a show of strength turned into political suicide.

Macron without Bayrou – what’s left of his power? If Bayrou falls, Macron is left exposed: he’s going to have to pick between two bad options. He can install a Socialist prime minister to get a budget through parliament, effectively conceding control of domestic policy. Or he can gamble on snap elections, which polls suggest would hand more seats to Le Pen’s National Rally. With Macron’s approval ratings already scraping historic lows, either choice would deepen the sense of a weakened presidency. Commentators warn that if markets lose confidence in France’s ability to control its 5.4% of GDP deficit and 110% debt-to-GDP ratio, the country could face a crisis reminiscent of Britain’s “mini-budget” turmoil under Liz Truss.

Where does Bayrou actually stand on Ukraine? On foreign policy, Bayrou has been a vocal supporter of Kiev. In March 2025, he openly criticized Washington for pushing Ukraine to negotiate peace with Moscow, calling such demands “unbearable.” He argued that pushing concessions would humiliate Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky and amount to rewarding Russia. Inside Macron’s government, Bayrou has been one of the strongest advocates of sustained European backing for Ukraine, insisting that Paris must stand firm.

And Ukraine – what happens when Paris goes quiet? For Kiev, French instability brings real costs.
• Cash flow: The €3 billion pledged for 2024 but still not disbursed was meant to cover weapons and financial aid. But such spending has to pass through the annual budget. With Bayrou’s plan collapsing and parliament in revolt, securing new funds will be politically and legally harder for any caretaker government.
• Losing an ally: Bayrou’s exit would strip Kiev of one of its most reliable advocates inside the French cabinet. By contrast, opposition parties – and even voices within Macron’s camp – have been more skeptical of pouring money into Kiev while cutting spending at home. His departure strips Macron of a key advocate inside the cabinet.
• Security guarantees in limbo: Macron has positioned France as the organizer of the “Coalition of the Willing,” where 26 countries promised postwar guarantees for Ukraine, potentially including a reassurance force. Such a plan requires stable leadership, funding commitments, and parliamentary approval. A government in turmoil cannot push through the legal and financial framework needed to turn pledges into reality.
• ‘Armed to the teeth’ peace plan: Macron has also announced an extra €6.5 billion in defense spending for 2025-2027, lifting France’s annual budget from about €47 billion in 2024 to €64 billion by 2027 – a roughly 35% increase. This blurs the line between “peace guarantees” and outright militarization, reinforcing Moscow’s argument that Europe’s settlement talk is cover for escalation.

If France wobbles, is the EU still ‘united’? The fallout would reach Brussels as well. The EU relies on France, the bloc’s second-largest economy, to underwrite collective aid to Kiev, yet the €3 billion pledge Paris made for 2024 is in doubt. That damages the bloc’s credibility as a reliable funder at a time when Germany is reluctant to shoulder the costs alone. Macron has also styled himself as the champion of “strategic autonomy,” calling together with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz for a stronger European defense role. But as the Financial Times has noted, those ambitions collide with weak finances and political divisions. With France paralyzed, the EU’s claim to speak with one voice looks hollow, and existing rifts – from Hungary’s open skepticism to Slovakia’s resistance on energy and sanctions – are harder to conceal.

Bottom line Bayrou’s downfall would leave Macron weaker at home and less credible abroad. France’s ability to anchor the EU’s Ukraine policy looks shaky, Kiev’s guarantees are cast into doubt, and Moscow can argue convincingly that Europe’s talk of peace is inseparable from its rush to militarize.

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Machine translation?!

• Putin Notes an Underlying Issue Within Ukraine that Impedes Negotiation (CTH)

I have often said that Russian dialogue is essentially different from Western dialogue in that Russian speaking is direct and without pretense. This difference is very visible when outlining positions built on pragmatic acceptances. Recently, Russian President Vladimir Putin was asked about the status of negotiations with Ukraine. President Putin notes some of the internal political issues within Ukraine must be deconflicted in order for discussions to proceed. Without these issues resolved, discussion is futile.

Russian President Vladimir Putin: “First. After all, quite recently, the leadership of the Kyiv regime, mildly speaking unflatteringly of us, and excluded all possibility of direct Contacts. Now we see that they are asking for these contacts, at least Offer. I have repeatedly said that I am ready for these contacts. At the news conference in Beijing, which you mentioned, I said that there is no point in I don’t see much of it. Why? Because it will be agreed with the Ukrainian side is almost impossible on key issues. Even if there is a political will, What I doubt is that there are legal and technical difficulties that are that any agreements on territories must be confirmed in accordance with the Constitution of Ukraine at a referendum. In order to hold a referendum, martial law must be lifted, Martial law is not carried out. If martial law is lifted, it is necessary to immediately hold presidential elections.

After the referendum, if it is held, regardless of the results, it is necessary to obtain a decision of the Constitutional Court. And the constitutional court does not work, because after requests, as I understand it, to the Constitutional Court about the legitimacy of the current government, the court evaded these decisions, and the head of the regime He simply ordered the guards not to let the chairman of the Constitutional Court into the working place. This is the kind of democracy there. And the chairman of the Supreme Court is just sitting in prison on corruption charges. It is well known that Ukraine has enough of this Corruption. But why was it necessary to send the chairman of the supreme court to prison to plant, it is not very clear. Although it is clear that it came to destruction their judicial system as such. This is another of the striking signs of “democracy” current Ukrainian authorities.

Therefore, this endless process is going nowhere. Nevertheless, we said that we are ready for a summit meeting. Listen, the Ukrainian side wants this meeting and offers this one Meeting. I said: ready, please come, we are definitely completely We will provide working conditions and safety, the guarantee is one hundred percent. But if We are told we want to meet with you, but you go there for this meeting, it seems to me that these are just their excessive requests to us. I repeat once again: if someone really wants to meet with us, we Ready. The best place for this is the capital of the Russian Federation, the hero city Moscow.” {SOURCE}

Vladimir Putin: “We have an open dialogue with President Trump. There is an agreement that in case of We can call, contact, and talk to each other. He knows that I am open to these conversations; And he too – I know about it. But so far, we have not had conversations in Europe based on the results of these consultations. Actually, it was difficult for me to do this, I had just come from China, I’m here. We have no problems with communications here. First. Secondly, regarding possible military contingents in Ukraine. This is one of the root causes of Ukraine’s involvement in NATO. Therefore, if there are some troops appear, especially now, in the course of hostilities, We proceed from the assumption that these will be legitimate targets for their destruction.

And if solutions are reached that lead to peace, to long-term peace, then I simply do not see any point in them being on the territory of Ukraine, that’s all. If agreements are reached, let no one doubt that Russia will comply with them in full. We will respect those guarantees security, which, of course, must be worked out both for Russia and for Ukraine. And I repeat once again: of course, Russia will agree to these agreements execute. In any case, no one has discussed this with us on a serious level, that’s all.”

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“Brussels, “the capital of diplomacy..”

• Peace in Ukraine ‘Easier Without Brussels Hawks Fueling War’ (Sp.)

It would be easier to achieve a peaceful settlement of the Ukrainian crisis if the “hawks” in Brussels stopped fueling the conflict, the Russian Embassy in Belgium said on Sunday. “It is obvious that if the ‘hawks’ in Brussels and other Western capitals stop fueling the war and support peace efforts, including those undertaken by US President [Donald] Trump, then it will become much easier to achieve peace,” the embassy wrote on Telegram. Instead, the Belgian government is becoming more and more Russophobic, misleading its citizens about Russia’s alleged intent to attack Brussels, the embassy added. Earlier in September, Belgian Defense Minister Thomas Francken said that Moscow was capable of “infiltrating” one of the NATO member states by 2030 under the pretext of protecting the Russian-speaking minority in it, while at the same time attacking Brussels, “the capital of diplomacy,” with drones and missiles.

“The flawed logic offered to ordinary citizens confirms that the current Belgian leadership is rapidly moving away from its previously declared moderation in foreign affairs and is increasingly joining the ranks of the most Russophobic part of the EU and NATO, pursuing an extremely dangerous course of inciting confrontation with our country,” the statement read. The Russian embassy dismissed the allegations, adding that the policies pursued by the Belgian government result in significant economic and social costs, which Belgian citizens are forced to pay.

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“..its days are numbered, it would fall apart on its own, there would no point in even leaving it..”

• Orban: EU’s Next 7-Year Budget to Become Last One If Bloc Does Not Change (Sp.)

The European Union is in a state of disintegration, and if there are no radical changes, the next seven-year budget will be the last one for the community, according to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
“I believe that the European Union has now entered a state of disintegration. And if it continues like this — and the likelihood of this is very high, — then the EU will go down in history as a depressing result of a noble experiment,” Orban said, speaking at the opening of the political season in the city of Kotcse. The Hungarian prime minister recalled that the European Union must now adopt a new common budget for 2028-2035.

“Even if we manage to pass this budget — which we may have serious doubts about — but if we do, it will be the last seven-year budget of the European Union. If things continue like this, I consider it completely impossible to pass a common budget after 2035,” he emphasized. The Hungarian Prime Minister proposed a possible way out of the crisis: the formation of four “circles,” so that the outermost one would include countries that want to cooperate in the field of security and energy security, which could include not only EU member states, but also Turkey, the United Kingdom and Ukraine; the second circle would include countries that have a common market, similar to the EU’s internal market; the third circle would include eurozone countries with a common monetary policy, and the fourth would unite countries that want a close political union with common political principles.

“Only such a flexible structure of circles can ensure interaction between European countries at different levels of cooperation… If we do not move to this order, the European Union will fall apart,” Orban concluded. Orban previously stated that if the European Union continued its economic policy, its days are numbered, it would fall apart on its own, there would no point in even leaving it, and the period during which something could be radically changed is two to three years. According to the politician, Europe will fall apart before our eyes if the liberals in power in Brussels are not replaced by representatives of patriotic governments, “purges” are needed, similar to those taking place in the United States.

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“Britain is being over-run again. First the Romans. Then the Anglo-Saxons. Then the Vikings. Then the Normans. In all previous times, the British fought. But not this time.”

• THE CAMP OF THE SAINTS (Paul Craig Roberts)

The British nation no longer exists. A Muslim immigrant-invader has been appointed Home Secretary. She is in charge of immigration, borders, and the police. When the ethnic British elected Starmer, they signed their death warrant. The 1939 English song, “There’ll always be an England,” turned out to be mistaken.

British political parties have concluded that ethnic British self-rule is racist. The Conservative Party chose an Indian Prime Minister. The Labor Party chose a Muslim Home Secretary. The leader in waiting of the Conservative Party is an African woman. The Mayor of London is a Muslim. Immigrant-invaders are also mayors of 18 British cities, including the largest ones. Rape of white ethnic British females by immigrant-invaders, due to non-enforcement of law, has become a de factor right of immigrant-invaders. Raped ethnic British females who complain about being raped risk arrest for “offensive statements” and “hate crimes” against a protected class–immigrant-invaders. The ethnic British people have recently been protesting their treatment by their government, but with insufficient force to be effective.

Britain is being over-run again. First the Romans. Then the Anglo-Saxons. Then the Vikings. Then the Normans. In all previous times, the British fought. But not this time. The Muslim world has claimed Britain. England as an ethnic British nation is a lost cause.


“> Read more …

“..the Left’s strategy is that of the kamikaze: to destroy Trump at the cost of destroying the Democratic Party.”

• Trump Astride at 7 Months (Victor Davis Hanson)

President Donald Trump’s greatest achievement within six months was simply ending illegal immigration as we had once known it—without “comprehensive immigration reform” or any other rhetorical trickery. It remains difficult to find, much less deport, the 10 to 12 million illegal aliens who entered in the last four years. Those who helped break the law, by design or indifference, now believe it was moral to destroy federal immigration law but immoral to uphold it. And it is still unclear whether former President Joe Biden’s handlers deliberately sabotaged their own border for political and demographic purposes out of sheer orneriness or utter incompetence. Many of the Left’s cherished totems—massive Green New Deal subsidies, the diversity/equity/inclusion industry, biological males competing in women’s sports, and the U.S. Agency for International Development revolving door—are either comatose or in their death throes.

The historic drop-off in military recruitment reversed shortly after Trump took office. Republican voter registration is up, and Democrat registration is down. Abroad, Trump finds remarkable successes. For now, there are pauses in the fighting between India and Pakistan, Egypt and Somalia, Cambodia and Thailand, Rwanda and Congo, Serbia and Kosovo, and Armenia and Azerbaijan. Much credit is due to Trump for brokering ceasefires. Iran will not get a bomb in the next four years—as seemed likely when Biden left office. The Middle East’s current most grotesque terrorist cadres and states—Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis—are far weaker than they were when Trump entered office in January. There is at least some engagement in envisioning the outlines of a ceasefire in Trump’s inherited Ukraine War.

The rub is finding the degree of ordnance necessary to convince Putin that increasing Russia’s casualties to more than one million will endanger his own dictatorship sooner than destroy Ukraine. Breaking up the new three-billion-person China/India/Russia nexus hinges on ending the war. The economy is still strong. Gas prices are at historic lows. Increases in all types of energy production proceed full bore. Current gross domestic product, inflation, unemployment, and the stock market—all at one time or another said to be in a crisis state—remain strong. Talk of an impending recession or hyperinflation is mostly muted. No one quite knows either the full effects of Trump’s tariffs—especially given the injunctions issued by left-wing district justices—or of the promised over $10 trillion in foreign investments.

Much of Trump’s agenda will hinge on whether interest rates are lowered, Republicans survive the midterms, and the degree to which unelected left-wing lower-court justices can be stopped from hijacking the Constitution and de facto running the country. As for the Democrat opposition, there is no counter agenda, no shadow government responsible leadership, and no willingness to craft bipartisan legislation. Instead, the Left’s strategy is that of the kamikaze: to destroy Trump at the cost of destroying the Democratic Party. Otherwise, Democrats seek to prove so obnoxious in demonizing Trump that they create such mass hysteria that the weary electorate figuratively lies down, closes its eyes, covers its ears, and screams nonstop, “Make them all go away!”

Former foul-mouthed vice presidential candidate Tim Walz is now reduced to a ghoulish status. He recently boasted to an audience that rumors of Trump’s death—who survived two assassination attempts last summer—will thankfully one day prove true. The top of the failed ticket, Kamala Harris, wanders aimlessly without an office, constituency, audience, or ideas. To remain viable, she knows she must continue touring and speaking. But Harris accepts that the more anyone hears her word salads, the more they will remember her 2024 train wreck. Head of the Democratic Party, Ken Martin, now screams that Trump is a fascist. But by what standards does he judge? Did Trump try to take his rivals off state ballots? Does he advocate for destroying the filibuster, the Electoral College, and the 156-year-old nine-justice Supreme Court, or packing the Senate by admitting two new states?

Are local, state, and federal prosecutors—a la Bragg, James, Smith, and Willis—coordinating with the White House and the Justice Department to indict Trump’s current chief adversaries, such as Gavin Newsom, Kamala Harris, or Josh Shapiro? Did Trumpers hire a foreign spy to concoct a fake hit dossier on Democrat grandees? Are his subordinates now spreading it to the media. Are 51 conservative former CIA contractors and retired spooks swearing that Newsom or Harris is working with the Russians, Chinese, or any of our enemies? The greatest Democrat fear? That it has so institutionalized excessive executive orders, ad hominem lawfare, lower-court usurpation, state nullification of federal law, and federal intervention in higher education, the energy industry, and the nation’s open spaces that their own legacies empowered Trump and now will boomerang upon themselves—as the public applauds the karma.

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“And nearly five years later, every single thing Kingston predicted about the CV19 bioweapon vax has been proven true.”

• Truth About CV19 Vax Awakens Public – Karen Kingston (USAW)

Karen Kingston is a biotech analyst and former Pfizer employee that warned in her very first appearance on USAWatchdog in September of 2021 that the “CV19 Vaccines are Poison.” Nearly five years ago, Kingston said, “They are only intended to poison, mutate, cause genetic mutations, and kill adults and children. They contain advanced medical technologies called lipid nanoparticles that are made of hydrogel, which contain graphene oxide (poison to humans) . . .. There are strong immunosuppressants, different types of chemotherapies that could suppress your immune system while being injected by something that is going to highjack your immune system . . .. and actually produce this disease-causing genetic material that can cause cancers, inflammatory diseases, genetic disorders, infertility and etc.”

And nearly five years later, every single thing Kingston predicted about the CV19 bioweapon vax has been proven true. The latest example showing the deadly and debilitating disaster that is the CV19 vax comes from a new peer reviewed study that “Finds COVID-19 ‘Vaccines’ Increase Risk of Multiple Cancers — CONFIRMS Fears of ‘Turbo Cancer’ Epidemic.” There are also diseases of “epidemic” proportions with heart, immune system and brain function, to name a few more. Maybe this is why Florida, just today, ended all vaccine mandates. Many of these ‘vaccines’ contain deadly and debilitating mRNA. This ban also includes the CV19 “vaccine.” Kingston reports, “The Florida Department of Health, in partnership with the governor, is going to be working to end all vaccine mandates in Florida law, ALL of them, EVERY LAST ONE OF THEM,” says Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joe Ladapo.

President Trump is also questioning the CV19 vaccines and is demanding the vaccine makers justify the safety of their products. Trump said in part on Truth social, “With CDC being ripped apart over this question, I want the answer, and I want it NOW. . .. I hope OPERATION WARP SPEED was as “BRILLIANT” as many say it was. If not, we all want to know about it, and why??? Kingston says, “President Trump is demanding that Pfizer shows its data. . .. One report from June of 2022 from Pfizer and people calling in and they recorded it. Pfizer recorded nearly five million adverse (CV19 vax) events across nearly 1.5 million people. The most common were neurological. There were nearly 750,000 nervous system disorders. . .. This is really scary. . .. This was in a period of 18 months.” Kingston says there were at least a dozen other CV19 vax studies that were never released and were kept from the public.

Did Pfizer stop the shots and alert President Trump about this? NO! Now, even top former CDC officials are trashing the CV19 shots. Kingston says, “Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, a CDC director, just repeated what HHS Secretary Kennedy said in 2021, and that is the CV19 vaccine is ‘the deadliest vaccine ever made.’ (So-called fact checkers said back in 2021 this was not true. In 2025, with millions of victims dead, it most certainly IS TRUE.) My point is Daskalakis repeated what Kennedy said in 2021 recently on MSNBC. They are putting it out there. They can’t undo the damage that has been done. RFK Jr. just revoked more than $500 million in research projects of mRNA. There have been a lot of movements, and it is interesting Trump is calling on the drug companies to step in and disclose their information. The last time they disclosed their information, it was horrible. . .. By the way, a lot of data they submitted to the FDA has never been released.”

Multiple top people at the CDC recently have quit or been fired. Also, the Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for the CV19 vax has been terminated. This move makes many now liable for adverse vaccine reactions. Maybe this is why CVS and Walgreens have restricted the CV19 vax after this announcement. Kingston calls what is happening now “a watershed moment of awakening” for the people who want the ugly truth to come out for the CV19 vax. Kingston says, “It’s all criminal, and this is what I have always said. This is the data.”

Now, Kingston says people need treatment to “detox” from the ill effects of the CV19 vax. Let’s hope the treatment starts soon and we don’t wait another five years to start saving lives of the CV19 vaccine injured.

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“DANCING FUCKING NURSES!

See, that’s why.”

• Thoughts on Robert F Kennedy Jr Congressional Testimony (CTH)

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr. appeared before the Senate Finance Committee after U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Susan Monarez was fired and four senior officials have resigned amid growing tensions over vaccine policies and public health directives. I have not commented on what happened during the hearing, nor shared the numerous confrontational segments of wide distribution, because the background context of the hearing itself is challenging to discuss in stable mindset without blowing a blood pressure cuff. However, here goes.

COVID-19 is the name of the disease caused by the SARS-CoV2 virus. Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) – Corona Virus Disease of 2019 (CoV2), colloquially referred to as “COVID-19”, was a man-made influenza (flu) virus created in a laboratory in Wuhan China, using “gain of function” research grants from the United States government. The virus escaped the laboratory and became a pandemic influenza virus as it spread throughout the world. The response to the release of the virus, the mitigation effort, was organized by global intelligence services and coordinated through western military cooperation. The military and intelligence services coordinated the mitigation efforts with various national health services, the compliance rules and subsequent restrictions upon Americans were a downstream consequence.

Everything within the mitigation process was fraught with governmental fear, widely ridiculous panic, over-the-top reactions and a level of political pressure never before seen in modern history. All of the rules and restrictions were genuinely crazy at the time events were happening, and in hindsight review none of the mitigation efforts made any sense whatsoever. Commonsense was thrown out the window as mass formation psychosis spread like wildfire with a hurricane. Approximately a year after the COVID-19 virus was unleashed a quickly created and untested genetically modifying serum called a “COVID-19 vaccine” was then promoted to the world as the most important element in virus mitigation. There was never, NEVER, a more heavily pushed and forced mandate by the entirety of western collective government, and global intelligence systems, as the modern compliance effort to force citizens to take the “vaccine.”

Ultimately, the vaccine rules, demands, mandates and economic compliance pressures, divided the various nations into two sets of people: (1) those who took the vaccine, and (2) those who did not. Much like the COVID-19 mitigation rules themselves, the pressure to take the vaccines was unrelenting. The United States Government, through various emergency declarations and legal processes, mandated compliance forcing the vaccine upon people who did not want to take the untested, unverified and eventually determined unsafe genetically modifying serum. Within the control systems deployed by government, including the panel who were recently questioning HHS Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr., non-compliance with the “vaccine” mandate was not optional. Every regulatory and enforcement element of government was deployed to coerce and ultimately force compliance to take the vaccine.

The U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights (first 10 amendments) was subverted, manipulated and legally twisted at the behest of government officers, including President Joe Biden using emergency powers. Families were torn apart as the dynamic of the compliant -vs- the non-compliant played out in every relationship. Socially, the cohesive nature of acceptable behavior was destroyed. Children were forcibly taken for vaccinations and parents who would not comply with the vaccine were legally held accountable, threatened, ostracized and ridiculed. During the panic, industries were taken over by government, hundreds of thousands of unnecessary and unneeded ventilators were built, portable hospitals were erected in football stadiums and convention centers by military and national guard, they were never used; forced lockdowns were mandated and travel was restricted by local, state and federal authorities.

People were not permitted to work; the economy was shut down and the workforce was divided into essential -vs- nonessential positions. All of it was madness. In the USA the entire weight of the scientific community and healthcare industry was leveraged by the intelligence agencies, military and government politicians, to force compliance with all the rules and regulations as determined by “experts” in the field of health and science. This was the largest psychological control operation ever deployed against the American people, and anyone who stood up against the system of forced compliance was immediately identified, removed, shutdown, had their social media presence blocked, and every element of the government regulation used to silence their dissent.

The President Biden administration used their emergency powers to collaborate with and force social media platforms and tech systems to control the electronic messaging and communication of the American people. Private industry was forced into compliance and small business were forcibly shutdown if they did not adhere to the rules and regulations of the various enforcement mechanisms. The federal, state and local police were used as armed compliance officers to monitor the behavior of the American people and control their activity. Government checkpoints were put into place to verify status as “essential” during travel, and vaccination compliance documents were required for commerce and social engagements.

Four years later the larger American population now realizes all of what took place was built on a foundation of fraud and lies. Four years later we discover the rules, regulations and compliance techniques were carried out with no official scientific basis. Worse still, the untested and unsafe vaccine -forced upon millions of Americans- is now identified as killing hundreds-of-thousands of innocent victims who were completely healthy until they were injected with a genetically modifying serum of unknown consequence. To protect themselves from the consequences of their conduct, all of the officials who engaged in the process of mandated vaccine deployment are now hiding the data in an effort to avoid the consequences.

This is the background for newly appointed and highly skeptical HHS Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr to appear before congress and explain the changes he is making to a U.S. healthcare system that was shown to be completely broken by the example of SARS-CoV-2. I have not previously commented about the RFK Jr hearing, genuinely because discussing…. THE MURDEROUS FUCKING ACTS OF BIDEN’S GOVERNMENT DURING COVID-19 FORCED VACCINATIONS… is beyond my capacity for stable-minded discussion. Congress sits there, arguing narratives from perches, as if we the people have completely forgotten the madness that took over the entire healthcare system.

DANCING FUCKING NURSES!

See, that’s why.

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“..the reality is that he wants to occupy our city and break our Constitution..”

• Trump Threatens ‘War’ On Chicago Over Immigration (RT)

US President Donald Trump has ramped up threats to deploy federal troops to Chicago for an immigration crackdown, warning that the city “will soon find out” why he renamed the Defense Department the “Department of WAR.” The warning follows Trump’s order to dramatically ramp up deportations in Democrat-led cities after riots swept Los Angeles earlier this year. On Saturday, Trump posted on Truth Social what appears to be an AI-generated meme showing him in military uniform with the Chicago skyline, helicopters, and flames in the background. Above the image, Trump wrote: “I love the smell of deportations in the morning… Chicago about to find out why it’s called the Department of WAR.”

The caption to the meme read: “Chipocalypse Now,” a play on the 1979 film ‘Apocalypse Now’, which includes the line: “I love the smell of napalm in the morning.” Trump offered no further details.Trump’s warning has drawn massive pushback from local officials. Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker wrote on X that the president “is threatening to go to war with an American city,” adding, “Illinois won’t be intimidated by a wannabe dictator.” Illinois Representative Mike Quigley told Politico at Chicago’s Mexican Independence Day parade that Trump spoke “like a true tyrant.” “The President’s threats are beneath the honor of our nation, but the reality is that he wants to occupy our city and break our Constitution,” Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson wrote on X.

Illegal immigration has been a central focus of Trump’s presidency. On Inauguration Day, he vowed to deport “millions and millions” of undocumented immigrants. Since then, he has expanded border security, tripled Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention funding, cut humanitarian programs, and detained thousands of illegal migrants, among other regulatory measures. Saturday’s post adds to Trump’s repeated threats to include Chicago in his list of cities targeted for expanded immigration enforcement. In June, his administration deployed National Guard troops to Los Angeles, followed by Washington, DC, after mass pro-immigration riots. Trump has also suggested that Baltimore and New Orleans could face similar measures.

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Over 50 years.

“..564,258 deaths per year, similar to the global mortality burden associated with armed conflict..”

• 29 Million Deaths Linked To EU and US Sanctions (RT)

Western sanctions contributed to nearly 29 million excess deaths worldwide over five decades – a toll comparable to that of wars, according to a recent study. The research, published last month in the Lancet Global Health, has gained attention around the world. Examining age-specific mortality in 152 countries from 1971 to 2021, using statistics from the Global Sanctions Database, researchers compared mortality rates before and after sanctions, tracking long-term trends to estimate their toll in excess deaths. They focused on three sanctioning authorities: The UN, the US, and the EU (and its predecessor). “We estimate that unilateral sanctions over this period caused 564,258 deaths per year, similar to the global mortality burden associated with armed conflict,” the authors noted, with a total of 28.8 million deaths across the 51-year span.

We found the strongest effects for unilateral, economic, and US sanctions, whereas we found no statistical evidence of an effect for UN sanctions. Most excess deaths occurred among the most vulnerable – the very young and the elderly. “Our findings reveal that unilateral and economic sanctions, particularly those imposed by the USA, lead to substantial increases in mortality, disproportionately affecting children younger than 5 years,” the study said, noting that the age group accounted for 51% of the total death toll. The report found that the sanctions undermine economic and food security, often causing hunger and health problems among the poorest. Additionally, the dominance of the dollar and euro in global transactions allowed the US and EU to amplify the impact of their sanctions.

At last year’s BRICS summit, member nations called for “unlawful unilateral coercive measures” to be eliminated, warning of their disproportionate impact on the most vulnerable. Members have increasingly avoided the dollar “to shield themselves from US arbitrariness,” Moscow has said. At the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Tianjin this week, Chinese President Xi Jinping called for a fairer global governance system based on mutual respect and opposition to Western dominance. Russian President Vladimir Putin welcomed the proposal as especially relevant when “some countries still do not abandon their desire for dictatorship in international affairs.”

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What i see coming is deep alright.

• US in ‘Very Deep Negotiations’ With Hamas to End Gaza Conflict – Trump (ET)

The United States is in “very deep negotiations with Hamas” to bring an end to the current conflict in the Gaza Strip, President Donald Trump announced on Sept. 5. Hamas, which continues to hold hostages taken from Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, has so far rejected any deals to end the nearly two-year Israeli military campaign across the Gaza Strip, despite widespread death and destruction throughout the territory. Addressing the ongoing hostage situation and the surrounding conflict, Trump reiterated calls for Hamas to release all of the remaining hostages in a bed to end the carnage. “We said let them all out right now. Let them all out, and much better things will happen for them. But if you don’t let them all out, it’s going to be a tough situation. It’s going to be nasty. That’s my opinion. Israel’s choice, but that’s my opinion,” the president said during a White House press briefing.

In recent weeks, Israeli forces have been ramping up operations in Gaza City, which is located towards the northern end of the embattled strip of territory. The Israeli military has claimed responsibility for strikes targeting high-rises in the city, and footage has shown strikes toppling at least one tower there. As many as 20 captives may still be alive, though Trump said “there could be some that have recently died, is what I’m hearing.” “I hope that’s wrong,” he added. The bodies of around 30 more captives also remain in the Gaza Strip. Hamas released a video on Sept. 5 with Israeli hostage Guy Gilboa-Dalal. In the video, apparently dated Aug. 28, Gilboa-Dalal states that he and other hostages are being held in Gaza City and fear they will be killed in the intensifying Israeli operation.

Trump offered few specifics about what Hamas is requesting in negotiations for the release of the remaining hostages. “They’re asking for some things that are fine,” Trump began, when asked about Hamas’s demands, but said the initial Hamas attack on Israel—in which around 1,200 were killed and thousands more were wounded—must be taken into consideration in the negotiations. Throughout the conflict, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has articulated a goal to ensure Hamas is defeated and that the Gaza Strip can never become a haven for the group or similar militants opposed to Israel.

In an Aug. 10 speech, Netanyahu said the Gaza City takeover plan is not part of an indefinite Israeli occupation of the strip. At the same time, he indicated the plan is for Israel to have “overriding security responsibilities” for the territory, while allowing a “non-Israeli, peaceful civil administration. Netanyahu said Gaza’s post-Hamas civil authority must be one that “doesn’t educate its children for terror, doesn’t pay terrorists, and doesn’t launch terrorist attacks against Israel.” Netanyahu said these terms would disqualify the Palestinian Authority—which has partial governing authority in the West Bank—from stepping in as Gaza’s eventual civil authority.

In a Sept. 6 statement, Hamas representatives said, “The movement affirms its openness to any ideas or proposals that achieve a permanent ceasefire, a comprehensive withdrawal of the occupation forces from the Gaza Strip, unconditional entry of aid, and a real prisoner exchange through serious negotiations via mediators.”

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“rich natural resource reserves, estimated at $75 trillion..”

• Globalists’ Attacks on Russia Linked to Its Rich Natural Resources – Dmitriev (Sp.)

Russian Federal Agency for Mineral Resources (Rosnedra) has completed the development of a geological exploration program for new Russian regions and is coordinating this work, the Agency’s representative earlier said. Globalists’ attacks on Russia are linked to its rich natural resource reserves, estimated at $75 trillion, Russian Direct Investment Fund CEO Kirill Dmitriev, who is also the Russian president’s special representative for investment and economic cooperation with foreign countries, says.

“Russia is Number 1 in the world with an estimated $75 trillion natural resource value. That’s also why it is constantly attacked by globalists and the deep state. Russia has partnered and will build new partnerships with the leading countries for joint resource development,” Dmitriev said on X. According to estimates by the international agency Statista for 2021, which RDIF CEO cites, after Russia, the top five countries in terms of natural resource reserves include the United States ($45 trillion), Saudi Arabia ($34 trillion), Canada ($33 trillion) and Iran ($27 trillion).

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“..capital from all over the world will be trying to get off the railroad tracks because gold and silver cannot default.”

• Gold & Silver Sniffing Out Risk & Fear – Bill Holter (USAW)

Precious metals expert and financial writer Bill Holter worked side by side with his business partner Jim Sinclair for more than a decade. No two people knew more about markets and money than them. Two years ago, Sinclair, aka “Mr. Gold,” passed away. Now, the baton has passed to Holter, who is the new “Mr. Gold.” Holter warns one explosive new all-time high, hitting day after day, for the yellow metal is signaling big trouble coming. Holter explains, “There is a huge breakout. In my opinion, the metals market is sniffing out risk and fear. . .. They funded literally trillions of dollars by borrowing in yen. Now, what has happened, the Japanese yield curve has gone from basically zero to over 1.6 % on a ten-year (bond) and 3.2% on a 30-year (bond).

So, that carry trade now is being squeezed because the yen has gone higher . . . your cost to carry has gone higher because Japanese yields have gone higher. So, the gold market is looking at the Japanese carry trade in the process of blowing up. It is sovereign bonds across the world. If you look at interest rates worldwide, they are actually going higher.” If the Fed cuts interest rates later this month, it may not be good news. The bond market could rebel. Holter says, “You could see bond prices drop and yields go higher. There is also a very high probability with lower Fed rates that the dollar weakens.” Earlier this year, Holter called the global economy a hyper-levered house of cards. The leverage has gotten worse, much worse.

Holter says, “There is a turbocharge to this, and when I say turbocharge, it’s fear. It’s fear of bankruptcy. It’s fear of default. The world is clearly over-levered, and there are going to be sovereign defaults left and right going forward. The only two monies that cannot default on the planet are gold and silver.” So, is there going to be a big crash coming soon? Holter says, I don’t know if it is going to be September, October or whatever, but you look at the math and the valuations. The valuations are ridiculous. Look at the math on sovereign debt all over the world. Look at the math on the amount of debt outstanding and margin debt, and this is a huge credit bubble. Credit bubbles do not go away quietly. Credit bubbles burst and markets collapse. The problem now is there is so much debt in the system and the system is so big the central banks together cannot stand against the tsunami of bankruptcies that are coming. There is no white knight this time.”

Holter (aka, the new Mr. Gold) says, “The vast majority of wealth will seek a safe haven that cannot evaporate or be taken away. It’s going to be gold and silver. You are going to see a bull market in gold and silver unlike any bull market in any field ever. . .. Gold and silver will make financial history because capital from all over the world will be trying to get off the railroad tracks because gold and silver cannot default.” In closing, Mr. Gold says if you just divide the amount of official gold held in the US Treasury by the official US government debt, you get about $135,000 per ounce gold price and around $6,700 per ounce silver price. Holter says with $2 quadrillion in derivative debt, who knows how high the price of gold and silver can go. One thing for sure is gold and silver cannot default.

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Well, the jobs numbers were pretty bad… Let’s start there.

• Bessent Doubles Down On Tariffs, Predicts Economic Surge (ZH)

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent pushed back Sunday against growing concerns that the U.S. economy is sliding toward a “jobs recession,” defending the administration’s trade policies, tariffs, and fiscal strategy while signaling confidence that growth will accelerate by year’s end. In a wide-ranging interview on NBC’s Meet the Press (full interview at the bottom), Bessent rejected forecasts from economists at Moody’s Analytics and elsewhere who have warned that slowing hiring trends and manufacturing job losses point to deeper weakness. Instead, he argued that recent data is noisy, revisions are likely, and that President Donald Trump’s economic agenda remains on track to deliver a “substantial acceleration” in the fourth quarter.

Host Kristen Welker opened the interview by citing Moody’s chief economist Mark Zandi, who recently described the U.S. slowdown as a “jobs recession.” Asked if he agreed, Bessent pushed back: “We’re not going to do economic policy off of one number,” Bessent said. “Good policies are in place that are going to create good high-paying jobs for the American people.” He added that August is “the noisiest month of the year” for employment data and stressed that significant revisions are common: “We need good data before we jump to conclusions.” Pressed on manufacturing job losses since the April rollout of the administration’s new tariffs, Bessent urged patience, noting that factories “can’t be built overnight” citing a “record amount of investment intentions” already underway.

He highlighted July’s passage of the administration’s flagship tax and infrastructure package – the One Big Beautiful Bill, which included full expensing for factories and equipment. According to Bessent, many companies were “holding back” investment until the bill passed and are now planning major capital expenditures and expansions. Still, U.S. manufacturing employment has declined by 42,000 jobs since April, even as the White House has promised a “manufacturing renaissance”” Bessent attributed some of the perceived weakness to flawed data collection and suggested that upcoming revisions could wipe out hundreds of thousands of jobs previously reported under the Biden administration. “We’re going to get revisions next week that may be as big as an 800,000-job downward revision,” Bessent said. “I’m not sure what these people who collect the data have been doing, but we need good data.”

The interview grew tense as Welker pressed Bessent on widespread reports from U.S. manufacturers that tariffs are increasing costs and forcing layoffs. Companies including John Deere, Nike, Black+Decker, and the Big Three automakers have warned investors that tariffs are adding hundreds of millions – in some cases billions – in unexpected expenses. Goldman Sachs recently estimated that 86% of tariff costs have ultimately been borne by U.S. companies and consumers. Bessent rejected those conclusions outright. “For every John Deere, we have companies telling us the tariffs have helped their business,” he said, citing meetings with executives at Treasury. “They’re increasing capital expenditures and expanding employment. And if things are so bad, why was GDP up 3.3% and why is the stock market at a new high?”

When asked directly whether tariffs amount to a tax on U.S. consumers, Bessent responded flatly: “No, I don’t.” He also dismissed Goldman Sachs’s analysis, quipping: “I made a good career trading against Goldman Sachs.”

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X thread.

• Once Were Relevant (el gato malo)

i don’t think western europe and canada understand how little their opinions matter anymore. once, at least europe was relevant, but today? both are failing, no-growth, collapsing demographic failures that are rapidly losing anything like their high trust, flourishing cultures as they are eaten by the davos/WEF culture collapsers and the occupying armies they invite. both are dying regimes held up by censorship and political suppression. they are overrun by barbarian invaders to whom they are too effete and butthurt to advocate resistance. the contrast with eastern europe, which refuses to fall for this societal suicide pact (likely because they have living memory memories of communism) could not be more stark in both economics and culture.

of course the EC elites hate an american return to vibrance and strength. it highlights how badly they themselves lack this. their misery demands company that america will no longer provide. it will be fun to watch and see if they can learn to defend themselves. it’s not that america is dying. it’s that we’re getting ready to live again by escaping this nonsense. it’s europe who is on the table in critical care. i hope their smug senses of self-importance can keep them warm in the coming conquest by caliphate and the green death of watermelon politics. those who advocate the US imitating the serfdom surrender of europe and canada have been far too dominant for far too long. and their 15 minutes are up. i wonder when spencer will realize this?

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https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/1964688908857250278

Owls

Scott

 

 

Support the Automatic Earth in wartime with Paypal, Bitcoin and Patreon.

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle May 20 2025

May 202025
 
 May 20, 2025  Posted by at 8:47 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  56 Responses »


Pablo Picasso Portrait of Maya 1939

 

• Trump Spoke with Putin, and Here’s What Happened (Margolis)
• US Should Never Have Intervened In Ukraine – Trump (RT)
• Trump Should Not Threaten New Sanctions When He Talks To Putin (Ian Proud)
• Peaceful Solutions Preferred For Ukraine Conflict Goals – Kremlin (RT)
• Swamp Fever (James Howard Kunstler)
• Biden’s Presidency Is a Scandal of Historic Proportion (Jarrett Stepman)
• This Is the Man Behind the Curtain of Biden’s Health Coverup (Margolis)
• Trump: Biden Allies ‘Not Telling The Facts’ After Cancer Diagnosis (NYP)
• CNN Struggles to Assign Blame for Not Reporting on Biden’s Decline (Turley)
• Germany Makes “Sea-Change Policy Shift” On Nuclear Power In Europe (ZH)
• Europe Admits JD Vance Was Right, Pivots On Mass Immigration (Whedon)
• Europe’s Embrace of Lawfare Threatens Its Alliance with the US (Mike Gonzalez)
• Romania’s Elections Were a Big Globalist Sham (Sp.)
• SCOTUS Allows Removal Of Protected Status From 300K Venezuelan Migrants (ZH)
• Transition To A New World Order Is Beyond Most In The West (Alastair Crooke)
• US Unveils Revised Gaza Truce Proposal – Axios (RT)

 

 

 

 

https://twitter.com/DD_Geopolitics/status/1924524192491569297

 

 

King

 

 

 

 

Kamala
https://twitter.com/MAGAVoice/status/1924338698336039097

Kaja
https://twitter.com/DD_Geopolitics/status/1924211156341932284

Souza

Ursula
https://twitter.com/MAGAVoice/status/1924166680311480410

To know Mr. Comey is to dislike Mr. Comey
https://twitter.com/willsmi1/status/1924293778531119186

Jim Rogers

 

 

 

 

Trump hangs up the phone on Putin and calls Zelenskyy, von der Leyen, Macron, Giorgia Meloni, Merz and Stubb. All of whom (Meloni?) want war, not peace. What use is this? You just give them the chance to undo what you’ve just achieved.

• Trump Spoke with Putin, and Here’s What Happened (Margolis)

In a remarkable development that could signal a turning point in the war in Eastern Europe, President Donald Trump revealed Monday that he held a two-hour phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and what came out of it could reshape the future of the region. “Just completed my two hour call with President Vladimir Putin of Russia,” Trump announced on Truth Social. “I believe it went very well.” According to Trump, the call wasn’t just diplomatic pleasantries — it led to a major breakthrough. “Russia and Ukraine will immediately start negotiations toward a Ceasefire and, more importantly, an END to the War,” Trump said. The groundwork has been laid for direct talks between Moscow and Kyiv, with Trump emphasizing that the two nations will handle the negotiations themselves. “The conditions for that will be negotiated between the two parties, as it can only be, because they know details of a negotiation that nobody else would be aware of.”

Trump described the tone of the conversation with Putin as highly constructive: “The tone and spirit of the conversation were excellent. If it wasn’t, I would say so now, rather than later.” Looking beyond the war, Trump indicated that economic opportunities could be a major incentive for peace. “Russia wants to do largescale TRADE with the United States when this catastrophic ‘bloodbath’ is over, and I agree,” he said. “There is a tremendous opportunity for Russia to create massive amounts of jobs and wealth. Its potential is UNLIMITED.” And Ukraine, he said, would benefit immensely from new trade opportunities in the aftermath of war. “Likewise, Ukraine can be a great beneficiary on Trade, in the process of rebuilding its Country.”

Trump said the negotiations between Russia and Ukraine would begin “immediately” and that key world leaders had been informed. “I have so informed President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, of Ukraine, Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, President Emmanuel Macron, of France, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, of Italy, Chancellor Friedrich Merz, of Germany, and President Alexander Stubb, of Finland, during a call with me, immediately after the call with President Putin.” And in a notable twist, Trump said the Vatican has expressed a willingness to host the talks. “The Vatican, as represented by the Pope, has stated that it would be very interested in hosting the negotiations.”

After years of escalating bloodshed, failed ceasefires, and ineffective diplomacy under previous administrations, President Trump may have just pulled off the first real breakthrough. “Let the process begin!” he concluded. If this peace initiative holds, it would be a watershed moment, not just in the war between Russia and Ukraine but in the full restoration of America’s credibility and leadership on the world stage. Trump ran on a clear promise to end the endless wars that have drained American influence and treasure, and now, just months into his second term, he’s already delivered more meaningful progress than Joe Biden managed in nearly three years of fumbling diplomacy, endless aid packages, and aimless rhetoric.

While Biden sent blank checks to Ukraine and pushed America to the brink of direct conflict, Trump picked up the phone and made actual diplomacy happen. He understands that peace comes through strength and negotiation — not virtue-signaling and proxy wars. The mere fact that Russia and Ukraine are now preparing to sit down at the table speaks volumes about who the world respects as a serious dealmaker. This isn’t just a step toward ending a catastrophic war; it’s proof that strong leadership in the White House can shift the entire geopolitical landscape. Trump once again proves that when America leads with clarity and resolve, the world listens.

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“..we got ourselves entangled in something that we shouldn’t have been involved in. And we would have been a lot better off – and maybe the whole thing would have been better off – because it can’t be much worse. It’s a real mess,”

• US Should Never Have Intervened In Ukraine – Trump (RT)

President Donald Trump has blamed his predecessor Joe Biden for funneling vast amounts of American taxpayer money into a foreign conflict that “should have remained a European situation.” Speaking to reporters at the White House following a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday, Trump expressed frustration over the “crazy” scale of US involvement in the Ukraine conflict. He reiterated that it was “not our war” and emphasized that his administration is working to end the hostilities through diplomacy. “This is not our war. This is not my war… I mean, we got ourselves entangled in something that we shouldn’t have been involved in. And we would have been a lot better off – and maybe the whole thing would have been better off – because it can’t be much worse. It’s a real mess,” Trump said.

The president stated that Washington has provided “massive” and “record-setting” levels of military and financial assistance to Kiev – far exceeding what the EU and other NATO countries have contributed. “We don’t have boots on the ground, we wouldn’t have boots on the ground. But we do have a big stake. The financial amount that was put up is just crazy,” he added. “Again, this was a European situation. It should have remained a European situation. But we got involved – much more than Europe did – because the past administration felt very strongly that we should,” he said. “We gave massive amounts, I think record-setting amounts, both weaponry and money.”

Trump’s conversation with Putin was followed by calls with several European leaders, including the heads of Germany, Italy, and the UK, as well as European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky. “They have a big problem. It’s a terrible war. The amount of anger, the amount of hate, the amount of death,” Trump said, noting that the conflict has reached a point where “it’s very hard to extradite themselves away from what’s taken place over there.” Trump said he believes both Putin and Zelensky want peace, but only time will tell if it can be achieved. “There’s a good chance we can get this done. I believe Putin wants to do it… My whole life is like deals, one big deal. And if I thought that President Putin did not want to get this over with, I wouldn’t even be talking about it because I’d just pull out.”

Pressed by reporters on whether he had a “red line” that would cause him to walk away from mediating the conflict or potentially escalate US involvement, Trump declined to elaborate. “Yeah, I would say I do have a certain line, but I don’t want to say what that line is because I think it makes the negotiation even more difficult than it is,” he said. Putin described the conversation with Trump as “frank” and “quite useful,” adding that Moscow is prepared to work with Kiev on drafting a memorandum aimed at achieving a future peace agreement. “In general, Russia’s position is clear. The main thing for us is to eliminate the root causes of this crisis,” the Russian president said.

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It’s no use, and bad blood.

• Trump Should Not Threaten New Sanctions When He Talks To Putin (Ian Proud)

The U.S. side has made various signals that it might impose massive new sanctions on Russia unless the war ends soon. This would be a huge mistake that would lock in the fighting for the rest of the year and leave Europe on the hook for a massive bill and political disruption that it cannot afford. Trump should not threaten Putin with sanctions when they talk on Monday 19 May. In the run up to the Russia-Ukraine bilateral peace talks which finally took place in Istanbul last week, both the EU and the UK imposed new sanctions on Russia. On 9 May, as Russian commemorated victory Day, Britain imposed sanctions on Russia’s shadow fleet and the EU followed suit with its 17th package of Russia sanctions on 14 May, the day before the Istanbul talks were due to start.

Both the UK and EU have threatened further sanctions should Russia not agree a full and unconditional ceasefire in Ukraine and, with Zelensky, have actively urged the U.S. to follow suit, which it has not done, so far. However, the Americans have spoken increasingly about the possibility of massive new sanctions against Russia: this would be a huge mistake. Sanctioning a country before peace talks have already started, or while they are still going on, is already a bad look. Very clearly, the Ukrainians, Europeans and British hope that new sanctions will apply such pressure on Russia that it agrees to terms that are more favourable to the Ukrainian side. I.e. that Ukraine does not have to go back to the Istanbul 1 commitment to adopt permanently neutral status.

The western mainstream press has been carpet bombing their intellectually degraded readers with the latest press line that Ukraine should not have to go back to the Istanbul 1 text as a starting point for talks. But there’s a problem. For this strategy to be effective, the sanctions have to work. As I’ve pointed out before, sanctions against Russian energy have had limited impact, not just since 2022, but since 2014. Nothing about the glidepath of sanctions since February 2014 suggests that new sanctions will work now. This latest round of UK and EU sanctions aimed to apply more pressure on enforcement of the G7 oil price cap of $60 which was first imposed in December 2022. Since the war started, that policy has failed.

Between 2021 and 2024, total volumes of Russian oil exported fell by just 0.2 million barrels per day, or 2.6%. After a bumper year for tax receipts in 2022 caused by Russian tumbling rouble and skyrocketing energy prices, Russia pulled in current account surpluses of $49.4bn and $62.3bn in 2023 and 2024. This was on the back of still strong goods exports of $425bn and $433bn respectively. There are several reasons why the oil price cap didn’t work, the biggest being that Russia diverted 3 million barrels per day, around 39.5% of total oil exports to India (1.9 mbd), Türkiye (0.6 mbd) and China (0.5 mbd). Türkiye and India boosted exports of refined fuels to Europe providing a backdoor route for Russian oil to Europe.

The second reason the oil price cap didn’t work is the near ten month time lag between war starting and the limit being imposed, which gave Russia space to readjust before punitive measure had been imposed. During this period, oil prices also dropped sharply from the high of $120 in the summer of 2022, to around $80 when the measure was imposed: the G7 missed the boat to impose maximum damage; this reinforces the point I make all the time that coalitions cannot act with speed and decisiveness. Today, the Russian Urals oil price is below the $60 G7 cap meaning that any registered shipping company can transport it without penalty, which renders the British and European sanctions as pointless in any case.

Let’s be clear, western nations imposing sanctions against Russia that don’t work is not a new phenomena. As I have pointed out many times before, the vast majority (92%) of people that the UK has imposed assets freezes and travel bans upon have never held assets in the UK nor travelled here. For companies, the figure is just 23. The same, I am sure, is true of EU and U.S. sanctions, which cover largely the same cast list of characters and companies, as we all share and compare the same lists of possible designations. Financial sector sanctions prompted a massive readjustment of Russia’s financial sector. Energy and dual use sanctions drove self-sufficiency in technology production, through Rosnet, Gazprom and RosTec: i.e. these companies invested more in R&D on component production while sourcing components from alternative markets, in particular China.

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“..eliminate the causes of this crisis, create conditions for long-term sustainable peace and ensure the security of the Russian state and the interests of our people..”

• Peaceful Solutions Preferred For Ukraine Conflict Goals – Kremlin (RT)

Russia remains open to achieving its goals in the Ukraine conflict through peaceful means, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday. Peskov, speaking before President Vladimir Putin’s scheduled phone call with his US counterpart, Donald Trump, expressed appreciation for Washington’s mediation efforts, noting that “if it really helps us achieve our goals by peaceful means, that would certainly be preferable.” He also recalled that Putin’s 2021 proposal to address Russian security concerns over NATO expansion was rejected by the US-led alliance and then-President Joe Biden’s administration. Moscow’s stated objectives include keeping Ukraine out of NATO, ending Kiev’s policies that it considers discriminatory against ethnic Russians, and curbing the influence of extreme Ukrainian nationalist groups.

In a recent interview, Putin said Moscow wants to “eliminate the causes of this crisis, create conditions for long-term sustainable peace and ensure the security of the Russian state and the interests of our people” in former Ukrainian territories where people voted to join Russia following the 2014 Western-backed coup in Kiev. Last week, Russian and Ukrainian representatives held their first direct talks since 2022, when Kiev backed out of a proposed peace deal that had been agreed in principle by both sides in Istanbul. The U-turn was influenced by the then-British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, according to Ukraine’s lead negotiator David Arakhamia.

The latest round of Istanbul negotiations has led to a proposal for the largest prisoner exchange between the two countries and a pledge to continue dialogue. Trump has claimed that he alone can broker peace between Russia and Ukraine and suggested that a breakthrough could come as early as this week, following his conversation with Putin.

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“Don’t misunderstand me. I want Biden to get better and live many more years, so he can watch his family go broke from running out of influence to sell.” Oilfield Rando on X

• Swamp Fever (James Howard Kunstler)

If the slithering denizens of Okefenokee-on-the-Potomac were nervous about their fates before Sunday — and I’d say they’ve been rather jumped-up since Nov. 4 — then Maria Bartiromo’s Sunday morning session with FBI top dawgs Patel and Bongino must have been a near-death experience for them. Something Roto-rooterish this way comes, officialdom must be thinking, if you can call utter hysteria “thinking.” Washington is nervous because there have been zero leaks from the agency, a condition heretofore unknown in that haunted, pestiferous, reeking marsh. There’s plenty of the usual background noise, of course: the insectile hum, the croaking, trilling, buzzing, staccato peeps, chirps, and squeals of the squirming lesser creatures. . . the occasional roar of an ancient gator. . . the guttural cry of the night heron, the sharp yelp of some furry prey meeting its doom, the pulsating, primordial, chthonic cacophony of creatures suffering to mate in the frightful darkness. . . but that’s just the news media doing their thing.

We’ve remarked more than once here in recent weeks about the ominous silence emanating from the FBI leadership amidst all that other noise, and now you know: a mighty information dump is coming, bales of documents that Christopher Wray sat on for years will be publicly released un-redacted, spells will be broken, names will be named (with imputations of crimes committed), and abiding mysteries unraveled — like, what was the FBI actually doing around the US Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and much more. Prepare for some disappointment. Alas, most non-capital federal crimes (acts short of treason and murder) have a five-year statute of limitations (18 U.S.C. § 3282), so the multitudinous felonious misdeeds of RussiaGate will go unpunished.

Stzrok, McCabe, Rosenstein, Pientka, Ohr (and wife Nellie), Thibault, Baker, Atkinson, Halper, Horowitz, Lynch, Yates, et al., will skate off into the sunset, but not without lasting reputational damage. Mr. Obama’s presidential aura will surely lose a lot of its luster. But there is plenty to keep the DOJ busy with more recent turpitudes carried out with the election of “Joe Biden,” including perhaps the 2020 election itself in the months before November, 2025, when the statute of limitations kicks in for that caper. Mainly, what looms is a reckoning over “Joe Biden’s” fake presidency and the momentous question as to who was really running the executive branch of the government, most particularly who was using the devious “auto-pen” to sign off on executive orders and perhaps even on legislation.

It is a wonder of modern times that this affront to the public trust somehow remains an abiding mystery. But it shows just how fake Jake Tapper’s new book is — Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again. Jake blames the whole fiasco on “the White House” without ever stating who in that building was actually acting in “JB’s” place as shadow president. Tapper, allegedly a reporter, apparently never bothered to ask. But neither did anyone else at CNN, the other TV news networks, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, and every other outpost of OG journalism. Nor does Jake conclude the obvious: that his entire profession sold out the country to act as the Democratic Party’s damage control agency — rather than its traditional duty to act as a powerful check on corrupt, runaway government.

Which is to say that the news media Jake represents is at least as corrupt as the government itself. It’s for certain now, anyway, that we are going to find out exactly who was behind the fabled auto-pen, and it will probably turn out to be a cabal composed of Chiefs-of-Staff, Ron Klain and Jeffrey Zients, Dr. Jill, NSA Jake Sullivan, Deputy AG Lisa Monaco, Domestic Affairs advisor Susan Rice, and ultimately to some degree former President Obama, holed-up a few blocks away in his Kalorama mansion those four years of “Joe Biden’s” term in the oval office. Why wouldn’t Mr. Obama, now a private citizen, be called to some official forum, say a courtroom or a congressional committee, to answer questions about that? He’s not any sort of God with God-like privileges.

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“This was the first fully deep-state presidency.”

• Biden’s Presidency Is a Scandal of Historic Proportion (Jarrett Stepman)

The “presidency” of Joe Biden is one of the greatest scandals in American history. The legacy media is only now covering the mental incapacity of a president who apparently left the entire ship of state to the unaccountable bureaucracy. On Friday, Axios released Friday night news dump audio of Biden’s 2023 interview with special counsel Robert Hur. If you heard the tape and haven’t been in a coma for the past four years, then nothing here is truly surprising. The former president sounded senile and evasive when answering questions about his handling of top secret documents. Some of my colleagues went through the full tapes and found that Biden “forgot the names of President Barack Obama’s former secretary of defense and comedian Jay Leno; referred to Africa as a country, not a continent; and was unaware he had in his possession a notebook with war advice in it for Obama during his interview with special counsel Robert Hur and investigators in October 2023.”

Biden certainly did not sound like someone who could be trusted to make large-scale national decisions or even small-scale personal ones. This is entirely unsurprising unless you are a left-leaning corporate media journalist on the political beat. If you are, then I’m sure that the reports coming out about Biden in office are jaw-dropping, gob-smacking revelations to you. The media elite are shocked, shocked to discover that Biden may have been unfit for office. The release of these tapes was followed by a Sunday afternoon reveal that Biden has been diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer. The cancer diagnosis is certainly a terrible thing. But the idea that this should end the story about what happened the last four years is a farce. It couldn’t be clearer now that due to mental and physical ailments, Biden was a diminished man from the moment he assumed the president’s office.

Despite some of the aforementioned elite journalists calling for a lid to be put on conversations about Biden’s presidency due to his health, the reality is the cancer diagnosis only raises more unsettling questions. Is this really a new diagnosis? Did Biden’s doctors really somehow miss the signs of treatable cancer. And that makes this situation entirely unprecedented. Yes, President Woodrow Wilson was at one point incapacitated during his final term in office, but that was at the tail end of his presidency. Wilson suffered a series of strokes after his highly energetic campaign to convince Americans to join the League of Nations. His wife and even some members of the media tried to cover it up, but ultimately the Democratic Party pulled the plug on his extremely brief flirtation with running for a third term.

There was no widespread attempt to fool the American people and ensure another term for an “almost catatonic” president, as one witness at George Clooney’s June fundraiser for Biden described the candidate.This situation with Biden was much, much worse, the cover-up far more extensive, and the consequences were far more potentially dire in the age of instant communication and weapons capable of quickly destroying all of human civilization. How shall we think of those years in which multiple crises developed around the globe, Americans were mass deprived of employment due to government-forced vaccinations, states were browbeaten to allow children to get life-altering hormones, and an ultimately victorious presidential candidate was nearly jailed? I’ve tried to think of some apt historical comparisons.

President John Tyler was known to some of his more cantankerous critics as “his accidency,” due to being the first vice president to assume the president’s office after the death of the commander in chief. The attitude was that nobody actually elected him to become president, and in the early days of the republic the Constitution was a bit murky about whether he could just assume office or a new election must be held. Regardless of the nickname, Tyler became an aggressive, active commander in chief—somewhat to the chagrin of many in his party. But Biden was in some way the mirror opposite. Despite being elected in a highly contested election, he seems to have never really assumed his responsibilities. Biden’s lethargy was only matched by his lack of transparency.

The better word for Biden would be “his irrelevancy.” While the 46th president’s handlers, most likely at the behest of former President Barack Obama, led him around in an extended real-world version of “Weekend at Bernie’s,” the federal apparatus operated on its own. This was rule by “experts,” or really rule by the managerial class that re-created the old spoils system but made it totally unaccountable to the American people. Decisions were carried out by vast, interlocking agencies at the behest of their Democratic Party allies whom they serve. This was the first fully deep-state presidency. Biden was awarded by the Democratic Party with the nominal career-capping title as president, but the functions and even the decisions demanded of his office were clearly distributed to his subordinates and the federal leviathan. The result was a complete disaster.

Americans rightly lost faith in their leaders and the elite institutions attached to this corrupted apparatus. U.S. foreign policy was at best strategically adrift. Our enemies around the globe went on the march. The people feared the government more than the government feared them. The upshot of these calamities is that we were delivered a national wake-up call at a time of crisis. A political counterrevolution is taking place that may have never happened had its depth not been revealed at least in part by the media’s cover-up of Biden’s obvious infirmity. But even though the first 100-plus days of President Donald Trump couldn’t be more different than the four years of his predecessor, we can’t forget how bad things got, how much the legacy media covered for a senile president’s obvious incapacity, and how deeply threatening the permanent bureaucratic state is to American liberty.

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Call his personal doctor to the stand. Under oath.

• This Is the Man Behind the Curtain of Biden’s Health Coverup (Margolis)

For four years, Americans watched Joe Biden stumble—literally and figuratively—through his presidency, while his inner circle and media allies insisted everything was just fine. Any attempt to question his physical or mental decline was met with accusations of “ageism” or dismissed as wild conspiracy talk. This, from the same Democrats who once obsessed over Donald Trump’s mental fitness, but spent most of Biden’s term parroting absurd claims that he was “sharp as a tack,” “a beast,” or “running circles around his staff.” Videos of Biden looking lost on stage or mumbling were dismissed as “cheap fakes” by the Biden White House, and the media enthusiastically echoed that talking point. It took a humiliating debate meltdown to finally make it clear they could no longer cover up the obvious.

Only then did Democrats admit what everyone else had known for years: Joe Biden was neither physically capable nor mentally fit to serve as president. The charade is over—but the damage is done. But, now, in light of the revelation of Joe Biden’s cancer diagnosis, Congress needs to subpoena Joe Biden’s White House physician, Dr. Kevin O’Connor, to answer questions. In 2023, shortly before Biden announced his reelection campaign, O’Connor called Biden a “healthy, vigorous 80-year-old male” fit for the presidency. Everyone knew it was laughable. Biden was visibly deteriorating—stumbling through speeches, forgetting names, and needing direction just to exit a stage. The signs were there for anyone willing to look, and even then, some insiders were quietly admitting behind the scenes that there were serious concerns. Yet, a year later, O’Connor doubled down. In February 2024, he wrote, “The President feels well and this year’s physical identified no new concerns.”

These claims were lies. Biden’s mental and physical struggles were evident daily, and insiders were already leaking concerns. O’Connor’s medical authority made his deception worse than political spin. His health reports gave everyone cover. Without him, the deception couldn’t have happened. On Sunday, Biden’s office announced his diagnosis of aggressive prostate cancer, with a Gleason score of 9 and bone metastasis, detected after urinary symptoms revealed a prostate nodule. This isn’t just conservative media raising red flags. Medical experts are saying the same thing. Dr. Zeke Emanuel, a former Obama health advisor, told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that Biden likely had cancer for the entire duration of his presidency, saying, “He did not develop it in the last 100, 200 days. He had it while he was president… probably at the start of his presidency in 2021.”

Dr. David Shusterman, a leading urologist, echoed that assessment on NewsNation, explaining that Biden’s aggressive cancer usually develops over five to ten years and is unlikely to go unnoticed during routine checkups—especially with the top-tier care a sitting president receives. These revelations leave us with only two explanations: O’Connor either neglected screenings or hid Biden’s condition. O’Connor has long ties to the Biden family—serving as Biden’s doctor since 2009, supporting them through Beau Biden’s cancer, and joining family vacations—and this longtime connection raises questions about his objectivity. His business dealings with James Biden, introducing him to a medical team for a failed hospital venture, further suggest conflicts of interest. It’s quite clear that O’Connor wasn’t made White House physician because he was trusted to give the nation an honest assessment of the president’s health, but rather because the Biden family knew he’d cover up the truth.

And he did. He issued false reassurances that not only shattered public trust but put national security at risk. Biden’s physical and cognitive decline—now compounded by a serious cancer diagnosis—wasn’t just a health issue; it was a strategic liability that our enemies could exploit. Rather than face the press and answer tough questions, O’Connor hid behind written statements delivered by Karine Jean-Pierre, shielding the full truth from the American people. After Biden’s humiliating debate performance last year, House Oversight Chairman James Comer demanded O’Connor testify about the president’s condition and any connections to the Biden family’s dealings. Just two weeks later, Biden abruptly dropped out of the race. O’Connor never appeared. Last month, reports indicated O’Connor was on the short list of witnesses House Republicans want to question over his role in concealing the president’s cognitive decline. That testimony is long overdue—and more necessary now than ever.

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‘Dangerous for our country’.

• Trump: Biden Allies ‘Not Telling The Facts’ After Cancer Diagnosis (NYP)

President Trump questioned Monday how doctors did not diagnose former President Joe Biden with advanced prostate cancer until after he had left office — accusing former White House staff of “not telling the facts.” “I’m surprised the public wasn’t notified a long time ago,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office in his first on-camera statement about his predecessor’s diagnosis. “To get to stage nine, that’s a long time,” added the president of Biden’s cancer scoring a 9 on the Gleason scale, which indicates a “high-grade” cancer that can spread quickly. Trump, 78, noted that had undergone a full physical at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center last month, and claimed that a prostate exam is “standard” for “pretty much anyone getting a good physical.” “When you take tests, as a male, that test is very standard.”

“This is dangerous for our country,” Trump added, noting that Biden contributed to the “mess” the country is in now. Trump called the diagnosis “very very sad,” but pointed out there were also doctors, including former White House physician Kevin O’Connor, who had claimed Biden was in top mental shape for years, before the public saw his diminished capabilities on full display at his June 27, 2024, debate against Trump. O’Connor gave Biden a nearly-clean bill of health during their last physical in late February 2024, writing that he “identified no new concerns” at the time. The president’s physical didn’t mention a prostate exam that year, though Biden did undergo a colonoscopy in 2021.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre also said that Biden, was deemed not to need a cognitive test — despite public outcry at the president’s many gaffes and verbal slip-ups, including asking “Where’s Jackie” and searching for the late Rep. Jackie Walorski (R-Ind.) at an event in September 2022. “The president doesn’t need a cognitive test. That is not my assessment, that is the assessment of the president’s doctor, that is also the assessment of his neurologist,” Jean-Pierre told reporters at the time. “If it’s the same doctor that said there’s nothing wrong there, and that’s being proven to be a very sad situation,” Trump said Monday, adding: “I think someone is going to have to speak to his doctor.” “Why wasn’t the cognitive ability — why wasn’t that discussed?”

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“Right-wing media figures are desperately pushing conspiracy theories about Biden ahead of the debate.”

• CNN Struggles to Assign Blame for Not Reporting on Biden’s Decline (Turley)

In the wake of the leaked audio of President Joe Biden’s interview with Special Counsel Robert Hur, the media is going through another round of spinning its own failure to pursue the question of Biden’s obvious mental and physical decline. That is no more evident than at CNN, which was one of the most hostile networks to such questions before Biden withdrew from the presidential race after his disastrous debate. The struggle was on full display on Friday. CNN’s host Jake Tapper has faced withering attacks over his publication of a book investigating Biden’s decline, long after the public learned the truth during the debate. While Tapper has admitted that he could have pushed harder on the question, he has been critical of the White House staff and others who hid the truth from the media despite the fact that many were attacked on CNN for raising the issue (including by Tapper).

On Friday’s CNN’s “The Lead,” CNN Senior Justice Correspondent Evan Pérez raised the same rationale for the performance that the White House used after the debate: Biden was tired due to performing his duties as president. Just as the White House raised how Biden was coming off an international trip before the election, Pérez noted that the interview came after the October 7 attack when Biden “had spent that entire time, obviously, on the phone and working long hours.”

“look, one of the other things that I think is key to understanding this, during this interview, the context, right, is that, you remember, he sat down for these interviews in October of, when, right after the attack by Hamas in Israel. And so, he had spent that entire time, obviously, on the phone and working long hours. And so, the big question, of course, became, a president of his age, and given the stresses of what he was going through, should he have sat down, should that have been the time for him to sit down for several hours of interviews — and they do go over two days of interviews with prosecutors — with everything that they had on the line? Clearly, Joe Biden thought that it was fine to do that. But, clearly, you can see from some of his answers that he does not have a handle on some of this. And so you could say, was it because of fatigue, or is it because of the things that you write about in your book, Jake? And so, that’s the big — I think, the big takeaway or big question that people will take away from listening to this audio.”

On Friday’s broadcast of “CNN NewsNight,” host Abby Phillip blamed not Hamas but Democrats and Hur: “[I]f Democrats had taken seriously, which, by the way, in a way, Robert Hur kind of undersold this. He kind of threw Joe Biden a lifeline. It was an opportunity, actually, for Democrats to take it seriously, maybe change gears at that point, and maybe [give] a potential nominee more time.” CNN Political Commentator Maria Cardona piped in that you should not forget to blame the First Lady: “I think, at the end of the day, the accountability falls with Joe Biden, and, frankly, probably, with Jill Biden too, because –.” Phillip responded, “Yeah, that’s true, but it also falls on the Democratic Party that ostracized people who said anything about Joe Biden’s — attacking the media for even raising the issue of his age, when, clearly, it was an issue. There’s accountability there, too.”

The only lack of accountability has been for the media itself, which is again spinning its own role in dismissing these accounts. This effort continued right up to the debate itself. CNN’s Oliver Darcy wrote, “Right-wing media figures are desperately pushing conspiracy theories about Biden ahead of the debate.” As Joe Concha has pointed out, media outlets attacked Hur after the report to dismiss accounts of Biden’s diminishment when he was still the Democratic standard bearer. Media sources like the Atlantic followed the lead of the White House in attacking Hur for “misleading” the public on Biden’s memory.

Now, Hur is being attacked on CNN for “downplaying” the extent of the diminishment. What is striking about these accounts is that they suggest that the media was kept in the dark and omit the fact that it was ignoring or opposing those in the media who were raising the concerns. This was an active effort to swat down such concerns until it no longer mattered after the public saw the truth. The media then investigated a story that was impossible to deny or ignore. The public is obviously not buying it. Instead they are increasingly looking to new media and social media for their news.Blaming Hamas or Hur is not going to work. For most viewers, it is another “Let’s Go Brandon” moment.

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On energy and immigration, Germany just turns 180º and sells that as bravery.

• Germany Makes “Sea-Change Policy Shift” On Nuclear Power In Europe (ZH)

Three weeks after widespread power grid failures across Portugal and Spain, triggered by unreliable solar and wind power, Germany appears to be sharply recalibrating its energy stance. In a notable policy shift, the new conservative government under Chancellor Friedrich Merz has reversed its longstanding opposition to nuclear power. The move reflects a growing understanding in Berlin that overreliance on unreliable solar and wind power generation poses serious risks to economic stability and energy security. The shift also signals a broader return to common-sense energy policymaking in Europe, with nuclear power increasingly viewed as critical in France in achieving reliable, low-carbon power generation.

The Financial Times reports that German officials have informed Paris they will no longer oppose French efforts to have nuclear energy recognized as equivalent to renewables in EU legislation. This marks a significant policy shift, considering former German Chancellor Olaf Scholz had firmly opposed treating nuclear power on the same level as solar and wind in the EU’s framework for achieving net zero by 2050. “The Germans are telling us: we will be very pragmatic on the issue of nuclear power,” an anonymous French diplomat told the FT, which was involved in the talks with the Germans. The person said this means that “all the biases against nuclear power, which still remain here and there in EU legislation, will be removed.” “This will be a sea-change policy shift,” said a German official.

Guntram Wolff, a senior fellow at think-tank Bruegel, said, “It’s a welcome rapprochement that will make the topic of energy easier in the EU,” adding, “Politically, Merz is also thinking about the nuclear umbrella.” Berlin’s reversal on nuclear power comes three weeks after solar and wind collapsed the power grids across Portugal and Spain. Europe’s dangerous and radical shift to unreliable net-zero energy has been nothing short of a disaster and an embarrassment for the far-left liberals high in their castles in Brussels. Merz has clearly recognized the urgent need to reverse degrowth net-zero policies. He also understands the strategic urgency of revitalizing Franco-German cooperation—a prerequisite for unlocking stalled EU-level decision-making under former Chancellor Scholz.

“When France and Germany agree, it is much easier for Europe to move forward,” said Lars-Hendrik Röller, a professor at Berlin-based ESMT business school who was chief economic adviser to former Chancellor Angela Merkel, adding, “While several challenges remain, I believe this issue will be solved.” Last week, FT obtained a letter sent to the European Commission by ministers from 12 European member states explaining that it was “imperative” that Brussels acknowledge the “complementary nature of nuclear and renewable energy sources.” The new Franco-German policy shift on energy is critical for Europe to get its house in order, considering NatGas prices have surged since the Ukraine-Russia war, making manufacturing uncompetitive on global markets because inputs have driven up prices of end products (such as automobiles). Solar and wind trends have also created instability in the power grid, which is a national security threat.

Read more …

“His series of proposals and high-profile speeches mark a complete reversal of the Labour Party’s longstanding support for mass immigration..”

• Europe Admits JD Vance Was Right, Pivots On Mass Immigration (Whedon)

Months after Vice President JD Vance excoriated the European elite for allowing unfettered mass immigration from the Third World to ravage the continent, the political winds appear to be shifting as European leaders, and even American Democrats, begin to walk back their permissive policies that enabled sizable demographic shifts in the EU. Perhaps the flagship for cultural terraforming via embracing third-world immigration, the UK has seen Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer launch a high-profile campaign to crack down on immigration and push assimilation in recent days. His series of proposals and high-profile speeches mark a complete reversal of the Labour Party’s longstanding support for mass immigration and comes as polling shows his government losing ground to an anti-immigration outsider party.

It’s not just the UK either, as other EU governments, notably Romania, appear poised to place immigration critics in power. Dark-blue California, meanwhile, has seen its governor, Gavin Newsom reading the political winds and abandoning his own long-standing policies of providing a wide range of state benefits to illegal aliens. In his February speech to European leaders, Vance warned Europeans that they risked weakening their alliance with the U.S. due to what he called “the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values.” He notably pointed to the large-scale censorship of mass immigration critics and the cancellation of the Romanian elections due to allegations of Russian interference. Though he faced a tough audience and earned their ire, recent moves in Europe appear to suggest a tacit admission that he was right.

The UK ranks among the nations facing the biggest backlash to mass immigration, with Nigel Farage’s Reform Party increasingly taking a dominant position in polling over the incumbent Labour Party and their traditional opponents, the Conservatives. Matters of cultural friction, crime and the growing presence of radical Islam in the nation have even led to the prevalence of the term “the Yookay” to refer to the country in a satirical manner. Starmer, in a major speech last week, warned that the UK risked becoming an “island of strangers” if it failed to crack down on immigration in which he promised to “take back control of our borders.” He subsequently announced that his government would raise English language proficiency requirements for immigrants, saying “If you want to live in the UK, you should speak English.”

“This is my promise to British people: Every area of our immigration system will be tightened up, so we have more control. And migration numbers will fall,” he promised. Starmer further announced that he would charge employers to recruit overseas and required British firms to show that they were investing in domestic labor. He also promised to cut migration, end asylum hotels, expand efforts to stop boat crossings of the English channel. “Settlement in the UK is a privilege that is earned, not a right,” he also said. Starmer also announced this week that he had “returned over 24,000 people with no right to be here.” Likely motivating the pivot on immigration were local elections that saw the Reform Party post considerable gains, leading to The Telegraph warning of a possible “extinction” event for Labour in the next election.

Read more …

The Trump crowd recognize lawfare when they see it.

• Europe’s Embrace of Lawfare Threatens Its Alliance with the US (Mike Gonzalez)

President Donald Trump’s election was greeted in Europe with outright fear by parties of the Left and wary apprehension by the center-right but with open elation by a resurgent sovereigntist Right. Now the Left and the center are regrouping and coming up with a strategy to rein in the surging populists. It should surprise no one that this strategy is based on the twin pillars of lawfare and censorship. Yes, the American Left failed horribly when it used both to try to stop Trump in the 2024 elections. Yet in Europe, the defense of liberty is less entrenched in the mind of voters. We just saw the two approaches clash after Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Elon Musk expressed exasperation when a close ally, Germany, took an initial step in barring the country’s most popular party, the anti-immigrant Alternative für Deutschland.

Germany’s week-old government—a living experiment in the new politics of circling the wagons at the center, being itself a strange-bedfellows coalition of the center-right Christian Democrats and the leftist Social Democrats—responded by warning the Trump administration to stay out of its domestic affairs. To be sure, the generalized statement that Europeans are less zealous of their freedom than Americans requires qualification. Eastern Europe, with a much more recent memory of living in tyranny, is largely more vigilant of losing liberty than is Western Europe, where decades of the welfare state have created constituencies more willing to engage in the illusory bargain of trading a bit of freedom for a bit of comfort. The parties on the Right, in both West and East, also want more sovereign independence and less interference from the European Union in such matters as freedom of expression.

They are the ones that welcomed Trump as the start of a tidal wave they hoped would reach the Old Continent. “Everybody understands that something has changed,” I quoted Marine Le Pen, leader of Rassemblement Nationale, France’s largest opposition party, as telling a crowd at a Patriots rally in Madrid less than a month after Trump’s inauguration. “The results of the American election will sound the awakening of the Old Continent.” Well, the center-right and Left have taken notice of the Trump tsunami, too, and they want to raise a few dams. In terms of lawfare, French courts have convicted Le Pen of embezzlement, a charge she strongly denies, and barred her from running for president in 2027. In Germany, the new government has just allowed the security services to classify AfD as “extremist,” a first step before banning the party outright.

And in Spain, the country’s fiscal court has fined Vox, the third-largest party, 862,000 euros for financial irregularities. All are test cases for how far the Left and center-right are willing to go using the courts to do what they can’t at the ballot box. Expressions of concern about deviating from democratic practices have multiplied. Rubio didn’t mince words, writing on X, “Germany just gave its spy agency new powers to surveil the opposition. That’s not democracy—it’s tyranny in disguise. What is truly extremist is not the popular AfD—which took second in the recent election—but rather the establishment’s deadly open border immigration policies that the AfD opposes. Germany should reverse course.”

Read more …

“George Simion won 41% in the May 4 first round. EU favorite Nicosur Dan got 21%. In round two, Simion took 46.4%, while Dan got 53.6% – a 155% boost..”

• Romania’s Elections Were a Big Globalist Sham (Sp.)

The results don’t make sense arithmetically and foreign interference has been confirmed. The country has officially completed its slide into EU protectorate status. Prolific Balkans expert Dr. George Szamuely helps unpack what just happened. Eurosceptic candidate George Simion won 41% in the May 4 first round. EU favorite Nicosur Dan got 21%. In round two, Simion took 46.4%, while Dan got 53.6% – a 155% boost. To do so, Dan needed the backing of 87% of the voters who backed neither him or Simion in the first round. Neither of the other major first round candidates (Crin Antonescu, 20%, Victor Ponta, 13%) threw their weight behind Dan in the second round. Where did his 30%+ surge in support come from? Unclear. Simion has alleged that 1.7 million dead people were on voter rolls, and urged voters to check if any deceased relatives or friends voted via a dedicated WhatsApp contact line.

Diaspora voters cast 1.64 million ballots in the second round of the vote, 660,000 more than round one (which Simion handily won, 61% to Dan’s 25.4%). Simion has alleged some polls were closed or not enough ballots were made available in some areas during the runoff, and manipulation of diaspora voting. Specifically, Simion has accused Moldova’s EU lapdog government of “immense fraud” amid reports of Romanian expats voting at 3X the rate they did in round one. He’s also charged France of meddling using “lots and lots of money and pressure through their ambassador here, and through foreign institutions in order to rob the Romanian people of their votes.” Telegram CEO Pavel Durov confirmed on Sunday that a request had been made by France to “silence conservative voices” in Romania ahead of the election.

“This election is a fraud, a giant absolute fraud. Because the proper election was held in December, and that election was canceled because the ‘wrong’ person [Calin Georgescu, ed.] was on the brink of winning,” Dr. George Szamuely told Sputnik. As for Sunday’s vote, the results simply “don’t make any sense” mathematically, the author and Global Policy Institute senior research fellow says. “Just think of that. [Dan] won 87% of all of the people who didn’t vote for either candidate in the first run…That arithmetically just absolutely makes no sense. It defies any logic, defies any experience of polling,” the observer emphasized. Listing off allegations of foreign meddling, particularly by France and Moldova, Szamuely said the “exuberant, delighted messages” out of Brussels after the vote show its sham nature.

“The EU obviously interfered very, very strongly by essentially threatening Romania with dire consequences if it voted the ‘wrong’ way,” he added. “Democracy is an anathema to the EU, it’s nothing but contempt for the will of the people and particularly for any kind of populist nationalist movements,” Szamuely said, highlighting the bloc’s rush to praise Dan, and overlook glaring violations in Sunday’s Romanian elections. “The EU despises democracy. It only celebrates democracy when it gets the election outcomes it wants. When it doesn’t, it immediately declares that this wasn’t a proper election, this wasn’t a proper democracy, this was a fraud,” the observer said, recalling the recent example of Georgia, where local elites successfully stood up to the EU, and the systematic cancellation and rejection of elections and referendums elsewhere until the “right” results are achieved.

Dan
https://twitter.com/MyLordBebo/status/1924347966292168923

Read more …

“I’ve been around since 1984 — and ‘temporary protected status’ is never temporary.”

• SCOTUS Allows Removal Of Protected Status From 300K Venezuelan Migrants (ZH)

The Supreme Court handed a major win to the Trump administration on Monday, granting its request to proceed with revoking legal protections for hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan immigrants. In a brief order, the justices approved an emergency application from the administration, allowing officials to undo a Biden-era extension of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) that shields Venezuelans from deportation and grants them work permits. Liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was the lone dissenter, indicating she would have denied the request. The decision allows Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to move forward with a policy reversal that would strip protections from more than 300,000 Venezuelans who were granted TPS due to political and humanitarian crises in their home country.

TPS, created by Congress in 1990, offers safe harbor to nationals of countries suffering from war, natural disaster, or other emergencies. Individuals granted status can legally remain and work in the U.S. for renewable 18-month periods. At the center of the legal fight is a TPS designation made in October 2023 and extended again in January—just before Trump returned to office. The protections were originally set to expire in October 2026, but in February, Noem moved to unwind the designations early, triggering a legal challenge. In April, a federal judge in the Northern District of California blocked the rollback, citing potential racial bias behind the move. But the Trump administration fired back, arguing the judiciary had no business second-guessing decisions made under the executive branch’s immigration authority.

At the time, Trump border czar Tom Homan called the move “Another activist judge making a stupid ruling,” adding “I’ve been around since 1984 — and ‘temporary protected status’ is never temporary.””Bf you look at that decision, it’s based on opinion, not the rule of law.”

https://twitter.com/WesternLensman/status/1907054421282001270

Solicitor General D. John Sauer, in the emergency application to the Supreme Court, said, “The court’s order contravenes fundamental executive branch prerogatives and indefinitely delays sensitive policy decisions in an area of immigration policy that Congress recognized must be flexible, fast-paced and discretionary.”The move was challenged by the National TPS Alliance and individual Venezuelans, who argued the administration was trying to dodge judicial oversight altogether. “It should be unremarkable that federal courts say what the law is,” their lawyers wrote.

Monday’s ruling comes just days after the high court dealt a blow to Trump’s immigration playbook in a separate case. In that decision, the court ruled that immigrants detained under the Alien Enemies Act must be given a real chance to contest deportation. While litigation over the TPS rollback continues in lower courts, the Supreme Court’s order clears the way for the Trump administration to begin rescinding protections while the legal fight plays out.

Read more …

“..Trump has at least recognised the most important American reality – ie. that the pattern can’t go on indefinitely, and that debt-led consumerism is way past its sell-by date..”

• Transition To A New World Order Is Beyond Most In The West (Alastair Crooke)

Even the need for transition – just to be clear – has only just begun to be recognised in the U.S. For the European leadership however, and for the beneficiaries of financialisation who haughtily lament Trump’s ‘storm’ unwisely unleashed on the world, his base economic theses are ridiculed as bizarre notions completely divorced from economic ‘reality’. That is completely untrue. For, as Greek Economist Yanis Varoufakis points out, the reality of the western situation and the need for transition was clearly spelled out by Paul Volcker, former chair of the Federal Reserve, as long ago as 2005. The harsh ‘fact’ of the liberal globalist economic paradigm was evident even then:“What holds together the globalist system is a massive and growing flow of capital from abroad, running to more than $2 billion every working day – and growing. There is no sense of strain. As a nation we don’t consciously borrow or beg. We aren’t even offering attractive interest rates, nor do we have to offer our creditors protection against the risk of a declining dollar”.

“It’s all quite comfortable for us. We fill our shops and garages with goods from abroad, and the competition has been a powerful restraint on our internal prices. It’s surely helped keep interest rates exceptionally low despite our vanishing savings and rapid growth”. “And it’s [been] comfortable for our trading partners too, and for those supplying the capital. Some, such as China [and Europe, particularly Germany], have depended heavily on our expanding domestic markets. And for the most part, the central banks of the emerging world have been willing to hold more and more dollars, which are, after all, the closest thing that world has to a truly international currency”. “The difficulty is that this seemingly comfortable pattern can’t go on indefinitely”.

Precisely. And Trump is in the process of blowing up the world trading system so as to re-set it. Those western liberals, who today are gnashing teeth and lamenting the advent of ‘Trumpian economics’, are simply in denial that Trump has at least recognised the most important American reality – ie. that the pattern can’t go on indefinitely, and that debt-led consumerism is way past its sell-by date. Recall that most participants in the western financial system have known nothing other than Volcker’s ‘comfortable world’ their entire life. No wonder they have difficulty thinking outside their sealed retort. That does not mean, of course, that Trump’s solution to the problem will work. Possibly, Trump’s particular form of structural rebalancing could make matters actually worse.

Nonetheless, restructuring in some form clearly is inevitable. It comes down otherwise to a choice between bankruptcy slow, or fast and disorderly.The dollar-led globalist system worked well initially – at least from the U.S. perspective. The U.S. exported its post-WW2 manufacturing over-capacity to a newly dollarized Europe, who consumed the surplus. And Europe too, enjoyed the benefit of having its macroeconomic environment (export-led models, guaranteed by the U.S. market). The present crisis began however, when the paradigm inverted – when the U.S. entered on its era of unsustainable structural budget deficits, and when financialisation led Wall Street to build its inverted pyramid of derivative ‘assets’, resting upon a tiny pivot of real assets.

The raw fact of the structural imbalance crisis is bad enough. But the western geo-strategic crisis goes much deeper than just the structural contradiction of inward capital flows and a ‘strong’ dollar eating the heart out of the U.S. manufacturing sector. Because it is bound up, too, with the concomitant collapse of core ideologies underpinning liberal globalism.It is because of this western deep devotion to ideology (as well as to the Volker ‘comfort’ provided by the system) that has triggered such a torrent of anger and outright derision towards Trump’s ‘rebalancing’ plans. Barely a western economist has a good word to say – and yet no plausible alternative framework is offered. Their passion directed at Trump simply underlines that western economic theory is bankrupt, too.

Read more …

While Bibi touts the final solution.

• US Unveils Revised Gaza Truce Proposal – Axios (RT)

White House envoy Steve Witkoff has presented Israel and Hamas with a new ceasefire proposal, Axios has reported, with Washington urging both sides to accept the deal. The push coincides with the Jewish state’s renewed assault on Gaza, which included a wave of weekend airstrikes and a major ground offensive – Operation Gideon’s Chariots. According to Axios, Witkoff’s proposal includes a 45- to 60-day ceasefire in exchange for the release of ten hostages and Palestinian prisoners. While similar to past plans, the latest version reportedly contains clearer language signaling that it could lead to a permanent ceasefire. It also includes guarantees aimed at preventing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from unilaterally ending the truce – an issue that derailed a previous agreement. Sources say Netanyahu has responded positively but with many conditions.

Hamas has not yet agreed and is reportedly seeking firm assurances that a temporary truce could pave the way for a lasting ceasefire. Negotiation teams from both sides are formally in Qatar, but an Israeli official told Axios that the real discussions are happening through other, less public channels. Talks mediated by Qatar, Egypt, and the US have so far failed to produce a breakthrough. Netanyahu maintains that the war will not end without Hamas’ total defeat, while the group continues to reject disarmament terms. The current escalation began in October 2023, when Hamas launched a surprise cross-border attack on Israel, killing around 1,200 people and abducting 250. An estimated 58 hostages remain in Gaza, including both living captives and those confirmed deceased whose remains have not yet been recovered. As of Monday, the Palestinian death toll from Israel’s offensive in Gaza has surpassed 53,400, according to the enclave’s health officials.

Read more …

 

 

False
https://twitter.com/NicHulscher/status/1924118621346840585

Kansas
https://twitter.com/Whiplash437/status/1924317891039559966

Sell
https://twitter.com/manly_mentor/status/1924138102269886497

Africa
https://twitter.com/JasperZiggle/status/1924183844187509116

The forbidden empire returnss

Decline

 

 

 

 

 

 

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How America Became Unburdened By What Has Been

Nov 062024
 
 November 6, 2024  Posted by at 12:19 pm Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  20 Responses »


Emil Nolde Zwei Schwimmer1914

 

 

We’ll see many articles on Trump’s clean sweep win in the days to come. Here’s Andrew Korybko’s interpretation of events:

 

 

Andrew Korybko: :

 

How America Became Unburdened By What Has Been

Trump just beat Kamala despite the formidable odds that were against him. He survived two assassination attempts, withstood the government’s lawfare, and is on track to secure the popular vote even though the legacy media was fully in support of his opponent. Speaking of her, she’s infamous for repeating her phrase about America becoming “unburdened by what has been”, which means moving past the Trump era. Ironically, the country just moved past her, and here’s how it happened:

———-

1. “It’s The Economy, Stupid!”

Democrat consultant James Carville famously coined the abovementioned phrase in reference to the most important electoral issue for most Americans. It still rings true to this day since the majority of the country is worse off after four years of the Biden-Harris Administration than it was after Trump’s first term. It doesn’t matter what the reasons for that are since such developments strongly work against incumbents. Americans accordingly voted to bring back the golden economy that Trump ushered in.

2. Immigration, Both Legal & Illegal, Is Out Of Control

Immigration is always a hot button issue, but it was even more so during this election due to the unprecedented influx of illegal immigrants that invaded the country under Biden and viral reports of legal Haitian immigrants brought in by the government eating people’s pets in Ohio. Trump pledged to crack down on the illegal component and more properly vet those who come into the country via legal channels to ensure that they’ll assimilate and integrate. This approach is wildly popular with Americans.

3. Folks Are Afraid Of World War III

Americans have never been as afraid of World War III as they are now. The NATO-Russian proxy war in Ukraine and the back-and-forth Israeli-Iranian strikes, each of which have the potential to spiral into the apocalypse in the worst-case scenario, were unthinkable under Trump. He promised to do his utmost to bring peace to Europe and the Mideast if he’s re-elected while Kamala promised more of the same policies that brought the world to the brink of war. A vote for Trump therefore became a vote for peace.

4. The Media’s Smears Against Trump No Longer Work

The past eight and a half years of the legacy media’s smears against Trump no longer have the effect that they used to in manipulating voters’ perceptions of him and have even become counterproductive. The more that they accuse Trump of being a “Nazi” or whatever else, the less that people care. Their celebrity surrogates are just as bad, and some like Mark Cuban dealt a powerful blow to their cause by viciously attacking Trump’s female supporters in what can be seen as this year’s “October Surprise”.

5. Musk Restored Freedom Of Speech Online

The preceding points are all important, but they wouldn’t have led to Trump’s victory had Elon Musk not restored freedom of speech online by buying Twitter. Americans were then able to share news about the election without fear of censorship, which showed them that they weren’t alone in questioning the Biden Administration and legacy media’s false claims. Those two were also debunked in real time. Had it not been for Musk, then their lies would have proliferated unchallenged, likely reshaping the election.

6. Musk, RFK, & Tulsi Made It Cool To Defect From The Democrats

Musk, RFK, and Tulsi Gabbard are former Democrats who defected from the party in protest of what it’d become, namely a radical liberal–globalist ideological movement that totally severed its perceived roots with the working class. They all eventually rallied behind Trump, which made it cool for other Democrats to defect from the party too and helped win him some of the Independent vote that took him over the edge in key swing states. He couldn’t have won had it not been for this unity coalition.

7. The Amish & Poles Helped Trump Pull Ahead In Pennsylvania

The Keystone State became the key to Trump’s victory this time around, and he has the Amish and Poles to thank for that. Scott Presler, the one-time chairman of Gays for Trump, played an indispensable role in mobilizing the first while the Posobiec Brothers (popular conservative commentator Jack and his brother Kevin) recruited their fellow co-ethnics from the second in their home state. The combination of these two, both groups and activists, guaranteed Trump’s victory there.

8. The Republicans’ GOTV Campaign Made All The Difference

The Republicans were determined to make Trump’s lead “too big to rig” after being convinced that he was defrauded out of his rightful second term during the last election. To that end, they embraced early voting and harvested ballots as enthusiastically as their Democrat rivals did four years ago, knowing that literally every vote counts and not wanting to miss a single one. This made all the difference by preemptively averting speculative scenarios by which Trump could have been defrauded yet again.

9. Abortion Is No Longer An Issue In Presidential Elections

The Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe vs. Wade in mid-2022 made abortion a states’ rights issue, which took the wind out of its former sails as a federal one and thus made it much more difficult for the Democrats to turn women against Republican presidential candidates like before. Try as they did, they couldn’t pull it off anymore, and this helped Trump come out ahead. The party relied on abortion for so long that they don’t know what to do now that it’s no longer relevant at the presidential level.

10. Walz Was One Of The Worst VP Picks Imaginable

Kamala might have had a chance if she picked Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro as her running mate instead of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, but the former is Jewish and has ties to the IDF, so she feared that she’d lose the Midwest’s Muslim vote if she chose him. That was a mistake since Walz was one of the worst VP picks imaginable and JD Vance made mincemeat out of him during their debate. Most Americans didn’t want Walz one heartbeat away from the presidency after that.

———-

Trump’s political comeback story is one for the history books after the seemingly insurmountable odds that he overcame. A mix of masterful campaigning, Musk’s purchase of Twitter, and arguably a stroke of divine providence over the summer came together to make this possible. America is now truly unburdened by what has been after decisively rejecting the past four years in full defiance of the Democrats. It’s now up to Trump to deliver on his ultimate promise to “Make America Great Again”.

 

 

 

 

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Debt Rattle October 13 2023

Oct 132023
 
 October 13, 2023  Posted by at 8:30 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  35 Responses »


Pablo Picasso Self portrait 1906

 

• Israel Not Prepared for Hezbollah’s Second Front – Alastair Crooke (Sp.)
• Sy Hersh: Bibi’s Opposition to 2-State Solution Cost Lives of Jews, Arabs (Sp.)
• The Geopolitics of Al-Aqsa Flood (Pepe Escobar)
• Russian Views of the Hamas-Israeli Conflict (Paul Craig Roberts)
• Netanyahu Wants US Involved In War – Ex-Pentagon Official (RT)
• US Won’t Fight For Israel – White House (RT)
• US Must Prepare For War With China And Russia – Congress (RT)
• Struggle For Future Of World Order ‘Intensifying’ – Moscow (RT)
• Zelensky Final Stage of Conflict Statement Shows Hopelessness – Lavrov (Sp.)
• Beijing Can’t Be Neutral On ‘Fox Entering Henhouse’ – Borrell (RT)
• Europe Made A ‘Grave Mistake’ On Immigration – Kissinger (Az.)
• ‘Star Witness’ Ellison Unveils Chaos Behind FTX’s Fake Balance Sheets (ZH)
• CEO of X -aka Twitter- Responds To EU ‘Disinfo’ Threats (RT)
• RFK Jr. Sees Surge in Fundraising After Declaring Independent Run (ET)

 

 

 

 

Jon Stewart

 

 

FOX

 

 

 

 

Gabor Maté
https://twitter.com/i/status/1712402483115614498

 

 

“The war is not meant to be won, it is meant to be continuous. Hierarchical society is only possible on the basis of poverty and ignorance. In principle the war effort is always planned to keep society on the brink of starvation.” George Orwell, 1984

 

 

 

 

“..there comes a point when you have so much information and data bits and everything like this that you don’t have a clear picture..”

• Israel Not Prepared for Hezbollah’s Second Front – Alastair Crooke (Sp.)

The Lebanese Shiite militant group Hezbollah may raise the stakes in the Israel-Hamas war by getting directly involved in the conflict. Over the past few days, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and Hezbollah fighters have been exchanging strikes across Lebanon’s southern border. The clashes came after Hamas’ surprise attack on Israeli cities from the Gaza Strip on October 7 and Tel Aviv’s retaliation. The question is whether the Shiite militants will resort to a direct military intervention in Israel in a show of solidarity with Hamas. “There has been some direct military intervention,” former British diplomat and MI6 agent Alastair Crooke told Sputnik. “Hezbollah, a few days ago, two or three days ago, destroyed three Israeli radar base posts. These were in the Shebaa Farms area, which is recognized as Lebanese territory, but is occupied by Israel.”

“There was an Israeli response, and now we’ve moved to a response by Hezbollah that ended up with firing on military bases inside Israel. And with the reaction of Israel to killing three of the Hezbollah cadres. And Hezbollah says they will react to that and they will respond by killing three Israelis. I mean, it’s very reminiscent for me of what started the 2006 war. If you recall, it was Hezbollah taking two soldiers, they slipped across the border and took two Israelis hostage in reaction for what Israel was doing in Lebanon at that point. So, it’s quite sort of similar. Hezbollah said it very clearly. Hassan Nasrallah has said ‘If Israel goes into Gaza militarily, then we will open a front, the next front.’ Most people, including I interpret that as quite a clear red line.”

Hezbollah is both a political party and militant group that was formed in 1982, during the 15-year Lebanese Civil War (1975-1990), and earned the name “state-within-a-state” due to its sophisticated security apparatus, well-trained fighters, and political organization. Since its inception, Hezbollah has been involved in a continuous fight against Israel over what it called the “occupation” of Palestine. In 2006, the month-long Israel-Hezbollah war erupted, precipitated by the Lebanese militant group’s cross-border raid on an Israeli military patrol on July 12, 2006. A UN-brokered ceasefire was agreed by the warring parties on August 14, 2006, while on September 8, 2006, Israel lifted its naval blockade of Lebanon. Per Crooke, the IDF was outperformed by Hezbollah at the time.

“In 2006, [the IDF] lost the war and Hezbollah had the technological advantage over them,” the ex-MI6 agent said. “They were intercepting the Israeli military communications. They were intercepting deciphered messages coming to from Tel Aviv to Beirut. They had the security, Hezbollah’s operational practices. It was a defeat [for Israel] and the army was not very impressive. There were times when they didn’t even manage to provide for the reserves that arrived – there was no food, and there was no transport for them. It was a bit like this last weekend. It was pretty chaotic. And look what we saw [this past weekend]. Again, a former senior military officer in Israel said, ‘Look, this time, the command and control structure of the army just collapsed, when Hamas broke through the Erez crossing, it just collapsed and there were no troops, and there was no ability to respond at all.’ They just saw an implosion. So, it’s not really that great.”

Furthermore, the Israeli intelligence failure to proactively thwart the Hamas attack suggests the erosion of intelligence capabilities and understanding of the situation on the ground, according to Crooke. It appears that despite Tel Aviv and Washington’s top notch technology, the nations’ spies failed to correctly interpret the massive volumes of intelligence data. Crooke explained that the shift over to artificial intelligence (AI) as a means of intelligence gathering “has not been very successful, neither in Ukraine for the Americans and for NATO and computer modeling efforts.” “Nor has it for the Israelis, because there comes a point when you have so much information and data bits and everything like this that you don’t have a clear picture,” the former British intelligence operative emphasized.

To understand how people are thinking one needs “emotional intelligence” and some sort of empathy, and not just the AI-collected data, according to him. “I saw this in the past,” Crooke said. “The West is finding it harder and harder to understand, to empathize with other, if you like, civilizations, whether it’s Russian or Iranian. They reduce it to a sort of instrumentalism that they can do it, and think if they collect enough data points, they will understand how Russia thinks and how Iran thinks. And of course, they don’t get into the mindset. They don’t get into the way of thinking, which is quite different. Even the language is quite different. And the capabilities of AI to understand symbolic meaning, and let alone some of the sort of esoteric elements of Islamic meaning – it just depends on who’s writing the AI. But for sure, it will be someone who’s lived all their life in the Western sphere and finds this all a mystery.”

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“[He] is finished. He is a walking dead man. He will stay in office only until the shooting stops . . . maybe another month or two.”

• Sy Hersh: Bibi’s Opposition to 2-State Solution Cost Lives of Jews, Arabs (Sp.)

Benjamin Netanyahu “is finished,” as his decision to allow a group of Orthodox settlers to celebrate Sukkot in the West Bank last week was ill-timed, given the growing tensions between Jews and Palestinians in the region, an Israeli source told Seymour Hersh. On October 6 a group of Jewish settlers were reported to have clashed with local Palestinians in Huwara, a village in the northern part of the West Bank, which resulted in the death of a 19-year-old Arab man. Israeli settlers in the West Bank required “extraordinary protection” over the upsurge in violence. So, Netanyahu gave a nod to local Israeli military authorities to order two of the three Army battalions that controlled the border with Gaza to shift their focus to the Sukkot festival. Given that each battalion comprised about 800 soldiers, 1,600 were sent to shield the Orthodox Jews.

“That left only eight hundred soldiers to be responsible for guarding the 51-kilometer border between the Gaza Strip and southern Israel,” Hersh’s interlocutor said. “That meant the Israeli citizens in the south were left without an Israeli military presence for ten to twelve hours. They were left to fend for themselves.” Thus, unsurprisingly, the diminished IDF contingent was overrun by Hamas militants on October 7, while Israeli civilians were left unprotected. Hersh’s sources called the Saturday attack “the great military failure in Israeli history.” He noted that a previous surprise attack on Israel by Egypt and Syria in 1973 claimed the lives of soldiers, while this time peaceful civilians suffered. “Last Saturday twenty-two settlements in the south were under control of Hamas for hours, and they went house to house slaughtering women and children,” the insider said.

The source believes that this failure means the end of Netanyahu’s political career: “[He] is finished. He is a walking dead man. He will stay in office only until the shooting stops . . . maybe another month or two.” But not just for Saturday’s slaughter: the root of the problem named Hamas goes much deeper, per Hersh’s interlocutor. To begin with, Benjamin Netanyahu “was always opposed to the 1993 Oslo Accords,” the insider said. The agreement envisaged the gradual implementation of the so-called “two-state solution” for Israel and Palestine. It was signed by Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) negotiator Mahmoud Abbas in September 1993. Under the agreements, Tel Aviv accepted the PLO as the representative of the Palestinians, and the PLO recognized Israel’s right to exist in peace.

The document stipulated the establishment of the Palestinian Authority (PA), which would assume governing responsibilities in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. At the time, Netanyahu was out of office: he served as a prime minister between 1996 and 1999 and won the Israeli prime ministership for the second time in 2009. When Bibi returned to office in 2009, he “chose to support Hamas” as an alternative to the Palestinian Authority, “and gave them money and established them in Gaza,” according to the insider. Furthermore, an arrangement with Qatar was made under which hundreds of millions of dollars were directed to the Hamas leadership with Israeli approval, per the source.

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“In the drive towards a multipolar world, [..] there’s simply no place for an ethnocentric Apartheid state fond of collective punishment..”

• The Geopolitics of Al-Aqsa Flood (Pepe Escobar)

=Only one year ago, the sweaty sweatshirt comedian in Kiev was talking about turning Ukraine into a “big Israel,” and was duly applauded by a bunch of Atlantic Council bots. Well, it turned out quite differently. As an old-school Deep State source just informed me: “Ukraine-earmarked weapons are ending up in the hands of the Palestinians. The question is which country is paying for it. Iran just made a deal with the US for six billion dollars and it is unlikely Iran would jeopardize that. I have a source who gave me the name of the country but I cannot reveal it. The fact is that Ukrainian weapons are going to the Gaza Strip and they are being paid for but not by Iran.” After its stunning raid last weekend, a savvy Hamas has already secured more negotiating leverage than Palestinians have wielded in decades.

Significantly, while peace talks are supported by China, Russia, Turkiye, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt – Tel Aviv refuses. Netanyahu is obsessed with razing Gaza to the ground, but if that happens, a wider regional war is nearly inevitable. Lebanon’s Hezbollah – a staunch Resistance Axis ally of the Palestinian resistance – would rather not be dragged into a war that can be devastating on its side of the border, but that could change if Israel perpetrates a de facto Gaza genocide. Hezbollah holds at least 100,000 ballistic missiles and rockets, from Katyusha (range: 40 km) to Fajr-5 (75 km), Khaibar-1 (100 km), Zelzal 2 (210 km), Fateh-110 (300 km), and Scud B-C (500 km). Tel Aviv knows what that means, and shudders at the frequent warnings by Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah that its next war with Israel will be conducted inside that country.

Which brings us to Iran. The key immediate consequence of Al-Aqsa Flood is that the Washington neocon wet dream of “normalization” between Israel and the Arab world will simply vanish if this turns into a Long War. Large swathes of the Arab world in fact are already normalizing their ties with Tehran – and not only inside the newly expanded BRICS 11. In the drive towards a multipolar world, represented by BRICS 11, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), and China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), among other groundbreaking Eurasian and Global South institutions, there’s simply no place for an ethnocentric Apartheid state fond of collective punishment.

Just this year, Israel found itself disinvited from the African Union summit. An Israeli delegation showed up anyway, and was unceremoniously ejected from the big hall, a visual that went viral. At the UN plenary sessions last month, a lone Israeli diplomat sought to disrupt Iranian President Ibrahim Raisi’s speech. No western ally stood by his side, and he too, was ejected from the premises. As Chinese President Xi Jinping diplomatically put it in December 2022, Beijing “firmly supports the establishment of an independent state of Palestine that enjoys full sovereignty based on 1967 borders and with East Jerusalem as its capital. China supports Palestine in becoming a full member of the United Nations.”

Tehran’s strategy is way more ambitious – offering strategic advice to West Asian resistance movements from the Levant to the Persian Gulf: Hezbollah, Ansarallah, Hashd al-Shaabi, Kataib Hezbollah, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and countless others. It’s as if they are all part of a new Grand Chessboard de facto supervised by Grandmaster Iran. The pieces in the chessboard were carefully positioned by none other than the late Quds Force Commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps General Qassem Soleimani, a once-in-a-lifetime military genius. He was instrumental in creating the foundations for the cumulative successes of Iranian allies in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and Palestine, as well as creating the conditions for a complex operation such as Al-Aqsa Flood.

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“..Hamas’ attack “destroyed the myths around Israel’s defense systems” and achieved for Hamas a more important moral victory than the military success of the attack..”

• Russian Views of the Hamas-Israeli Conflict (Paul Craig Roberts)

Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zakharova asked: “How did it happen that in a year; that’s how much time the operation was being prepared for, then carried out now in a few days, the United States as Israel’s closest ally did not warn about this? They have satellites everywhere, appropriate tracking devices, military bases, including in the region. There are all the possibilities to carry out, not just monitoring, but surveillance — the facts speak for themselves — of all information circulating on American-made equipment (hardware and software). For the whole year of preparing such a large-scale operation, the United States with all the power of its special services did not transmit anything to Israel as intelligence…How did it happen that during the whole year of preparation of the corresponding operation in the Middle East, the United States did not transmit any information to its partners in Israel?”

Moscow security affairs analyst Yevgeny Krutikov says the huge amount of weapons used in Hamas’ attack “could not fall from the sky. How did they get there (Gaza)?” The publication Vzglyad, a platform for Russian military thinking, published an article that concluded that Hamas’ attack “destroyed the myths around Israel’s defense systems” and achieved for Hamas a more important moral victory than the military success of the attack. Israel’s support for Ukraine against Russia has caused the Kremlin to rethink its relationship with Israel. Vzglyad reported that the Israeli government has become Russia’s adversary: “The time has come to take a new position on the Palestinian issue . . . to take a more pro-Palestinian position in the Middle East Conflict. To stand on the side of those who help Russia within the framework of their own interests (Iran, Saudi Arabia) against those who help our enemies. And thereby to send a very clear signal to the world – a signal that Russia will treat its partners exactly as they treat it. To help supporters – and not to act in the interests of opponents.”

It is possible that Israel’s military has been corrupted by too much American money, has been getting by on past successes, and has underestimated the Arabs. Washington is no longer the uni-power in the Middle East. The Russians, Turks, Syrians, Iranians, Saudis, and Hezbollah in Lebanon could all go to the aid of Palestine. Hezbollah alone has twice defeated Israeli invasions of Lebanon. Netanyahu’s invasion of Gaza could put Israel’s existence in jeopardy. In other words, Netanyahu’s plan to complete the conquest of Palestine could result in Israel’s destruction. On the other hand, the enmity among Muslims could again result in Muslim impotence and Israel’s success. My initial view was that Hamas’ attack would result in the disappearance of Palestine and no one would interfere. Now I am unsure. Netanyahu could be setting off a wider conflict from which Israel would not emerge a victor and Washington would have to choose between accepting defeat and using nuclear weapons.

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“..Netanyahu “wants to open up the war with Lebanon, by attacking Hezbollah” in pursuit of his ultimate objective, “to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities..”

• Netanyahu Wants US Involved In War – Ex-Pentagon Official (RT)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would like Washington directly involved in the conflict with Hamas because he hopes to expand the war to Lebanon and Iran, a former senior security policy analyst at the US Department of Defense, Michael Maloof, told RT on Wednesday. On Monday, the US ordered the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford and five guided missile destroyers to the Eastern Mediterranean. According to Maloof, this “meets Netanyahu’s wildest dreams.” “He wanted the US involved in this conflict,” the former Pentagon official told RT. Netanyahu “wants to open up the war with Lebanon, by attacking Hezbollah” in pursuit of his ultimate objective, “to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities,” Maloof added. For that to happen, “he has to have a Gulf of Tonkin moment, if you will.”

Maloof recalled how US President Lyndon Johnson essentially started the Vietnam War by sending ships to the Gulf of Tonkin in 1964. An alleged North Vietnamese attack on two US destroyers was then used as a pretext for direct involvement. The US has also pledged to help Israel with deliveries of weapons and ammunition, with the Pentagon insisting it has enough to do so and continue supplying Ukraine. Maloof is skeptical of that assertion, however. He also told RT it was “not surprising” that some of the weapons Washington had sent Kiev ended up in the hands of Hamas. That accusation was first made by former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. Ukraine’s military intelligence, the GUR, responded on Monday by accusing Russia of sending captured Western weapons to Hamas militants in a “false flag” operation designed to make Kiev look bad to its backers. Israel has neither confirmed nor denied the weapons claim, but rejected the Ukrainian insinuations of Russian involvement in the Hamas attack as “complete nonsense.”

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“There are no intentions, no plans to put American troops on the ground in combat.”

• US Won’t Fight For Israel – White House (RT)

No American troops will be deployed to Israel, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters at the White House on Thursday. The US will continue to supply the Israel Defense Forces in their fight against Hamas, however. “We have national security interests throughout the region,”Kirby said at the daily press briefing, referring to the deployment of a carrier strike group to the eastern Mediterranean, but quashed any rumors of airborne troops or Marines being sent to Israel. “The Israelis have made it very clear that they don’t want foreign troops on their soil, that they want to prosecute these operations on their own and they have every right to want to do that,” Kirby said. “There are no intentions, no plans to put American troops on the ground in combat.”

The US already has “some experts” providing West Jerusalem with “advice and counsel” on how to free hostages taken by Hamas, and maintains a “terrific information and intelligence-sharing relationship” with Israel, as well as “a strong defense relationship, when it comes to providing weapons and munitions,” Kirby added. The IDF is “small but very capable”and the US is “doing everything we can to improve those capabilities,” he added. Earlier in the day, IDF chief of staff General Herzi Halevi said that the military “failed” to protect Israel and its people on Saturday, and that there would be a reckoning once the war against Hamas was over.

The Palestinian group that controls much of Gaza struck on the anniversary of the 1973 war, launching thousands of rockets into Israel and sending more than 1,000 militants to breach the border fence in an operation dubbed ‘Al-Aqsa Flood’. Hamas fighters stormed 22 towns, villages, and settlements, as well as a music festival being held near Gaza. Israel responded by launching airstrikes against Gaza, while deploying tanks and artillery to the southern border. So far, around 1,200 people have been killed in Israel and at least 1,100 in Gaza, according to local officials.

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Message from the arms industry.

• US Must Prepare For War With China And Russia – Congress (RT)

Washington needs to urgently update and expand both its nuclear arsenal and the conventional military in order to face the combined might of Moscow and Beijing, the congressional Strategic Posture Commission argued in its final report published on Thursday. “The United States and its allies must be ready to deter and defeat both adversaries simultaneously,” the commission said. “The US-led international order and the values it upholds are at risk from the Chinese and Russian authoritarian regimes.” While the commission has not identified any specific evidence of Russia and China working together, “we worry… there may be ultimate coordination between them in some way, which gets us to this two-war construct,” a senior official involved in the report told Reuters, on condition of anonymity.

The current US national security strategy calls for defeating one major adversary while deterring another. The commission argued that the combined threat from China and Russia will become acute as early as 2027 so “decisions need to be made now in order for the nation to be prepared.” The 131 findings and 81 recommendations in the report amount to the need for massive expansion of both the conventional armed forces and the Nuclear Triad. The report demands more of the B-21 stealth bombers and Columbia-class ballistic missile submarines. The B-21 is still in development and is expected to enter service by 2027 at the earliest. The first two Columbia-class subs are under construction and are expected in 2030. The US Navy has planned to order 12, to replace the 18 Ohio-class boats currently in service.

“Amid all of the Commission’s recommendations to increase the number of strategic and tactical nuclear systems, there is almost no mention of cost in the entire report,” which “does not seem to acknowledge any limits to defense spending,” the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) has said in response. At a press event announcing the report, the commission’s vice-chair, retired Republican Senator Jon Kyl, argued that higher military spending is a small price to “hopefully preclude” a possible nuclear war and that President Joe Biden and Congress need to “take the case to the American people” to spend more money.

According to FAS, however, the commission’s recommendations are “likely to exacerbate the arms race, further constrict the window for engaging with Russia and China on arms control, and redirect funding away from more proximate priorities.” The only reason the commission did not argue for an immediate expansion of the US nuclear stockpile “is that the weapons production complex currently does not have the capacity to do so,” FAS noted, adding that there is no need for a nuclear arms race so long as the US has enough submarines to present a credible deterrent to a first strike by an adversary.

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“The rising centers of power do not want to put up with an aggressive Western dictate.”

• Struggle For Future Of World Order ‘Intensifying’ – Moscow (RT)

The world is facing a “classic revolutionary situation” in the field of international relations, the head of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), Sergey Naryshkin, said on Thursday. An ever-increasing number of the “rising powers” around the world want more independence in their foreign policy and dislike the crumbling hegemony of the West, which it is desperately trying to preserve, he added. “The West, led by the US, can no longer ensure its dominance on a global scale,” Naryshkin told a meeting of intelligence chiefs of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) in Baku. “The rising centers of power do not want to put up with an aggressive Western dictate.” In its efforts to maintain a unipolar world, the US deliberately tries to destabilize key world regions, he believes.

Washington and its allies in London and Paris do not hesitate when it comes to manipulating various destructive forces on the international arena to achieve these goals, he stated, adding that the list of such forces includes international terrorist groups, radical Islamists, and ultranationalist movements. According to Naryshkin, America’s efforts have disrupted the peace process in Syria and exacerbated the situation in Afghanistan. They have also recently turned their eyes towards Africa, where they have allegedly encouraged various militant factions to launch attacks against the infrastructure in Mali and the Central African Republic, the Russian spy chief said, citing what he called “reliable information” in his agency’s possession.

The West orchestrates “sabotage operations against African nations that are friendly to Russia,” Naryshkin claimed, adding that the group of the seven biggest developed economies known as the G7 also “actively work against Russia.” The West openly hosts and supports various “separatist terrorist structures calling for subversion of the Russian state order and violation of its territorial integrity,” the official said, naming the so-called ‘Free Nations of Post-Russia’ Forum among them. A loose association of various opposition activists, as well as ethnic and regional separatist movements, the forum openly advocates the disintegration of Russia under the slogans of “decolonization” and “de-occupation.” In March, it was designated an “undesirable organization” in Russia.

Three meetings of the forum have already been hosted, with two taking place in Poland and one in the Czech Republic. The fourth meeting is scheduled to be held in Sweden in December. “It is obvious to any sensible person that the manifestation of such … desires would have led to Eurasia plunging into a horrible ethnic and religious conflict,” Naryshkin said, calling it evidence of Washington’s intent to “set the Eurasian continent on fire.” The West is “playing with fire” and “the future of the world order is at stake,” he warned, calling on “more responsible global and regional actors” to join their forces and coordinate their efforts to prevent destabilization instigated by the West and lead the world towards a multipolar world order.

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“Zelensky admitted that Ukraine is afraid of a possible shortage of financial resources and weapons. He added that Kiev has “many more fears” in the current situation.”

• Zelensky Final Stage of Conflict Statement Shows Hopelessness – Lavrov (Sp.)

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s recent statement on Kiev entering a final stage of conflict with Moscow shows his hopelessness, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Thursday. “I think [of it] as an admission of hopelessness,” Lavrov told reporters, when asked about Zelenskyy’s statement. Earlier, President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an interview with a Romanian TV channel that the conflict in Ukraine is at its final stage. In addition, Zelensky admitted that Ukraine is afraid of a possible shortage of financial resources and weapons. He added that Kiev has “many more fears” in the current situation. In September, Lavrov said at a press conference after his speech at the UN General Assembly that Russia was ready for talks on Ukraine, but would not consider proposals for a ceasefire.

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Borrell is headed for China, and he doesn’t come empty handed. No, he comes with criticism and demands. Which is the one thing you don’t do on such an occasion.

He also said: “It is time China started taking Europe more seriously..” Well, you just assured they won’t. You are the anti-diplomat.

• Beijing Can’t Be Neutral On ‘Fox Entering Henhouse’ – Borrell (RT)

China should do more to convince Kiev and its Western backers that it is not on Moscow’s side in the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has said ahead of a visit to the Asian superpower. He expressed doubt that neutrality on the issue is even possible. “Being neutral in such a case is just like watching on the sidelines as the fox enters the henhouse and waiting for the outcome,” he said in an interview with the South China Morning Post on Thursday. Beijing has criticized its ally, Moscow for using force, but agreed with Russian claims that NATO expansion in Europe was one of the main causes of the conflict. The EU has joined the US in describing Russia’s actions as “unprovoked aggression.” Moscow has said the conflict is part of a Western proxy war.

“China can certainly do more, including in its engagement on the peace formula put forward by Ukraine,” the commissioner added, stating that “a lot remains to be done to convince Ukraine that China is not on Russia’s side.” The ‘Zelensky formula’ that Borrell was referring to was put forward by Kiev and its backers as the only way to resolve the conflict. It demands that Russia concede defeat, pay reparations, and hand over alleged war criminals to an international tribunal. Beijing proposed its own roadmap to de-escalation last year, urging respect for the territorial integrity “of all countries” while addressing Russia’s national security concerns. Moscow has dismissed Kiev’s plan, saying it is “detached from reality,” while the Chinese proposal could serve as the basis for a long-term solution.

Borrell said his goal during the three-day visit is to affirm that “Europe takes China seriously and has no hidden agenda aiming at derailing its rise.” Brussels expects Beijing to take it seriously in return and to “stop looking at us through the lens of its relations with others.” He added that the “war in Ukraine has transformed us … from the position of an economic power to a geopolitical one, taking its strategic responsibilities very seriously.” The EU has decoupled its economy from Russia over the Ukraine conflict. The rejection of cheap Russian energy undercut the competitiveness of many businesses in member states, some of which relocated to other nations, including the US.

Senior EU officials have argued that the bloc needs to “de-risk” economic relations with China, specifically citing its non-alignment on Ukraine as a reason. “How China continues to interact with [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s war will be a determining factor for EU-China relations going forward,” European Commission President Ursula von Der Leyen said in March. Chinese President Xi Jinping stated that Beijing is standing up “for its sovereignty, security and development interests,” when he hosted the EU official the following month.

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And the US is trying to do them one better.

• Europe Made A ‘Grave Mistake’ On Immigration – Kissinger (Az.)

Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger has said that nations in Europe were wrong to take in many people who are now supporting Hamas’ actions against Israel. Unless the militant group is punished for its hostage-taking, Europeans risk being targeted similarly, he warned. In an interview published on Wednesday, Mathias Dopfner, the CEO of German media group Axel Springer, asked the veteran statesman about “Arabs celebrating” in the streets of Berlin after Hamas’ incursion into southern Israel last week. Kissinger, a Jewish survivor of the Holocaust, said he found such gestures of support for criminal acts “painful.” “It was a grave mistake to let in so many people of totally different cultural and religious concepts because it creates a pressure group inside each country that does that,” he noted.

Asked what Germany and the EU should do in the current situation, Kissinger said he expected “unconditional” political support for Israel – as well as military suppor if needed. “There has to be some penalty; there has to be some serious limitation on their capability of taking this kind of action,” he said of Hamas tactics. “I would say that every European nation has the same interest because the same attitude might erupt in the direction of Europe,” he warned. Washington’s former top diplomat recalled peace talks that resolved the Yom Kippur War five decades ago, saying that Western nations and Israel were lucky to have an Arab leader “with a vision of the future” in Anwar Sadat, the former president of Egypt.

“I don’t think it is possible to find leaders among the Hamas group [with a similar vision],” he said, “I think Hamas should be excluded from a political role.” Pro-Palestinian rallies were held in multiple European cities amid the escalation in the Middle East. In Berlin, police broke down a spontaneous demonstration on Saturday, which was associated with the NGO Samidoun. The German law enforcement said the protesters posed an “immediate threat to public safety” due to “anti-Israel” chants “glorifying violence.” The German government was at the forefront of welcoming asylum-seekers during the 2015 influx, when some 1.3 million people arrived on the continent in just one year. Anti-migrant sentiments surged in many nations during the crisis, with some Eastern European members of the EU adopting policies to curb immigration.

Tucker

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“I didn’t want to be dishonest, but I didn’t want them to know the truth.”

• ‘Star Witness’ Ellison Unveils Chaos Behind FTX’s Fake Balance Sheets (ZH)

What would a second day of testimony in the FTX trial for Caroline Ellison have been without mentions of identity theft from Thai prostitutes and bribing Chinese officials? Taking the stand on Wednesday, Sam Bankman-Fried’s former love interest turned star government witness against him, Ellison, spoke about the balance sheet that led to the downfall of Bankman-Fried’s companies. Ellison stated that this balance sheet was a manipulated version of what Alameda had sent to its lenders, deliberately crafted to give the impression that the firm was in a more robust financial condition than was actually the case. She described the document as “deceptive.” Previously it had been reported that, at Bankman-Fried’s direction, Ellison had “prepared seven different versions of Alameda’s balance sheet to potentially show to lenders,” according to The Messenger.

However, even the manipulated figures were concerning—laden with FTX’s FTT token and other tokens closely affiliated with Bankman-Fried—casting doubt on the financial viability of both Alameda and FTX. Among potential lenders was Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Ellison testified Wednesday. She also lied to Genesis, one of FTX’s lenders, about Alameda’s balance sheet, @teddyschleifer reported on X Wednesday. “Caroline Ellison testified that Sam Bankman-Fried ordered her to lie in mid 2022 to Genesis, one of FTX’s lenders, about Alameda’s balance sheet,” he wrote. “Caroline prepared a bunch of bullshit balance-sheets that they could send, and Sam chose ‘Alternative 7’ as the best lie of the bunch.” Ellison reportedly said: “I didn’t want to be dishonest, but I didn’t want them to know the truth.”

Ellison testified on Wednesday: “I was in a constant state of dread. I knew we would have to take the money from our line of credit and that was money that could be called in at any time.” And where was the money going? Ellison testified that she and Alameda executives had “paid a large bribe to Chinese officials” to obtain funds that were locked on a Chinese exchange. After initial attempts to unfreeze funds by negotiating with the Chinese government through lawyers proved unsuccessful, Ellison stated that the FTX/Alameda team then endeavored—yet failed again—to access the funds by setting up fictitious exchange accounts using IDs that she believed belonged to “Thai prostitutes.”

Ultimately, Ellison was able to secure the funds after making a $100 million payment to a cryptocurrency account she believed was somehow connected to Chinese government officials. Ellison recounted an episode where an employee, whose father was a Chinese government official, voiced objections to the plan during a meeting. In response, Bankman-Fried became increasingly irritated and eventually told the employee to “shut the f*** up.” In a confidential “State of Alameda” memo authored by Ellison in November 2021, shortly after the payment was executed, she included an entry labeled “-150m from the thing?” under a section outlining “notable/idiosyncratic” financial events.

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It’s a power game.

• CEO of X -aka Twitter- Responds To EU ‘Disinfo’ Threats (RT)

The CEO of X (formerly Twitter), Linda Yaccarino, has defended the platform’s response to a purported surge in disinformation and harmful content following Hamas’ attack on Israel in an open letter to EU internal markets commissioner Thierry Breton on Wednesday. The social media platform has “redistributed resources” and “refocused teams” to manage the flow of information regarding the conflict 24/7, Yaccarino explained, claiming that a dedicated “leadership group” had been assembled in the immediate aftermath of the Palestinian militants’ incursion to devise a platform-wide strategy. As a result, she said, tens of thousands of posts and other media related to the war had been removed since Saturday, while hundreds of accounts allegedly connected to terrorist groups, extremism, and violence had been deplatformed.

“There is no place on X for terrorist organization or violent extremist groups and we continue to remove such accounts in real time, including proactive efforts,” Yaccarino wrote. More than 700 Community Notes, the crowdsourced fact-checking platform owner Elon Musk has promoted as an alternative to establishment fact-checkers, are circulating regarding the conflict, she continued, revealing that the annotations are being published faster than ever before. Breton had warned Musk in an “urgent” open letter on Tuesday that X was facing a potential investigation and steep penalties under the EU’s new Digital Services Act if it did not immediately address the illegal content and disinformation purportedly running rampant on the platform regarding the Israel-Gaza conflict.

The billionaire was given 24 hours to respond to Breton’s demands, which included an order to reach out to law enforcement in order to “ensure [X] respond[s] promptly to their requests.” In her response, Yaccarino insisted that X was responding readily to requests from law enforcement, but that it had received none from Europol at the time of writing. While Breton had claimed that the EU had “indications” X was being used to spread both disinformation and illegal content, suggesting “qualified sources” had confirmed the platform was flouting EU regulations, he did not mention any specific violations in his letter. Musk repeatedly requested examples in a thread on X, but Breton demurred, claiming the Tesla CEO was “well aware” of complaints regarding “fake content and glorification of violence.”

X’s Safety division revealed earlier this week that the platform had seen an increase in daily active users in Israel and Palestine and was specifically targeting new Hamas-affiliated accounts for removal via a partnership with the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism. On Wednesday, Breton also reached out to threaten Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg with a similar “urgent” letter, warning the billionaire he had 24 hours to provide the bloc with a detailed description of how his platform was addressing the spread of disinformation and illegal content regarding the Israel-Hamas war.

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“..Just as Bobby Kennedy sees a path to victory as an independent, so do the donors that were reluctant to contribute with him running as a Democrat..”

• RFK Jr. Sees Surge in Fundraising After Declaring Independent Run (ET)

Within hours of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s announcement that he will run for president as an independent and not a Democrat, the super PAC supporting his candidacy raised more than $11 million. American Values 2024 disclosed on Oct. 10 that it has generated $11.28 million since Mr. Kennedy told an audience in front of the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, “I’m here to declare myself an independent candidate for president of the United States.” Individual events have spurred bountiful fundraising for Mr. Kennedy. In September, a private fundraiser performance by musician Eric Clapton generated more than $2 million that was split between the campaign and American Values 2024.

The organization tallied about $6.47 million in July from a mix of donors who are registered Democrats and Republicans, according to American Values 2024. That number included about $5 million collected during Mr. Kennedy’s testimony in a hearing about censorship before the House Judiciary Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government. Individuals can give as much as $3,300 to a political candidate’s campaign, according to the Federal Election Commission. Super political action committees (PACs) are allowed to raise unlimited sums of money from corporations, unions, associations, and individuals and “spend unlimited sums to overtly advocate for or against political candidates,” according to OpenSecrets, an organization that tracks money in U.S. politics and its impact on elections and public policy.

RFK

Unlike traditional PACs, super PACS may not contribute money directly to political candidates. Prominent Democratic Party donors like Abby Rockefeller have contributed to American Values 2024, but Republican donors have given a majority of the money the super PAC has received, including former President Donald Trump donor Tim Mellon, according to American Values 2024 reports. Tony Lyons, co-chair of American Values 2024, spoke to The Epoch Times about the influx of support. “People feel that the Democratic National Committee was disenfranchising them and that Bobby would not get the nomination based on the rules the DNC was putting into place and the inflammatory statements they have made about him time after time,” he said.

“They feel that their vote wouldn’t count, and that their donation wouldn’t be helpful because the primary would be rigged. Just as Bobby Kennedy sees a path to victory as an independent, so do the donors that were reluctant to contribute with him running as a Democrat,” Mr. Lyons explained. George Washington, America’s first president, is the only independent candidate to win election to the nation’s highest office. No independent candidate has won an electoral vote in the past 50 years. America, Mr. Kennedy believes, is ready for “a new page in American politics.”

Read more …

 

 

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Debt Rattle March 16 2021

Mar 162021
 
 March 16, 2021  Posted by at 9:08 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , ,  46 Responses »


Paul Gauguin A Day of No Gods 1894

 

• Biden To Propose First Major Federal Tax Hike Since 1993 (DM)
• This Is What You Voted For (Kunstler)
• White House Set To Unveil Sweeping Vaccine-Confidence Campaign (STAT)
• Is Biden Holding America Hostage Until ‘Independence’ Day? (Ron Paul)
• Germany, France And Italy Suspend Oxford Covid Vaccine (G.)
• UK Coronavirus Variant Significantly More Deadly Says New Study (F.)
• Regular ‘Booster’ Shots Will Become Commonplace As New Variants Emerge (RT)
• Cuba Working on a ‘People’s Vaccine’ (CP)
• Facebook Will Add Labels To All Posts About Covid-19 Vaccines (F.)
• Immigrant Teens To Be Housed At Dallas Convention Center (AP)
• Beijing Orders Alibaba To Dump Media Assets (ZH)
• The Stockton Experiment: How a Guaranteed Income Can Actually Solve Inequality

 

 

 

 

How an anonymous source becomes part of a impeachment trial.

 

 

“..a conundrum on how much of the bill should be paid for with tax hikes and what parts should be financed with even more federal borrowing..”

• Biden To Propose First Major Federal Tax Hike Since 1993 (DM)

Joe Biden is planning to propose the first substantial federal tax hike since 1993 for Americans to help pay for his long-term economic program after he signed the largest stimulus package in U.S. history with a price tag of $1.9 trillion. Four people familiar with discussion told Bloomberg that Biden is expected to propose a series of tax increases, including repealing parts of Donald Trump’s 2017 tax law that resulted in most Americans seeing more in their paychecks, to help fund the latest proposal. Trump’s tax cuts led to most Americans receiving more take home pay and resulted in an average increase of $90 in tax returns from 2017 to 2018. With the former president’s income tax cuts, Americans immediately saw somewhere between a 0.4 per cent and 2.9 per cent increase in their paychecks after taxes.

Now the White House is preparing to roll out another sweeping plan to tackle infrastructure and the economic crisis, which some say could fall somewhere between the $2-$4 trillion mark. Biden plans to kick off his cross-country tour this week promoting and seeking to bolster enthusiasm for the coronavirus relief package, where the White House will also ensure he receives credit for benefits included in the bill. First lady Jill Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and first gentlemen Doug Emhoff will also hit the road this week to promote the sweeping legislation. Next on the president’s docket is getting another pricey funding bill through Congress that addresses infrastructure, climate and education.

Republicans are more than likely to pounce on the plan, painting Democrats as the Party of higher taxes. The tax hike could also blow any chances of lawmakers reaching a bipartisan deal on infrastructure – something Democratic Senator Joe Manchin says is unacceptable and that he will likely block. With a narrow majority in the House and a 50-50 split in the Senate, Democrats must craft the proposal in a way that gains support from nearly every lawmaker in their caucus. White House officials are now facing a conundrum on how much of the bill should be paid for with tax hikes and what parts should be financed with even more federal borrowing.

Read more …

“Mr. Biden’s “honeymoon” period is about over.”

• This Is What You Voted For (Kunstler)

Meanwhile, up in Minneapolis, where jury selection is underway in the trial of former police officer Derek Chauvin in the death of George Floyd, the City Council approved 13-to-0 a $27-million wrongful death civil settlement to Mr. Floyd’s family. Say, what…? The way it’s supposed to work is that a civil case for wrongful death follows the criminal trial — for how would you know what’s rightful or wrongful in a matter before the facts in the case have been adjudicated? Sounds like Hennepin County, MN, may not be the right venue for these proceedings.

Should Mr. Chauvin face a jury that will likely have heard news reports that the city council already decided the verdict, and in the most imprecise terms possible? “Mr. Floyd died because the weight of the entire Minneapolis Police Department was on his neck,” Floyd family Attorney Ben Crump said when the suit was filed. Systemic racism, you see. Following the George Floyd riots last year, the Minneapolis City Council announced its plan to defund the police. In February 2021, the council announced the release of $6.4-million to hire more police, following a dramatic uptick in crime. Such are the strange inconsistencies of life under the crypto-Jacobin revolution in America today.

Speaking of Joe Biden, alleged to be president, he was oddly absent altogether on the front page of Monday’s New York Times, leading the curious to wonder if last Tuesday night’s Coronavirus Action speech drained his dwindling mojo for the rest of the month. The curious might also seek to know why Mr. Biden’s “team” is still so wound up about eradicating Coronavirus, yet eager to let tens of thousands cross the border illegally from Mexico, many of them live vectors of the virus, who are then bussed all over the USA under the revived “catch-and-release” policy. Mr. Biden’s “honeymoon” period is about over. The country had not quite discovered just how leaderless it is. Will it come as a shock to find out? After all, isn’t this what you voted for?

Read more …

Snake oil salesmen?

• White House Set To Unveil Sweeping Vaccine-Confidence Campaign (STAT)

The White House will soon unveil a wide-reaching public relations campaign aimed at boosting vaccine confidence and uptake across the U.S., Biden administration aides told STAT. This television, radio, and digital advertising blitz, set to kick off within weeks, will focus on Americans outright skeptical of vaccines’ safety or effectiveness as well as those who are potentially more willing to seek a Covid-19 immunization but don’t yet know where, when, or how. Specifically, the campaign will target three groups in which access, apathy, or outright skepticism may pose a barrier to vaccinations: young people, people of color, and conservatives, according to a Biden aide. Congress and the administration have set aside over $1.5 billion for the effort.

The effort highlights a looming and underappreciated public health challenge: Though millions of Americans are currently clamoring to receive a Covid-19 vaccine, in a few short months, or even weeks, the opposite may be true. Instead of scrambling to manufacture doses, the government may soon be scrambling to find arms willing to receive them. While the administration Covid response advisers organizing the effort are broadly optimistic, they and many public health experts fear that without winning buy-in from a critical, final slice of the population, the effort could fall short of its goal: effectively ending the country’s coronavirus crisis. “I’m worried about the 15% of Americans who say they will not take the vaccine,” said Sten Vermund, the dean of the Yale School of Public Health.

“And about 8% or 9% of Americans say, ‘I will take it if they make me, if my job forces me to.’ So that’s about 23% or 24%, and that’s flirting with the level we need to get to herd immunity.” The rollout fulfills one of Biden’s first promises in office. He pledged on Jan. 21 to kick off an “unprecedented vaccination public health campaign” aimed at convincing every American adult to seek a Covid-19 immunization.= As for the specific content, administration officials said they were mindful that appeals directly from President Biden or Anthony Fauci are not likely to sway vaccine-hesitant people. As a result, they are expected to recruit both celebrities and trusted local officials to advance the pro-vaccine message.

Read more …

“..politicians cannot bear the possibility that they might have to give up some of that power over us they have grabbed for themselves..”

• Is Biden Holding America Hostage Until ‘Independence’ Day? (Ron Paul)

Last week President Biden addressed the nation on the first anniversary of the coronavirus being declared a “pandemic.” It was a disturbing speech, warning us that the “hopeful spring” will only emerge “from a dark winter” if all Americans “stick with the rules.” Whose rules? His rules. The message from the president was clear: he will only allow us to have some of our freedoms back if we do exactly as he tells us. It was the language of extortion, of a bank robber who demands you do what he says or face the consequences. It was not the language of someone we are told is the leader of the free world. In the speech Biden laid out a list of what was taken from us over the past year, “weddings, birthdays, graduations…family reunions, the Sunday night rituals.”

It was as if somehow the virus, instead of authoritarian government officials, prevented us from enjoying these normal human activities. Though we continue to see Covid disappear across the country with the end of the winter season, Biden was not about to let go of his perceived power to control our lives. He said, “if we do all this, if we do our part, if we do this together, by July the 4, there’s a good chance you, your families and friends, will be able to get together in your backyard or in your neighborhood and have a cookout or a barbecue and celebrate Independence Day. That doesn’t mean large events with lots of people together, but it does mean small groups will be able to get together.” Imagine our Founders hearing this speech. The US president might – just might – allow small family gatherings at home in four months if we follow all of his rules.

King George looked benevolent by comparison! As Rep. Thomas Massie Tweeted shortly after the speech, “If you’re waiting for permission from the chief executive to celebrate Independence Day with your family, you clearly don’t grasp the concept of Independence.” It seems like yesterday – it almost was – that Biden “asked” us to just wear the mask for 100 days. “Just 100 days to mask, not forever. 100 days,” he said. So from “just 100 days” to maybe you can have a small gathering by July 4th? Perhaps he just forgot his earlier speech? As usual, the goalposts keep being moved because politicians cannot bear the possibility that they might have to give up some of that power over us they have grabbed for themselves.

Fauci made the usual mainstream media rounds over the weekend and was asked by the fawning host when Americans might have permission to hold weddings again! So now Americans need Fauci’s permission to get married? What is happening to this country? The propaganda is so relentless that it seems most Americans don’t see how not normal this is! In saner times, Fauci would be laughed off the stage. Now, he’s treated as some sort of divine source of truth. Biden promised he was “using every power…as the president of the United States to put us on a war footing.” Of that I have no doubt. But Biden’s war is not against the virus. It’s against the US Constitution and liberty itself.

Read more …

The very same people who advocated we “listen to the science”, have now abandoned the science and advocate untested substances.

• Germany, France And Italy Suspend Oxford Covid Vaccine (G.)

Germany, France and Italy have suspended the Oxford/AstraZeneca’s Covid vaccine as the World Health Organization said it had seen no evidence the shot had caused incidents of blood clots and a low platelet count in some people who received it. The German health ministry said the country’s vaccine authority, the Paul Ehrlich Institute, “considers further investigation necessary after new reports of cerebral brain thrombosis in connection with vaccination in Germany and Europe”. The European Medicines Agency (EMA) should decide “whether and how the new findings will affect the approval of the vaccine”, the ministry said. The health minister, Jens Spahn, said seven cases of cerebral vein thrombosis had been reported.

While this was a “very low risk” compared with the 1.6 million jabs already given in the country, Spahn said, it would be above average if a link to the vaccine was confirmed. “The decision today is a purely precautionary measure,” he said. The French president, Emmanuel Macron, said France would also stop administering the AstraZeneca shot pending an EMA assessment due on Tuesday, while the Italian medicines authority, Aifa, said it was temporarily halting inoculations as a “precautionary and temporary measure” before the EMA decision. The three countries join a growing number in Europe to have temporarily suspended use of the AstraZeneca vaccine in recent days.

Denmark and Norway last week reported incidents of bleeding, blood clots and a low count of blood platelets in people who had received the AstraZeneca shot, prompting Ireland and the Netherlands to join them on Sunday in temporary suspensions. Karl Lauterbach, a professor of health economic and epidemiology at the University of Cologne and a German MP, criticised the decision. “Based on the data available, I consider this to be a mistake,” Lauterbach said. “Testing without suspension of vaccination would have been better because of the rarity of the complication. In the third wave, which is now picking up speed, the first vaccinations with the AstraZeneca vaccine would be lifesavers.”

Read more …

Scary, but why try to scare us?

• UK Coronavirus Variant Significantly More Deadly Says New Study (F.)

The U.K. coronavirus variant known as B.1.1.7 is not only more transmissible, but also more deadly than other coronavirus variants, according to a new study. B.1.1.7 was first identified in the U.K. last fall and by December it was detected in several other countries including the U.S. The variant is known to be substantially more transmissible than other SARS-CoV2 coronavirus lineages and quickly took over as the dominant variant in the U.K., late last year, sparking off a damaging and deadly second wave. Scientists had suspected that B.1.1.7 might be more deadly, as well as more transmissible following a higher-than-expected number of deaths in the U.K. during the third wave this winter, which saw the U.K’s worst daily death total in January claim over 1,800 lives.

But, the new study published in the journal Nature, led by researchers at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine all but confirms that this correlation is genuine. The study looked at viral genetics data from almost 5,000 people in the U.K. who died from Covid-19, with two-thirds of those being confirmed to have the B.1.1.7 variant. It found that people who were infected with B.1.1.7 had a 55% higher risk of dying within 28 days of being tested positive for Covid-19. “England has suffered an enormous toll from B.1.1.7 in the last few months, with 42,000 COVID-19 deaths in January and February 2021 alone,” said Nick Davies, PhD, lead author from LSHTM’s Centre for the Mathematical Modelling of Infectious Diseases.

“In spite of substantial advances in COVID-19 treatment, we have already seen more deaths in 2021 than we did over the first eight months of the pandemic in 2020. Our work helps to explain why,” Davies added. The new work follows another study from the U.K. published last week, which showed that people who tested positive for B.1.1.7 in a community setting were also more likely to die within 28 days of a positive test than those with other variants.

Read more …

What a lovely prospect.

• Regular ‘Booster’ Shots Will Become Commonplace As New Variants Emerge (RT)

The head of Britain’s Covid-19 genomics programme has warned that there will be a need for regular booster jabs to protect people against the virus as new potentially vaccine-busting variants emerge. “We have to appreciate that we were always going to have to have booster doses; immunity to coronavirus doesn’t last forever,” Sharon Peacock, UK Covid-19 Genomics (COG-UK) chief, told Reuters at the Wellcome Sanger Institute’s Cambridge campus on Monday. Peacock, whose COG-UK programme has sequenced half of the world’s mapped Covid-19 genomes, said she was confident new variants would emerge that would render the current vaccines ineffective.


“We already are tweaking the vaccines to deal with what the virus is doing in terms of evolution – so there are variants arising that have a combination of increased transmissibility and an ability to partially evade our immune response,” she said. The genomics chief said the “cat and mouse” battle with the virus will require international cooperation. COG-UK was set up a year ago by Peacock and the British government’s chief scientific adviser, Patrick Vallance, and has sequenced 346,713 genomes out of a total of 709,000 genomes mapped worldwide. To date, more than 24 million people in the UK have received at least their first vaccine dose; all vaccines being used have demonstrated considerable efficacy against the virus variants prevalent in Britain.

Read more …

“The life of just one person is worth more than the private property of the richest man.”

• Cuba Working on a ‘People’s Vaccine’ (CP)

“The life of just one person is worth more than the private property of the richest man.” This is what’s written on the Calixto Garcia public hospital in Havana Cuba as a testament to the country’s commitment to free public healthcare, and to putting people before profit. I know this about Cuba because in March, at the onset of the global Covid-19 pandemic, I spent a week in the ICU at Calixto Garcia. I had been hit by a speeding ambulance, and Cuban doctors saved my life, operated on me twice, and nursed me to stability before putting me on a private medical evacuation flight back to the U.S. All of this, including the flight, was free of cost to me- covered by Cuba’s government-run insurance for foreign visitors.

From my hospital bed, as the global emergency around me escalated, I witnessed how the Cuban government swiftly mobilized resources to protect its citizens from Covid-19: at-home testing for anyone with symptoms, door to door preventative education in the most vulnerable neighborhoods, and coordinated isolation when necessary. While deaths soared toward 100,000 in the U.S., Cuba was able to get the average daily Covid-19 related deaths close to zero for most of May-August. Cuba’s humanist approach when it comes to health was not new to me. In 2013, I co-directed a documentary on a free hospital in northern Honduras. The doctors there, all from afro-indigenous Garifuna communities, had been trained in Cuba at the Latin American School of Medicine (ELAM) for free.

Cuba created the ELAM in 1999 to train doctors from the poorest regions of countries around the world (including the U.S.), providing full scholarships of six years tuition, room, and board, with the hope that these doctors would return and provide accessible and preventative healthcare in their communities. The ELAM was born as a response to the devastation of Hurricane Mitch in 1998, and has trained tens of thousands of doctors from over 110 countries since then. Cuba is now poised to play an important role in global efforts to curb the pandemic. New variants in South Africa and Brazil, all with yet unknown implications for vaccine effectiveness, have shown us that any effort to achieve herd immunity is only as good as it is accessible equitably across the globe. Yet, as predicted, the global north is outpacing the global south dramatically in vaccination.

On February 3, Anthony Fauci said, in an event hosted by the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) network, that developing COVID-19 vaccines “is not a race.” “We want everybody to get over the finish line,” he assured. Dr. Fauci mentioned the Russian and the Chinese vaccines and later suggested that the U.S. should help other countries strengthen their vaccine manufacturing capacity to promote more vaccinations globally. At no point did he mention Cuba. Thanks to an established publicly-funded biotechnology program, Cuba currently has four vaccine candidates. One of those vaccines, Soberana 02, started Phase 3 clinical trials in early March. Another candidate, Abdala, started Phase 2 trials in February. Both vaccines are being developed by public research institutions and are the most promising candidates in Latin America. The fact that Dr. Fauci failed to mention these candidates is disappointing.

Read more …

“No King in the History of the World has been the Ruler of Two Billion People, but Mark Zuckerberg is”

• Facebook Will Add Labels To All Posts About Covid-19 Vaccines (F.)

Facebook will soon add labels to all posts about coronavirus vaccines that points people to its Covid-19 Information Center, the company said in a blog post on Monday as part of its plans to promote vaccination efforts on its platforms, amidst continued criticism from health experts and lawmakers for allowing misinformation about vaccines to spread on its platform. In a blog post, Facebook said it is already adding labels to posts that discuss the safety of the Covid vaccines, pointing people to credible information from the World Health Organization both on its main platform and Instagram. In the coming weeks, labels will be added to all posts generally about Covid-19 vaccines and the company also plans to add additional targeted labels about other specific Covid-19 vaccine subtopics..

Users who share a post about Covid-19 vaccines on Facebook or Instagram will see an additional popup with an informational label which the company says will offer people “context they need to make informed decisions about what to share.” Facebook has also rolled out its Covid-19 Information Center on Instagram for the first time on Monday, nearly a year after it appeared on the main platform. The company also disclosed that it has implemented several temporary measures to limit the spread of vaccine misinformation including reducing distribution of content from users who have violated the platform’s policies on COVID-19 and vaccine misinformation.

In addition to tackling misinformation Facebook has promised to share real-time aggregate trends on Covid-19 vaccinations, intent to get vaccinated and reasons for hesitancy with public officials. Facebook is also working with health authorities and governments to expand their chatbots on the messaging service WhatsApp to enable it to allow registration for vaccinations. Facebook also announced it is rolling out a tool in the U.S. that will help people identify nearby places where they can get a vaccine. The tool, which is part of Facebook’s Covid-19 Information Center will include details about hours of operation, contact info and links to make an appointment. Announcing some of the new measures in a Facebook post, the company’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote: “The data shows the vaccines are safe and they work. They’re our best hope for getting past this virus and getting back to normal life. I’m looking forward to getting mine, and I hope you are too.”

‘No King in the History of the World has been the Ruler of Two Billion People, but Mark Zuckerberg is’

Read more …

Growing numbers.

• Immigrant Teens To Be Housed At Dallas Convention Center (AP)

The U.S. government plans to house up to 3,000 immigrant teenagers at a convention center in downtown Dallas as it struggles to find space for a surge of migrant children at the border who have strained the immigration system just two months into the Biden administration. American authorities encountered people crossing the border without legal status more than 100,000 times in February — a level higher than all but four months of Donald Trump’s presidency. The spike in traffic poses a challenge to President Joe Biden at a fraught moment with Congress, which is about to take up immigration legislation, and has required the help of the American Red Cross.

The Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center will be used for up to 90 days beginning as early as this week, according to a memo obtained by The Associated Press that was sent Monday to members of the Dallas City Council. Federal agencies will use the facility to house boys ages 15 to 17, according to the memo, which describes the soon-to-open site as a “decompression center.” The Health and Human Services Department is rushing to open facilities across the country to house immigrant children who are otherwise being held by the Border Patrol, which is generally supposed to detain children for no more than three days. The Border Patrol is holding children longer because there is next to no space in the HHS system, similar to the last major increase in migration two years ago.

A tent facility operated by the Border Patrol in Donna, some 500 miles (804 kilometers) south of Dallas, is holding more than 1,000 children and teenagers, some as young as 4. Lawyers who inspect immigrant detention facilities under a court settlement say they interviewed children who reported being held in packed conditions in the tent, with some sleeping on the floor and others not able to shower for five days. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Saturday directed the Federal Emergency Management Agency to help manage and care for children crossing the border. “I am incredibly proud of the agents of the Border Patrol, who have been working around the clock in difficult circumstances to take care of children temporarily in our care,” Mayorkas said in a statement. “Yet, as I have said many times, a Border Patrol facility is no place for a child.”

Read more …

Where’s Jack Ma these days?

• Beijing Orders Alibaba To Dump Media Assets (ZH)

Beijing is reviving its crackdown on the country’s biggest tech firms, reminding the world that the CCP is still focused on neutralizing any and all threats to its control of the Chinese economy and its people. Even after amending China’s official ideology to include entrepreneurs among the protected classes represented by the CCP (in addition to workers, farmers and soldiers), Beijing, with President Xi at its center, has apparently decided that Chinese tech firms won’t follow the American model after all. Instead, their growth and competitive capabilities will be curtailed for the sake of stability at home.

After Tencent was censured and strict new requirements weren officailly imposed on Alibaba-owned Ant Group that will prevent the company from growing, the Wall Street Journal reports that next up on Beijing’s to-do list is to force Alibaba to dump its array of media outlets. Presumably, Beijing sees these outlets as an unwelcome competitor to Beijing’s own propaganda machine. Alibaba’s media portfolio includes ownership of the South China Morning Post, Hong Kong’s most widely read English-language newspaper, which has an audience far outside of Hong Kong. The paper often struggled with its coverage of the unrest in Hong Kong, occasionally adopting the language of the CCP (like referring to the demonstrators as “rioters”) while still managing to rankle Beijing with its detailed coverage of the demonstrations.

According to WSJ, the CCP has been “discussing” whether to force the divestitures since early this year. Chinese regulators have been “reviewing” a list of media assets owned by Hangzhou-based Alibaba, which earns most of its money via an online retail business. Officials were appalled at how expensive Alibaba’s media interests have become. Now, Beijing is asking Alibaba to devise a plan to “curtail” its media holdings. Now, just imagine if President Trump tried to force Amazon to sell the Washington Post.

Read more …

Botched UBI?

• The Stockton Experiment: How a Guaranteed Income Can Actually Solve Inequality

An ongoing study conducted in Stockton, California, examines how the lives of low-income Americans can improve if they are simply given money—a modest, but reliable source of income with no strings attached. The Stockton Economic Empowerment Demonstration (SEED) randomly chose 125 participants from poverty-stricken residential areas and gave them $500 per month to simply use for whatever they wanted over the last two years. A majority of the participants were women (69 percent) and people of color (53 percent). Preliminary results from the first year are tantalizing for anyone interested in solutions to address rising inequality in the United States, especially as they manifest along racial and gender lines.

Within the first year, the study’s participants obtained jobs at twice the rate of the control group. At the beginning of the study, 28 percent of the participants had full-time employment, and after the first year, that number rose to 40 percent. Sukhi Samra, the director of SEED, explained to me in an interview that although Andrew Yang, the former presidential candidate now running for mayor of New York City, helped popularize the idea of a universal basic income (UBI), the Stockton study of a “guaranteed basic income” (GBI) is subtly different from Yang’s proposal. “Where guaranteed income differs,” said Samra, “is that it’s usually targeted along income lines,” rather than given to everyone.

“It’s more often touted as a tool for equity, especially racial and gender equity,” she added. Samra said it was important to frame the idea of GBI within the “racial justice and social justice movements of the 1960s when you had Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the National Welfare Rights Organization and the Black Panthers all advocating for a guaranteed income as the simplest and most effective way to abolish poverty.” Indeed, Dr. King wrote in his last book, Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?, that he was “convinced that the simplest approach will prove to be the most effective—the solution to poverty is to abolish it directly by a now widely discussed measure: the guaranteed income.”

Read more …

 

 

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Debt Rattle May 31 2019

May 312019
 
 May 31, 2019  Posted by at 9:01 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , ,  5 Responses »


 

• Julian Assange Shows Psychological Torture Symptoms – UN Expert (G.)
• Julian Assange Must Never Be Extradited (Matt Taibbi)
• The Unrelenting State (Craig Murray)
• Trump Announces Tariffs On Mexico Until ‘Immigration Problem Remedied’ (G.)
• Futures, Peso Tumble As Trump Unleashes Tariffs On Mexico (ZH)
• GOP Senator Grassley Blasts Trump Over Mexico Tariff Threat (Hill)
• Russiagate Is #1 Threat To US National Security – Stephen Cohen (RT)
• Malaysia PM Wants Evidence To Show Russia Shot Down MH17 (FMT)
• Boeing Admits It ‘Fell Short’ On Safety Alert For 737 (BBC)
• Yield-Curve Spaghetti (WS)
• Ted Cruz, AOC Agree To Ban Former Congress Members From Becoming Lobbyists (G.)

 

 

Time is ticking away.

• Julian Assange Shows Psychological Torture Symptoms – UN Expert (G.)

Julian Assange is showing all the symptoms associated with prolonged exposure to psychological torture and should not be extradited to the US, according to a senior UN expert who visited him in prison. Nils Melzer, UN’s special rapporteur on torture, is expected to make his appeal to the UK government on Friday. It comes after Assange, the co-founder of WikiLeaks, was said by his lawyers to be too ill to appear by video link for the latest court hearing of the case on Thursday. Assange has been moved to the health ward of Belmarsh prison, London, where he has been serving a 50-week sentence for skipping bail while fighting extradition to the US.

He is accused of violating the Espionage Act by publishing secret documents containing the names of confidential US military and diplomatic sources. After meeting Assange earlier this month in the company of medical experts who examined him, Melzer will say on Friday that he fears the Australian’s human rights could be seriously violated if he is extradited to the US and will condemn what he describes as the “deliberate and concerted abuse inflicted for years” on him. “Physically there were ailments but that side of things are being addressed by the prison health service and there was nothing urgent or dangerous in that way,” Melzer said.

“What was worrying was the psychological side and his constant anxiety. It was perceptible that he had a sense of being under threat from everyone. He understood what my function was but it’s more that he was extremely agitated and busy with his own thoughts. It was difficult to have a very structured conversation with him.” [..] The lawyer [..] said that his office had been approached by Assange’s lawyers in December. But he said that he was initially reluctant to do so, admitting he was affected by what he called the “prejudice” around the case.However, he began looking into the case again in March and, earlier this week, wrote letters to the foreign ministers of the US, the UK and Sweden.

“In the course of the past nine years, Mr Assange has been exposed to persistent, progressively severe abuse ranging from systematic judicial persecution and arbitrary confinement in the Ecuadorian embassy, to his oppressive isolation, harassment and surveillance inside the embassy, and from deliberate collective ridicule, insults and humiliation, to open instigation of violence and even repeated calls for his assassination,” Melzer will say on Friday. He added the UK authorities had contacted his Geneva office to indicate that the British government would be issuing a point-by-point rebuttal of the assertions made in his letter. [..] “In 20 years of work with victims of war, violence and political persecution I have never seen a group of democratic states ganging up to deliberately isolate, demonise and abuse a single individual for such a long time and with so little regard for human dignity and the rule of law.”

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I doubt Orwell ever knew how right he was.

• Julian Assange Must Never Be Extradited (Matt Taibbi)

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange today sits in the Belmarsh High Security prison in southeast London. Not just for his sake but for everyone’s, we now have to hope he’s never moved from there to America. The United States filed charges against Assange early last month. The case seemed to have been designed to assuage fears that speech freedoms or the press were being targeted. That specific offense was “computer hacking conspiracy” from back in 2010. The “crime” was absurdly thin, a claim that Assange agreed (but failed, apparently) to try to help Chelsea Manning develop an administrative password that could have helped her conceal identity as she downloaded secrets. One typewritten phrase, “No luck so far,” was the damning piece of evidence.

The troubling parts of that case lurked in the rest of the indictment, which seemed to sell normal journalistic activity as part of the offense. The government complained that Assange “took measures to conceal Manning as the source of the disclosure.” Prosecutors likewise said, “Assange encouraged Manning to provide information and records from departments and agencies of the United States.” The indictment stressed Assange/Manning were seeking “national defense information” that could be “used to the injury of the United States.” The indictment likewise noted that the pair had been guilty of transmitting such information to “any person not entitled to receive it.” It was these passages that made me nervous a month and a half ago, because they seemed to speak to a larger ambition.

Use of phrases like “national defense information” given to persons “not entitled to receive it” gave off a strong whiff of Britain’s Official Secrets Acts, America’s Defense Secrets Act of 1911 (which prohibited “national defense” information going to “those not entitled to receive it”) and our Espionage Act of 1917, which retained many of the same concepts. All of these laws were written in a way that plainly contradicted basic free speech protections. The Espionage Act was revised in 1950 by the McCarran Internal Security Act, sponsored by Nevada Senator Pat McGarran (who incidentally was said to be the inspiration for the corrupt “Senator Pat Geary” character in The Godfather). The change potentially removed a requirement that the person obtaining classified information had to have intent to harm the country.

There was a way to read the new law that criminalized what the Columbia Law Review back in 1973 (during the Pentagon Papers controversy) called the “mere retention” of classified material. This provision buried in subsection 793 of the Espionage Law has, since passage, been a ticking time bomb for journalism. The law seems clearly to permit the government to prosecute anyone who simply obtains or receives “national defense” information. This would place not only sources who steal and deliver such information at risk of prosecution, but also the journalists who receive and publish it. If the government ever decided to start using this tool to successfully prosecute reporters and publishers, we’d pretty quickly have no reporters and publishers.

I’m not exaggerating when I say virtually every reporter who’s ever done national security reporting has at some time or another looked at, or been told, or actually received copies of, “national defense” information they were technically “not entitled to receive.

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Britain employs torture. What do its own laws say about that?

• The Unrelenting State (Craig Murray)

We are seriously worried about the condition of Julian Assange. He was too unwell to appear in court yesterday, and his Swedish lawyer, Per Samuelson, found him in a state where he was unable to conduct a conversation and give instructions. There are very definite physical symptoms, particularly rapid weight loss, and we are not satisfied that genuine and sufficient diagnostic efforts are being made to determine the underlying cause. Julian had been held for the last year in poor, highly confining and increasingly oppressive conditions in the Ecuadorean Embassy and his health was already deteriorating alarmingly before his expulsion and arrest.

A number of conditions, including dental abcesses, can have very serious consequences if long term untreated, and the continual refusal by the British government and latterly the Ecuadoreans to permit him access to adequate healthcare while a political asylee was a callous denial of basic human rights. I confess to feeling an amount of personal relief after his arrest that at least he would now get proper medical treatment. However there now seems to be no intention to provide that and indeed since he has been in Belmarsh his health problems have accelerated. I witnessed enough of the British state’s complicity in torture to know that this may be more than just the consequence of unintended neglect. That the most lucid man I know is now not capable of having a rational conversation is extremely alarming.

There is no rational reason that Assange needs to be kept in a high security facility for terrorists and violent offenders. We are seeing the motive behind his unprecedented lengthy imprisonment for jumping police bail when he entered political asylum. As a convicted prisoner, Assange can be kept in a worse regime than if he were merely on remand for his extradition proceedings. In particular, his access to his lawyers is extremely restricted and for a man facing major legal proceedings in the UK, USA and Sweden it is impossible, even were he healthy, for his lawyers to have sufficient time with him adequately to prepare his cases while he is under the restrictions placed on a convict. Of course we know from the fact that, within three hours of being dragged from the Ecuadorean Embassy, he was already convicted and sentenced to a lengthy prison term, that the state has no intention that his lawyers should be able to prepare.

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It’s like hammering in a nail with a pair of scissors.

• Trump Announces Tariffs On Mexico Until ‘Immigration Problem Remedied’ (G.)

In a surprise announcement that could compromise a major trade deal, Donald Trump announced on Thursday that he is slapping a 5% tariff on all Mexican imports to pressure the country to do more to crack down on the surge of Central American migrants trying to cross the border. He said the percentage would gradually increase “until the Illegal Immigration problem is remedied”. Trump made the announcement by tweet after telling reporters earlier Thursday that he was planning “a major statement” that would be his “biggest” so far on the border. “On June 10th, the United States will impose a 5% Tariff on all goods coming into our Country from Mexico, until such time as illegal migrants coming through Mexico, and into our Country, STOP. The Tariff will gradually increase until the Illegal Immigration problem is remedied,” he wrote, “at which time the Tariffs will be removed.”


Mexico’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, responded with a two-page letter to Trump on Thursday night. “The Statue of Liberty is not an empty symbol,” he said. “With all due respect, even though you have the right to say it, ‘make America great again’ is a fallacy because, until the end of times, and beyond national borders, universal justice and fraternity should prevail,” he wrote. Amlo, as the president is commonly called, offered his US counterpart history lessons on past periods of cordial US-Mexico relations. He also included details of his plans to develop Central America to stop migration and warned: “I don’t lack courage, I’m not a coward nor timid, rather, I act on principles.”

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“The only way the S&P 500 doesn’t sink massively today is if Trump rows back on this.”

• Futures, Peso Tumble As Trump Unleashes Tariffs On Mexico (ZH)

Update 2: some borderline apocalyptic observations from Bloomberg markets live managing editor, Mark Cudmore who writes the following: “This Mexico tariff news is far worse than even the initial market reaction makes it out to be. The timing is almost immediate. Chaos for both companies and bureaucrats. No time for anyone to prepare or make contingencies. The only way the S&P 500 doesn’t sink massively today is if Trump rows back on this. The U.S. imported almost $350b worth of goods from Mexico in 2018. What makes it even worse again, if possible, is that so many traders were hoping Trump would soon take a more conciliatory trade zone because U.S. stocks have weakened. This is a black swan event for markets and people aren’t even registering. Maybe traders are all hoping there’s some mistake or that this won’t be implemented.”


Update 1: it’s going from bad to worse, with the White House warning that it will hike Mexico tariffs to 25% by October 1, if the border crisis persists, as Trump is activating a scorched earth approach whereby he will “punish” any offshore nation that he believes is transgressing, by imposing tariffs. Meanwhile, moments after Trump’s shock tweet, the Mexican deputy foreign minister Seade said that if President’s threat to impose tariffs is carried out, “it would be disastrous”, and Mexico would “respond strongly”, adding that “we will not remain with out arms folded” before the tariff deadline “to see if it is serious.”

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“Trade policy and border security are separate issues.”

• GOP Senator Grassley Blasts Trump Over Mexico Tariff Threat (Hill)

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) condemned President Trump’s new tariffs on Mexico late Thursday, calling the move a “misuse” of presidential tariff authority and cautioning the levies could derail passage of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA). “Trade policy and border security are separate issues. This is a misuse of presidential tariff authority and counter to congressional intent,” Grassley said in a statement. The lawmaker cautioned that following through on Trump’s tariff threat “would seriously jeopardize passage of USMCA,” a revision of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).


“I support nearly every one of President Trump’s immigration policies, but this is not one of them,” he added. Trump announced he would impose the tariffs to pressure Mexico to stop the flow of migrants into the U.S. via the southern border. [..] Grassley had previously threatened to derail Trump’s central trade achievement over continued steel and aluminum tariffs. Last week, Trump hinted that he had reached a deal to drop those tariffs, paving the way for the USMCA in the Senate.

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“This is the worst scandal in American history. It’s the worst, at least, since the Civil War.”

• Russiagate Is #1 Threat To US National Security – Stephen Cohen (RT)

The systemwide US Russophobia that reached its nadir with Russiagate has created a “catastrophe” for both domestic politics and foreign relations that threatens the future of the American system, professor Stephen Cohen tells RT. War with Russia could easily break out if the US insists on pursuing the policy of “demonization” that birthed Russiagate instead of returning to detente and cooperation, New York University professor emeritus of Russian history Stephen Cohen argues on Chris Hedges’ On Contact. While NATO deliberately antagonized post-Soviet Russia by expanding up to its borders, the US deployed missile defense systems along those borders after scrapping an arms treaty, leaving President Vladimir Putin devoid of “illusions” about the goodwill of the West – but armed with “nuclear missiles that can evade and elude any missile defense system.”


Cohen believes the conspiracy theory – which remains front-page news in US media despite being thoroughly discredited, both by independent investigators and last month by special counsel Robert Mueller’s report – is the work of the CIA and its former director, John Brennan, who are dead set against any kind of cooperation with Russia. Attorney General William Barr, who is investigating the FBI over how the 2016 counterintelligence probe began, should take a look at Brennan and his agency, Cohen says. “If our intelligence services are off the reservation to the point that they can first try to destroy a presidential candidate and then a president…we need to know it,” Cohen says. “This is the worst scandal in American history. It’s the worst, at least, since the Civil War.” And the damage wrought by this “catastrophe” hasn’t stopped at the US border.

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“We don’t know why we are excluded from the examination but from the very beginning, we see too much politics in it.”

• Malaysia PM Wants Evidence To Show Russia Shot Down MH17 (FMT)

The Malaysian government wants strong evidence to show that Russia is responsible for the Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 tragedy in 2014, said Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad today. He said Malaysia accepted the investigation report of Holland but only up to the point where the plane was brought down by a missile made by Russia. Mahathir said while the government agreed that the plane was brought down by a Russian missile, it cannot be certain that the missile was launched by Russia. “They are accusing Russia but where is the evidence? We know the missile that brought down the plane is a Russian-type missile, but it could also be made in Ukraine. “You need strong evidence to show it was fired by the Russians.

“It could be by the rebels in Ukraine; it could be Ukrainian government because they too have the same missile,” he said during a dialogue and media conference with the Japanese Foreign Correspondents Club (FCCJ) here today. Mahathir said people of Russia are military people and they would know that MH17 is a passenger plane. “I don’t think a very highly disciplined party is responsible for launching the missile,” he said. The prime minister said Malaysia should also be involved in examining the black box as the plane belongs to Malaysia and there were Malaysian passengers. “We may not have the expertise but we can buy the expertise. For some reason, Malaysia was not allowed to check the black box to see what happened.

“We don’t know why we are excluded from the examination but from the very beginning, we see too much politics in it. “The idea was not to find out how this happened but seems to be concentrated on trying to pin it on the Russians. This is not a neutral kind of examination,” said Mahathir. “Had a neutral party examined and made the conclusion, Malaysia is willing to accept the findings but here we have parties with political interests in the matter,” he added.

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Why is the CEO still in office?

• Boeing Admits It ‘Fell Short’ On Safety Alert For 737 (BBC)

Boeing has admitted it “fell short” when it failed to implement a safety alert system on the 737 Max. The aircraft was grounded globally in March after two crashes within months. Boeing boss Dennis Muilenburg said a mistake had been made in the software for a cockpit warning light called an “angle-of-attack (AOA) disagree alert”. He said: “We clearly fell short and the implementation of this angle-of-attack disagree alert was a mistake, right, we did not implement it properly.” In an interview with Norah O’Donnell of CBS News he said Boeing was now fixing the problem.


The alert could have notified pilots and maintenance crews that there was a problem early in the flight. One flight safety expert said if there had been an AOA disagree alert on board the Ethiopian airlines flight it “would have been the very first clue” for the pilots that something was wrong. Chris Brady, a pilot and author of The Boeing 737 Technical Guide said: “I’m fairly confident that the Ethiopian Airlines flight probably would not have crashed if they had had the AOA disagree alert” on the aircraft.

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“This is getting pretty nutty, when you think about it.”

• Yield-Curve Spaghetti (WS)

On Thursday, the US Treasury yield curve sagged further in the middle, producing an ever more beautiful middle-age sag, so to speak, that first started taking shape late last year. The chart shows the yield curves on seven dates. Each line represents the yields from the 1-month yield on the left to the 30-year yield on the right, on that date. The steep green line coming up from the bottom represents the yields on December 14, 2016, when the Fed got serious about rate hikes — the steep slope, with short-term yields a lot lower than long-term yields, is what a yield curve in normal-ish times is supposed to look like. The beautifully sagging red line represents the yields today, May 30. The entire portion of the yield curve from the 3-year yield through the 10-year yield has now dropped by over 1 percentage point since the peak on November 8, 2018.

Some more standouts: The 3-year yield inched down to 2.00%, the lowest since January 2, 2018, forming the low point of the middle-age sag. On Nov 8, it was at 3.05%. The 10-year yield dipped to 2.22%, lowest since Sep 18, 2017, and below 1-year and shorter maturities; but it remains above the 2-year yield and in this cycle has not inverted with the 2-year yield yet. The 1-month yield ticked up to 2.37%, from 2.35% yesterday, which had been the bottom of its range, and as is to be expected, right in the middle of the Fed’s target range for the federal funds rate (2.25% -2.50%). The 6-month yield had been anchored since late October at round 2.5%, with only slight variations. It now too has dropped out of this range and hit 2.38% over the past two days but ticked up to 2.40% today. The 30-year yield dropped to 2.65%, the lowest since Nov 7, 2016. This is getting pretty nutty, when you think about it.

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AOC should be focusing all her energy on Assange.

• Ted Cruz, AOC Agree To Ban Former Congress Members From Becoming Lobbyists (G.)

A conversation on Twitter has led to an unlikely collaboration between the Republican senator Ted Cruz and the Democratic representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to pass legislation targeting lobbying by former members of Congress. The two lawmakers tweeted support of placing restrictions or a potential lifetime ban on former Congress members becoming lobbyists. The conversation began when Ocasio-Cortez tweeted a study from Public Citizen that found 60% of former Congress members had taken jobs influencing federal policy. “If you are a member of Congress and leave, you shouldn’t be allowed to turn right around and leverage your service for a lobbyist check,” she wrote.


Cruz retweeted Ocasio-Cortez, suggesting bipartisan legislation to fight the Washington political “swamp”. The Republican House representative Chip Roy tweeted that he would help Ocasio-Cortez spearhead the effort. She agreed to create a bipartisan team in the House while Cruz forms one in the Senate to write a ban. [..] Previous efforts to prevent lobbying from former congresspeople have been put forth but not passed, including a 2017 bill co-sponsored by the Republican senator Cory Gardner and the Democratic senators Michael Bennet and Al Franken. Also in 2017, Senator Jon Tester of Montana introduced legislation that would ban lawmakers from lobbying their former colleagues until five years after leaving office, but it failed to gain traction.

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Debt Rattle January 9 2019

Jan 092019
 
 January 9, 2019  Posted by at 11:15 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , ,  4 Responses »


René Magritte Where Euclid walked 1955

 

• Trump Calls Illegal Immigration A ‘Crisis,’ Doesn’t Declare Emergency (AP)
• House Democrats To Test Republicans On Trump’s Wall Demand (R.)
• Cross-Party Alliance Of MPs Tells May: We Will Stop No-Deal Brexit (G.)
• May May Have To Draw Up New Brexit Plan Three Days After Commons Defeat (G.)
• Brexit Moment in 80 Days, No One Knows What’ll Happen (DQ)
• China’s Stability Is at Risk (Christopher Whalen)
• China To Introduce Policies To Strengthen Domestic Consumption (R.)
• Apple Cuts Q1 Production Plan For New iPhones By 10% (R.)
• Tim Cook Says Apple’s ‘Ecosystem Has Never Been Stronger’ (MW)
• Germany Heads for a Technical Recession (WS)
• France Moves To Ban All Protests, Major Crackdown On Yellow Vests (ZH)

 

 

Trump should be careful about doing underwhelming speeches. But America’s political problems are clear, and will not be solved anytime soon. That is, too many old people in charge. Limit number and length of terms in Washington. Get rid of Schumer and Pelosi.

PS: CNN reports Rod Rosenstein is stepping down.

• Trump Calls Illegal Immigration A ‘Crisis,’ Doesn’t Declare Emergency (AP)

In a somber televised plea, President Donald Trump urged congressional Democrats to fund his long-promised border wall Tuesday night, blaming illegal immigration for the scourge of drugs and violence in the U.S. and framing the debate over the partial government shutdown in stark terms. “This is a choice between right and wrong,” he declared. Democrats in response accused Trump appealing to “fear, not facts” and manufacturing a border crisis for political gain. Addressing the nation from the Oval Office for the first time, Trump argued for spending some $5.7 billion for a border wall on both security and humanitarian grounds as he sought to put pressure on newly empowered Democrats amid the extended shutdown.

Trump, who will visit the Mexican border in person on Thursday, invited the Democrats to return to the White House to meet with him on Wednesday, saying it was “immoral” for “politicians to do nothing.” Previous meetings have led to no agreement as Trump insists on the wall that was his signature promise in the 2016 presidential campaign. Responding in their own televised remarks, Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer accused Trump of misrepresenting the situation on the border as they urged him to reopen closed government departments and turn loose paychecks for hundreds of thousands of workers. Negotiations on wall funding could proceed in the meantime, they said. Schumer said Trump “just used the backdrop of the Oval Office to manufacture a crisis, stoke fear and divert attention from the turmoil in his administration.”

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Better negotiate. Digging in doesn’t help.

• House Democrats To Test Republicans On Trump’s Wall Demand (R.)

As a partial U.S. government shutdown neared the three-week mark, Democrats on Wednesday were set to test Republicans’ resolve in backing President Donald Trump’s drive to build a wall on the border with Mexico, which has sparked an impasse over agency funding. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her fellow Democrats who took control of the chamber last week plan to advance a bill to immediately reopen the Treasury Department, the Securities and Exchange Commission and several other agencies that have been in partial shutdown mode since Dec. 22. Democrats are eager to force Republicans to choose between funding the Treasury’s Internal Revenue Service – at a time when it should be gearing up to issue tax refunds to millions of Americans – and voting to keep it partially shuttered.

In a countermove, the Trump administration said on Tuesday that even without a new shot of funding, the IRS would somehow make sure those refund checks get sent. But it was the Republican president’s insistence on a massive barrier on the border that dominated the Washington debate and sparked a political blame game. In a nationally televised address on Tuesday night, Trump asked: “How much more American blood must be shed before Congress does its job?” referring to murders he said were committed by illegal immigrants.

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79 days to go. The real mess starts now.

• Cross-Party Alliance Of MPs Tells May: We Will Stop No-Deal Brexit (G.)

Theresa May faces a concerted campaign of parliamentary warfare from a powerful cross-party alliance of MPs determined to use every lever at their disposal to prevent Britain leaving the EU without a deal in March. The former staunch loyalist Sir Oliver Letwin signalled that he and other senior Conservatives would defy party whips, repeatedly if necessary, to avoid a no-deal Brexit, as the government suffered a humiliating defeat during a debate on the finance bill in the Commons. Letwin and 16 other former government ministers were among 20 Conservatives who banded together with the home affairs select committee chair, Yvette Cooper, and the Labour leadership to pass an anti no-deal amendment.

They defeated the government by 303 votes to 296 – a majority of seven – making May the first prime minister in 41 years to lose a vote on a government finance bill. The move came after the PM conceded to senior ministers she was on course to lose next week’s historic Brexit vote, as the first cabinet meeting of the new year exposed deep divisions about the best way out of the deadlock. May told her cabinet she would respond swiftly with a statement to the House of Commons if she failed to win MPs’ backing for her deal next Tuesday. But cabinet sources said it was unclear what course she planned to take – and the general mood was of how “boxed in” the government was.

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If/when she loses next Tuesday.

• May May Have To Draw Up New Brexit Plan Three Days After Commons Defeat (G.)

MPs will attempt to force the government to return with an alternative to Theresa May’s Brexit deal within three days of her plan being defeated in parliament. Another five-day debate leading up to a vote on May’s deal on 15 January will start on Wednesday, opened by the Brexit secretary, Stephen Barclay. Before that, MPs must approve a business motion to allow the debate and vote to go ahead, which a cross-party group of MPs, led by the Conservative Dominic Grieve, hope to amend if the Speaker allows it. The amendment says that following defeat of the government’s plan, which is widely anticipated, “a minister of the crown shall table within three sitting days a motion … considering the process of exiting the European Union under article 50”.

Other MPs who have signed the amendment include the former Tory cabinet minister Sir Oliver Letwin and ex-Tory ministers Jo Johnson, Guto Bebb and Sam Gyimah. It has also been backed by Labour MPs including Stephen Doughty and Chris Leslie. Sarah Wollaston, the Conservative chair of the health select committee, who also signed the amendment, said the aim was to prevent the government “running down the clock” towards no deal. Previously, the Commons had mandated the government to make a statement within 21 days.

“If and when the PM’s plan is voted down on Tuesday, MPs can’t be made to wait potentially until 12 Feb for the next vote. The situation is too urgent now,” Leslie said. A previous amendment by Grieve that the Commons voted through before Christmas means that any statement the government brings forward after a defeat is in itself amendable – allowing MPs to put forward their own alternatives for the future of the Brexit process.

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$1 trillion to leave London, but that still leaves $7-8 trillion.

• Brexit Moment in 80 Days, No One Knows What’ll Happen (DQ)

With just 80 days remaining until Brexit Day, March 29, nerves are fraying on both sides of the English Channel. Nowhere is this more true than in the City of London where the Square Mile’s dominance of the global financial industry faces its biggest threat in decades. In the City’s worst-case scenario — a crash-out Brexit on March 29 — London-based firms that have not prepped properly for this outcome could be cut off from the continent altogether. Since moving key operations and staff across the channel is a costly, complex, timely undertaking, many companies have preferred to play a waiting game. But the clock continues to tick down, and as the risk of a disorderly exit grows, inaction is becoming a risky strategy.

Since the EU Referendum in June 2016, only 36% of the financial services companies in London have said they are considering or have confirmed relocating operations and/or staff to Europe, according to the latest edition of Ernst&Young’s Brexit Tracker (which monitors 222 financial services firms in the UK). This rises to 56% (27 out of 48) among universal banks, investment banks, and brokerages. A total of 20 companies have already announced a transfer of assets out of London to Europe. “Not all firms have publicly declared the value of the assets being transferred, but the Brexit Tracker has followed public announcements worth around £800 billion ($1 trillion),” the report says.

This figure echoes findings by a study published in November by German trade group Frankfurt Main Finance (FMF), which estimated that London is poised to lose €800 billion ($900 billion) in balance-sheet assets by March 29. According to German Bank Helaba, Frankfurt alone has attracted 25 lenders looking to move part of their operations out of the City of London, including Barclays, Lloyds Banking Group, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse, UBS, Nomura and Standard Chartered Bank.

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“Contrary to the positive foreign narrative about “growth” in China, CBB contends that deflation is the bigger threat compared to inflation.”

“The CCP is happy to tolerate or even encourage wealth creation, but only so long as it does not become a problem.”

• China’s Stability Is at Risk (Christopher Whalen)

The western view of China’s political economy is driven partly by anecdote, partly by accepting Beijing’s propaganda/economic data as fact. Foreign investors have convinced themselves that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is superior in terms of economic management, this despite ample evidence to the contrary, thus accepting the official view is easy but also increasingly risky. In a December 15 speech , Renmin University’s Xiang Songzuo warned that Chinese stock market conditions resemble those during the 1929 Wall Street Crash. He also suggested that the Chinese economy is actually shrinking. But this apostate view was quickly rejected by legions of captive western economists and investment analysts whose livelihood depends upon “selling China” to credulous foreign audiences.

Facts aside, the perception of China is what matters to global investors, part of a larger pathology of hope-based investment allocation that eschews those rare bits of hard data that disagree with the positive narrative. China growth, Tesla profitability, or the mystical blockchain all require more credulity than ever before. For example, in the first half of 2016 global capital markets stopped due to fear of a Chinese recession. Credit spreads soared and deal flows disappeared. But was this really a surprise? In fact, the Chinese government had accelerated official stimulus in 2015 and 2016 to counter a possible slowdown and, particularly, ensure a quiet domestic scene as paramount leader Xi Jinping was enshrined into the Chinese constitution.

Today western audiences are again said to be concerned about China’s economy and this concern is justified, but perhaps not for the reasons touted in the financial media. The China Beige Book (CBB) fourth-quarter preview, released December 27, reports that sales volumes, output, domestic and export orders, investment, and hiring fell on a year-over-year and quarter-over-quarter basis. Headed by Leland Miller, CBB is a research service that surveys thousands of companies and bankers on the ground in China every quarter.

Contrary to the positive foreign narrative about “growth” in China, CBB contends that deflation is the bigger threat compared to inflation. “Because of China’s structural problems, deflation has very clearly emerged as the bigger threat in a slowing economy than inflation. Consumer demand has weakened, and you see that reflected in retail and services prices,” CBB Managing Director Shehzad Qazi said in an interview.

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Groundhog Day. China’s been promoting domestic stuff for years, but that only really ever worked in real estate loans. Domextic spending is even falling right now.

• China To Introduce Policies To Strengthen Domestic Consumption (R.)

China plans to introduce policies to boost domestic spending on items such as autos and home appliances this year, state television CCTV quoted a senior state planning official as saying on Tuesday. Ning Jizhe, vice chairman of National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), said in an interview with CCTV that the policies will be part of wider efforts to strengthen domestic consumption in China, the world’s second largest economy. The state planner will also introduce policies in house leasing and services, as well as elderly and child care, with plans to also lower investment barriers in other sectors such as culture and sports. He also said that the NDRC planned to move ahead with a second batch of major foreign-invested projects in the first quarter of 2019, which could include new energy ventures, according to an interview transcript published by state news agency Xinhua.

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China mobile phone shipments down 16%.

• Apple Cuts Q1 Production Plan For New iPhones By 10% (R.)

Apple, which slashed its quarterly sales forecast last week, has reduced planned production for its three new iPhone models by about 10 percent for the January-March quarter, the Nikkei Asian Review reported on Wednesday. That rare forecast cut exposed weakening iPhone demand in China, the world’s biggest smartphone market, where a slowing economy has also been buffeted by a trade war with the United States. Many analysts and consumers have said the new iPhones are overpriced. Apple asked its suppliers late last month to produce fewer-than-planned units of its XS, XS Max and XR models, the Nikkei reported, citing sources with knowledge of the request. The request was made before Apple announced its forecast cut, the Nikkei said.

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Tim, credibility is a big issue in your position. Be careful. Besides, just because you talk to Jim Cramer doesn’t mean you have to sound like him.

• Tim Cook Says Apple’s ‘Ecosystem Has Never Been Stronger’ (MW)

Apple Inc. stock has taken a beating in recent months, but Chief Executive Tim Cook defended his company Tuesday, and expressed optimism that trade tensions with China would soon ease. Apple shares have fallen by more than one-third since their peak on Oct. 3, and tumbled further last week after the tech giant warned of disappointing iPhone sales in its holiday quarter. But in an interview Tuesday with CNBC’s Jim Cramer, Cook said the company was still going strong, and its naysayers were full of “bologna.” “Here’s the truth, what the facts are,” Cook said about reports of slow iPhone XR sales, according to a CNBC transcript.

“Since we began shipping the iPhone XR, it has been the most popular iPhone every day, every single day, from when we started shipping, until now. . . . I mean, do I want to sell more? Of course I do. Of course I’d like to sell more. And we’re working on that.” Slower sales in China also contributed to Apple’s lowered forecast, and Cook said Tuesday he believes that situation to be “temporary.” “We believe, based on what we saw and the timing of it, that the tension, the trade-war tension with the U.S. created this more-sharp downturn,” he said. Cook said he’s “very optimistic” a trade deal between the U.S. and China will be reached. “I think a deal is very possible. And I’ve heard some very encouraging words,” he said.

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On top of Merkel stepping down.

• Germany Heads for a Technical Recession (WS)

OK, this is embarrassing in the land of super-stimulus via the ECB’s negative-interest-rate policy and years of QE that were supposed to perform miracles: Production in Germany’s industry, which includes construction, dropped 1.9% in November from the prior month (seasonally adjusted), the German statistical agency Destatis reported this morning. This drop is also embarrassing because economists polled by The Wall Street Journal had expected a 0.3% gain. The agency also downwardly revised October, to a monthly decline of 0.8%. This makes three months in a row of declines. In November, compared to a year earlier (adjusted for inflation and calendar differences, but not for seasonality), the production index dropped an ugly 4.7%:

Production was down in all major segments, including energy and construction which are focused on Germany itself, rather than exports. [..] Industrial production is a big power in the German economy. And the trend is not good. Germany’s GDP already declined in the third quarter:

The declines in production in October and November put Germany a step closer to “negative economic growth,” as it’s called euphemistically, for two quarters in a row. If this occurs, it would be a technical recession. And it’s not going to get a lot better soon: Destatis reported yesterday that new orders in manufacturing – a harbinger for future production – dropped 4.3% in November from a year ago (adjusted for inflation and calendar differences); and it revised down October’s orders to a year-over-year drop of 3.0%.

[..] this economic slowdown is occurring despite, or perhaps because of, the mother of all stimuli engineered by a major central bank – negative interest rates and massive QE – that has benefited a few hedge funds who were able to front run the ECB’s bond buys and make a quick buck, and bond traders for a while, as bond prices were rising due to falling yields. And it has allowed even junk-rated companies to borrow money for a song from beaten down investors, savers, and pension funds. But this stopped a year ago.

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France does everything wrong.

• France Moves To Ban All Protests, Major Crackdown On Yellow Vests (ZH)

France is signaling it’s making preparations for a massive new crackdown on the gilets jaunes or “yellow vests” anti-government protests that have gripped the country for seven weeks. A new law under consideration could make any demonstration illegal to begin with if not previously approved by authorities, in an initiative already being compared to the pre-Maiden so-called “dictatorship law” in Ukraine. In the name of reigning in the violence that has recently included torching structures along the prestigious Boulevard Saint Germain in Paris, and smashing through the gates of government ministry buildings, the French government appears set to enact something close to a martial law scenario prohibiting almost any protest and curtailing freedom of speech.

Prime Minister Edouard Philippe presented the new initiative to curtail the violence and unrest while targeting “troublemakers” and banning anonymity through wearing masks on French TV channel TF1 on Monday. He said the law would give police authority crack down on “unauthorized demonstrations” at a moment when police are already arresting citizens for merely wearing a yellow vest, even if they are not directly engaged in protests in some cases. PM Philippe said the government would support a “new law punishing those who do not respect the requirement to declare [protests], those who take part in unauthorized demonstrations and those who arrive at demonstrations wearing face masks”.

Philippe’s tone during the statements was one of the proverbial “the gloves are off” as he described the onus would be on “the troublemakers, and not taxpayers, to pay for the damage caused” to businesses and property.

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Debt Rattle February 27 2018

Feb 272018
 
 February 27, 2018  Posted by at 11:02 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  5 Responses »


Lewis Wickes Hine Mother and child, Ellis Island, New York 1907

• Stock Market Rests Happily on Smoldering Powder Keg (WS)
• China’s Bailouts Won’t End With Anbang (Balding)
• US January New Home Sales Crash As Rates Spike (ZH)
• US Gross National Debt Spikes $1 Trillion in Less Than 6 Months (WS)
• Dark Money: The Secret Force Behind Today’s Rigged Markets (Nomi Prins)
• Problem With Rising Rates: Corporate America Has Binged On Debt (CNN)
• European Companies’ Alarming Leverage (BBG)
• Central Banks Need To Stay Vigilant For Further Volatility – Lagarde (BBG)
• US Will Overtake Russia As Top Oil Producer By 2019 (R.)
• The Matrix? Alice In Wonderland? Praise For Corbyn From UK Business (Ind.)
• Generational Battle Lines Harden Over Pensions (G.)
• The Real Reason Behind The US Student Debt Problem (F.)
• 20 US States Sue Federal Government, Seeking End To Obamacare (R.)
• US Supreme Court Rebuffs Trump, Won’t Hear Immigration Appeal (BBG)
• And Now the Schiff Memo (Jim Kunstler)
• East Ghouta: The Last Great Battle Of The Syrian War? (Duran)
• Women ‘Sexually Exploited In Return For Aid’ in Syria (BBC)

 

 

The beauty of low rates.

• Stock Market Rests Happily on Smoldering Powder Keg (WS)

There is nothing like a big shot of leverage to fire up the stock market. And that’s what the market got in 2017, when the S&P 500 surged 26%, and in January 2018, when the index soared another 7.5% through January 26 – until suddenly something happened. One measure of leverage in the stock market is margin debt – the amount individual and institutional investors borrow from their brokers against their portfolios – which surged $22.9 billion in January to a new record of $665.7 billion, according to FINRA (Financial Industry Regulatory Authority), which regulates member brokerage firms and exchange markets, and which has taken over margin-debt reporting from the NYSE.

For the 12-month period through January, margin debt soared $112.2 billion, among the largest 12-month gains in the history of the data series, behind only the 12-month periods ending in: • December 2013 ($123 billion) • July 2007 ($160 billion) • March 2000 ($133.7 billion) • November 1997 ($132 billion). But it’s not just the recent surge; it’s the length of the surge. With only a few noticeable down periods, margin debt has soared for nine years in a row and now exceeds the prior peak of July 2007 ($416 billion) by 60%. By comparison, over the same period, nominal GDP (not adjusted for inflation) has grown 32%, and the Consumer Price Index has grown 20%.

In other words, margin debt has ballooned twice as fast from peak to peak as GDP and three times as fast as the Consumer Price Index. The chart below shows margin debt based on the FINRA data, which includes margin debt from its own member firms and from NYSE Member firms, and is therefore more complete and larger than the NYSE data was. For example, NYSE margin debt in November 2017, the last month available, was $580.9 billion while FINRA’s data for November showed margin debt of $627.4 billion. And in January, FINRA warned about the levels of margin debt – marked in green on the chart. Note the spike that started in June 2016:

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Xi’s main problem: he can’t let these companies go belly-up. And there’s lots of them, some big, some smaller.

• China’s Bailouts Won’t End With Anbang (Balding)

When the China Insurance Regulatory Commission announced last week that it was seizing Anbang, the only surprise was that it took so long. Last year, the company was told to sell its overseas assets, its founder was placed behind bars, and banks were ordered to stop offering its products. So what, if anything, does this latest incident tell us about China’s economy and its attempt to crack down on debt? Anbang is often referred to as an insurance company, but this is misleading. Although the company does offer some run-of-the-mill products, such as property and casualty insurance, what really drove its growth were unusually structured life-insurance products. At the end of 2016, shortly before regulators intervened, property and casualty premiums made up a mere 4% of the group’s revenue. Life insurance made up 96%.

The growth in this business stunned even China analysts accustomed to tales of fabulous growth. From 2010 to 2016, Anbang’s annual life-insurance premium revenue increased from 1 million yuan to 114.2 billion yuan, or total growth of 11 million %. Even during a period of rapid economic expansion, annualized growth of 593% is amazing. The problem was that the life-insurance products were actually high-yielding debt instruments; investors could opt out of the insurance portion in as little as two years. With some products yielding more than 5% in the first three years, this essentially made Anbang a highly leveraged investor taking on significant risks to cover its cost of capital. Customers were basically extending loans to Anbang that it used to overpay for assets. Regulators finally stepped in to prevent a collapse that could have led to significant instability – with some 35 million customers demanding their money back.

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Econ 101 redux: “..prices will be forced to adjust lower as affordability collapses..”

• US January New Home Sales Crash As Rates Spike (ZH)

Following the significant disappointment of January’s existing home sales, hopes were high for a rebound in new home sales (+3.5% expected after December’s 9.3% plunge) but those hopes were crushed as January new home sales crashed 7.8% MoM. This is the lowest level since August, even as the supply of homes at current sales rate climbed to 6.1 months from 5.5 months.

This is the biggest two-month drop in new home sales SAAR since August 2013. The Median price dropped from $336,700 to $323,000 – the lowest since October…

16% of new homes sold in January cost more than $500,000, down from 22% last month. As sales in the Northeast collapsed: • Northeast -33.3%, from 36K to 24K • Midwest +15.4%, from 65K to 75K • South -14.2%, from 351K to 301K • West +1.0%, from 191K to 193K So we are sure NAR will blame ‘inclement’ weather – as opposed to soaring rates and plunging affordability. Just as we warned previously, the following chart shows, that surge in rates will have a direct impact on home sales (or prices will be forced to adjust lower) as affordability collapses… This won’t end well.

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When trapped by crazy, go crazier.

• US Gross National Debt Spikes $1 Trillion in Less Than 6 Months (WS)

As of the latest reporting by the Treasury Department, the US gross national debt rose by $41.5 billion on Thursday, February 22, to a grand total of $20.8 trillion. Here’s the thing: On September 7, 2017, five-and-a-half months ago, just before Congress suspended the debt ceiling, the gross national debt stood at $19.8 trillion. At that time, I was holding my breath waiting for the gross national debt to take a huge leap in a single day – as it always does after the debt ceiling gets lifted or suspended – and jump to the next ignominious level. It sure did the next day, when it jumped $318 billion. And it continued. Over a period of 8 weeks, the gross national debt jumped by $640 billion.

Four weeks after that, it had ballooned by $723 billion, at which point Fed Chair Yellen – whose cheap-money policies had enabled Congress to do this for years – said that she was “very worried about the sustainability of the US debt trajectory.” Then Congress served up another debt ceiling – a regular charade lawmakers undertake to extort deals from each other, beat the White House into submission, and keep the rest of the world their on their toes. It goes like this: First they pass the spending bills, directing the Administration to spend specific amounts of money on a gazillion specific things spread around specific districts. Then they block the means to pay the credit card bill. That debt ceiling was suspended on February 8, at which point the gross national debt began to surge again, adding $960.4 billion, a 5% jump in the gross national debt in just 5.5 months:

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Dark money will end up killing everything.

• Dark Money: The Secret Force Behind Today’s Rigged Markets (Nomi Prins)

Markets were up again big today and volatility was down. But we haven’t seen the last of rising volatility, nor of the central banks’ attempts to thwart it. This week, new Fed Chair Jerome Powell will be giving his first congressional testimony, and you can be sure that markets are waiting on his words with bated breath. Before his testimony, the Fed will be releasing its Monetary Policy Report, which will also give an indication to the direction of Fed policy. Because these will be his first official comments as Fed chair, Powell will want to both make a personal mark and make sure markets don’t panic over his remarks. I believe he will temper his comments to neutralize any negative market impact the report could have. Wall Street wants to hear that Powell’s not going to aggressively hike rates.

The risk is that, as an article from CNBC reports, “Powell may not clarify anything,” in which case, “traders could be stuck with the same dilemma that shook stocks and sent bond yields spiking [last] Wednesday after the release of the minutes from the Fed’s January meeting.” I think Powell will sound as dovish as he can to avoid that outcome. So even if he confirms rate hikes will be executed at the already forecast pace of three rates this year, he won’t indicate there could be more, which should keep markets calmer and bullish. In other words, I don’t believe that Powell will implement dramatically different monetary policy from his predecessors Janet Yellen or Ben Bernanke. The Fed will do whatever the markets need. Banks have grown accustomed to what I call “dark money” and don’t want Powell to rock the boat.

What is dark money? Dark money basically means money coming from central banks. In essence, central banks “print” money or electronically fabricate money by buying bonds or stocks. They use other tools like adjusting interest rate policy and currency agreements with other central banks to pump liquidity into the financial system. That dark money goes to the biggest private banks and financial institutions first. From there, it spreads out in seemingly infinite directions, affecting different financial assets in different ways. These dark money flows stretch around the world according to a pattern of power, influence and of course, wealth for select groups. Dark money is the No. 1 secret life force of today’s rigged financial markets. It drives whole markets up and down. It’s the reason for today’s financial bubbles.

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CNN wakes up.

• Problem With Rising Rates: Corporate America Has Binged On Debt (CNN)

Corporate America, egged on by ridiculously-low borrowing costs, has built up more debt than any time since the end of the Great Recession. The credit binge has allowed companies to grow faster, invest in the future and reward shareholders with huge dividends and share buybacks. Yet elevated levels of debt will also make businesses vulnerable when the next recession strikes or if borrowing costs spike because of rising interest rates. Either outcome will make it harder for Corporate America to pay back the $4 trillion of debt coming due by 2022. This risk has been underlined by the recent surge in Treasury yields and rising concerns that inflation could force the Federal Reserve to consider aggressive rate hikes.

“Removing the easy money punch bowl could trigger the next default cycle,” S&P Global Ratings wrote in a recent report titled “Debt high, defaults low – something’s gotta give.” For nearly a decade, companies have taken advantage of extremely cheap money set by the Fed and foreign central banks trying to pump up sluggish growth. Excluding the highly leveraged financial sector, corporate debt relative to GDP matched an all-time high during the third quarter of 2017, according to an analysis of the most recent numbers by Informa Financial Intelligence. “It’s certainly a reason to be cautious, particularly when we are long into this growth cycle and the Fed is raising rates,” said David Ader, chief macro strategist at Informa Financial Intelligence. “Everything is fine and well – until it isn’t,” he said.

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US, China, Europe et al. Leverage is all that’s left.

• European Companies’ Alarming Leverage (BBG)

Much has been written recently about whether companies are going to look overstretched as monetary policy is tightened and bond yields rise. Some excellent research on European non-financial corporates by our Bloomberg Intelligence colleagues Laurent Douillet and Tim Craighead shines more light on the subject. It’s a slightly worrying picture. First off, they looked at cumulative free cash flows over the five years between 2012 and 2016, and then compared them with shareholder payouts and M&A spending. In every sector, except telecoms, free cash flow was exceeded by combined dividends, buybacks and deal-making, as this chart shows:

Consumer companies, drugs makers and industrials have splurged the most on dividends and takeovers. When you take a first glance at leverage, this doesn’t appear to be the end of the world. When you look at the most recent period, net debt to Ebitda looks pretty undemanding, except for the utilities – which are something of a problem child in Europe generally. Even if you look at free cash flow as a proportion of total debt, utilities are probably the only real outlier. Yet if you take a stricter view of what makes up debt, and include pension deficits and operating lease obligations, things start to look less benign. Operating leases are something that Gadfly’s Chris Bryant has looked at before, as companies will have to include them as part of their assets and associated debts when the new IFRS 16 accounting rules come in next year. If you use an adjusted measure of debt by including pensions and leases, as our BI colleagues have done, you get this:

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Blah blah.

• Central Banks Need To Stay Vigilant For Further Volatility – Lagarde (BBG)

Central banks need to stay vigilant as uncertainty remains over the impact of the normalization of monetary policies in advanced economies, IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde said. “We have known for some time that this is coming, but it remains uncertain as to how exactly it will affect companies, jobs, and incomes,” Lagarde told a conference in Jakarta on Tuesday. “Clearly, policy makers need to stay vigilant about the likely effects on financial stability, including the prospect of volatile capital flows.” Stock markets from the U.S. to Asia were in turmoil in recent weeks on concerns that the U.S. could raise interests rates at a faster pace than previously thought. Investors are awaiting Jerome Powell’s first public comments in the role of Fed chairman on Tuesday.

The global economy is on a broad-based upswing, involving about two-thirds of the world, and it offers an opportunity to reform financial markets, upgrade labor laws, and lower barriers to entry in overly protected industries, Lagarde said. The IMF forecasts global economic growth of 3.9 percent this year and in 2019. “As I have been saying recently, the time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining,” Lagarde said. “Repairing the roof also means using fiscal reforms to generate higher public revenues, where needed, and improve spending. By boosting public finances, countries can increase infrastructure investment and development spending, especially on social safety nets for the most vulnerable.‘”

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Burn baby burn.

• US Will Overtake Russia As Top Oil Producer By 2019 (R.)

The United States will overtake Russia as the world’s biggest oil producer by 2019 at the latest, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Tuesday, as the country’s shale oil boom continues to upend global markets. IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol said at an event in Tokyo the United States would overtake Russia as the biggest crude oil producer “definitely next year”, if not this year. “U.S. shale growth is very strong, the pace is very strong … The United States will become the No.1 oil producer sometime very soon,” he told Reuters separately. U.S. crude oil output rose above 10 million barrels per day (bpd) late last year for the first time since the 1970s, overtaking top oil exporter Saudi Arabia.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration said early this month that U.S. output would exceed 11 million bpd by late 2018. That would take it past top producer Russia, which pumps just below that mark. Birol said he did not see U.S. oil production peaking before 2020, and that he did not expect a decline in the next four to five years. The soaring U.S. production is upending global oil markets, coming at a time when other major producers — including Russia and members of the Middle East-dominated OPEC — have been withholding output to prop up prices. U.S. oil is also increasingly being exported, including to the world’s biggest and fastest growing markets in Asia, eating away at OPEC and Russian market share.

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Briatin’s much further down the rabbit hole than it wants to see.

• The Matrix? Alice In Wonderland? Praise For Corbyn From UK Business (Ind.)

A Labour Party led by Jeremy Corbyn as the party of business? JC as the last, best hope for the business community? It’s the sort of thing that would make even one of those nutty internet conspiracy theorists who believe that contactless payments are a satanic plot scoff. Now? Now we’re in Terri May’s Brexit wonderland and the Cheshire Cat is pissing himself. Madness is part of everyday life and nothing seems strange anymore, not even the CBI’s director general Carlyn Fairbairn saying this: “The Labour leader’s commitment to a customs union will put jobs and living standards first by remaining in a close economic relationship with the EU. It will help grow trade without accepting freedom of movement or payments to the EU.”

Or Stephen Martin, the director general of the Institute of Directors, saying this: “Labour has widened the debate today on the UK’s relationship with the EU post-Brexit, and many businesses, particularly manufacturers, will be pleased to hear the Opposition’s proposal to keep a customs union on the table.” You remember the scene from the Wachowskis’ Matrix where Morpheus references Lewis Carroll’s most famous work? “You take the blue pill, you stay in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill, you stay in wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.” With the Tory party having taken leave of its senses in favour of plunging us into a nightmare beyond anything either Carroll or the the brothers could have conceived, the red pill suddenly doesn’t seem quite as scary as it once did, not now the Tories’ mad ideologues are making merry. The Corbyn rabbit hole might actually be the better option.

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Prediction: no-one’s even going to try to control this, because it would mean having to admit that pensions are Ponzis.

• Generational Battle Lines Harden Over Pensions (G.)

A report by the Intergenerational Foundation, a charity that funds research into issues that divide the generations, has found that far from losing out to younger people, baby boomers have proved themselves adept at ensuring they are the winners across many areas of public policy. Governments, say the authors, have been “tempted by short-term pressures to set rates that clearly disadvantage the young and favour the older generations” – compare university fees charged at an interest rate of 6.1% with the 2% the elderly are charged on loans to pay for residential care costs. Another example can be found in the rates of interest offered on state-sponsored savings bonds. The pensioner bond, which was launched by George Osborne and proved so popular it was credited with helping the Tories secure a majority in the 2015 general election, paid a 4% rate of interest.

National Savings bonds for everyone else pay a maximum 2.2%. Worst of all is the huge bill in store for younger people in 30 or 40 years’ time by virtue of the current calculations of future liabilities. Pension liabilities are top of the list, with public sector pensions in particular carrying a heavy cost. The foundation’s concern is that the government overestimates the state’s capacity to pay for future liabilities by exaggerating how fast the UK’s income will grow over time. If GDP growth is forecast at an absurdly high rate then the income will supposedly be in place to pay generous pension payments in 30 years. If that growth fails to materialise, those who are in their 20s and 30s today will need to find large sums of cash to fill the hole when they are in their 50s and 60s.

The debate centres on the discount rate, which is the calculation of a fund’s long-term growth, which is used to reflect how much money should be set aside today to pay for tomorrow. Downgrade the discount rate by 0.5% and the government will need to set aside additional pension contributions worth 3% of salaries, it says. “From this you can see very starkly why representatives of older workers have been lobbying strongly for higher discount rates. If they succeed in keeping discount rates 1% above what they should be, they have essentially transferred 6% of the total pension bill for each of these years from the old to the young, so the young will have to pay this bill,” the authors say.

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Failed education systems.

• The Real Reason Behind The US Student Debt Problem (F.)

The New York Fed publishes the always-interesting Quarterly Report on Household Debt and Credit. The Q4 2017 version came out recently. In total, Americans carried $13.15 trillion in debt as of year-end 2017. Most of it is mortgage debt—about 71% of the total, if you include home equity loans. Much to our surprise, the next-largest category isn’t auto loans or credit cards. It’s student loans, which are now 10% of total debt. Their share has been growing steadily. This might be okay if the debt enhanced the student’s financial security, but for millions of Americans, that’s not what has happened. Borrowers don’t achieve the desired results but remain stuck with the debt anyway. While delinquency rates for other forms of debt fell after the recession, student loans didn’t. As of year-end 2017, about 11% of nearly $1.4 trillion in student debt was at least 90 days delinquent.

It’s actually worse than that. Roughly half of student debt is held by borrowers who aren’t required to make payments yet. That’s because they are still in school, unemployed, or otherwise excused. Much of that debt would likely be delinquent too. Also important: The delinquent loans tend to be small (less than $10,000) and held by borrowers who never earned degrees. These borrowers probably thought they were doing the right thing. They wanted decent jobs and saw that having a college degree was necessary to get one. So why is college the key to gainful employment? It hasn’t always been so. It’s because employers require a degree as a job qualification… and that’s partly the fault of IQ tests.

[..] College degrees are convenient, legal substitutes for the kind of testing employers haven’t been able to use since the 1970s. So apart from whatever you learn in college, merely having the credential became necessary to career success. As a result, everyone in the equation made certain choices. • Employers: demand a college degree even for jobs that don’t require college-level skills. • Workers: get a college degree even if you must take on debt. Colleges: Raise prices since so many students are begging for degrees.
This made college more expensive, forcing students to borrow more and more money.

Politicians jumped in to promote and guarantee those loans. And here we are.

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Thw two parties will have to come together to solve this. Just blaming the other won’t do it.

• 20 US States Sue Federal Government, Seeking End To Obamacare (R.)

A coalition of 20 U.S. states sued the federal government on Monday over Obamacare, claiming the law was no longer constitutional after the repeal last year of its requirement that people have health insurance or pay a fine. Led by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and Wisconsin Attorney General Brad Schimel, the lawsuit said that without the individual mandate, which was eliminated as part of the Republican tax law signed by President Donald Trump in December, Obamacare was unlawful. “The U.S. Supreme Court already admitted that an individual mandate without a tax penalty is unconstitutional,” Paxton said in a statement.

“With no remaining legitimate basis for the law, it is time that Americans are finally free from the stranglehold of Obamacare, once and for all,” he said. The U.S. Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether the Trump administration would defend the law in court. The individual mandate in Obamacare was meant to ensure a viable health insurance market by forcing younger and healthier Americans to buy coverage. Republicans have opposed the 2010 law formally known as the Affordable Care Act, the signature domestic policy achievement of Trump’s Democratic predecessor Barack Obama, since its inception.

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The Supreme Court is wise enough to keep its distance from executive and legislative branches.

• US Supreme Court Rebuffs Trump, Won’t Hear Immigration Appeal (BBG)

The U.S. Supreme Court rejected a Trump administration appeal aimed at ending deportation protections for young undocumented immigrants, steering clear for now of the debate over the fate of hundreds of thousands of people. The justices, without published dissent, turned away the administration’s appeal of a ruling that has kept the Obama-era program in place. The rejection buys time for the so-called dreamers even as Congress has been unable to agree on legislation to give them permanent protection. The Senate earlier this month blocked three proposals that would have shielded the dreamers. The administration was asking the Supreme Court to take the unusual step of bypassing an appeals court and granting fast-track review of a federal trial judge’s decision.

The court’s rebuff leaves open the possibility that the justices could consider the case later, after a San Francisco-based federal appeals court hears it. “It is assumed that the Court of Appeals will proceed expeditiously to decide this case,” the Supreme Court said in its two-sentence order. The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program “is clearly unlawful,” White House spokesman Raj Shah said in a statement. “We look forward to having this case expeditiously heard by the appeals court and, if necessary, the Supreme Court, where we fully expect to prevail,” he said. DACA, begun under President Barack Obama, protects undocumented immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children. Applicants are shielded from deportation and allowed to apply for work permits.

The first group of DACA recipients had been set to lose their protected status in March before U.S. District Judge William H. Alsup’s Jan. 9 order. The Trump administration appeal argued that the judge’s order “requires the government to sanction indefinitely an ongoing violation of federal law being committed by nearly 700,000 aliens.” The administration resumed accepting DACA renewal applications after the order. Congress is at an impasse over legislation to protect the dreamers, as President Donald Trump and many Republicans insist that it must be combined with strict new limits on legal immigration. Even though the judge’s order means the prior March deadline isn’t in force, House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin said this month, “we want to operate on deadlines. We clearly need to address this issue in March.”

Alsup said the Department of Homeland Security based its decision to end the program on the “flawed legal premise” that Obama lacked the authority to set it up in the first place. In issuing his temporary order, which extends the protection while the lawsuit goes forward, Alsup said the “public interest” would be served by keeping the program in place. The judge pointed to Trump tweets that suggested he actually supported DACA. A September tweet read: “Does anybody really want to throw out good, educated and accomplished young people who have jobs, some serving in the military? Really! . . . .” Alsup wrote: “We seem to be in the unusual position wherein the ultimate authority over the agency, the chief executive, publicly favors the very program the agency has ended.”

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” Can I be alone in wondering how these agencies can mount massive prosecutions of nobodies like George Papadopoulos and Rick Gates while ignoring the much better documented intrigues?..”

• And Now the Schiff Memo (Jim Kunstler)

The excruciating quandary President Trump presents to the nation is dragging the sad remnant of the thinking class ever-deeper into a netherworld of desperation, paranoia, and mendacity that may exceed even their own official fantasies about the enemy in the White House. Everything about the lumbering, blundering occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue drives his Dem/Prog opponents — or #Resistance, if you will — plumb batshit: his previous incarnations as a shady NYC real estate schmeikler, as a TV clown, as a business deadbeat, as a self-described pussy-grabber… his vulgar casinos, his mystifying hair-do, his baggy suits and dangling neckties, his arrant, childish, needless lying about trivialities, his intemperate tweets, his unappetizing associates, his loutish behavior in foreign lands, his fractured, tortured syntax, his obvious insincerity, his sneery facial contortions… and lots lots more — and of course that doesn’t even touch the actual policy positions he struggles to articulate.

In sum, Trump represents such a monumentally grotesque embarrassment to the permanent Washington establishment that they will pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the removal of this odious caitiff. And in the process abandon all reason and decency. To complicate matters, there really are policy differences that, despite Mr. Trump’s oafish profferings, must somehow be faced for the sake of the country’s future — two of the clearest, just for example, being whether we will have coherent, enforceable immigration laws and whether we will continue to allow the sale of tactical military rifles to the general public. These are matters, by the way, which people of sound mind and honorable intentions could actually resolve through open legislative debate.

[..] in creating this horror movie, the #Resistance is dangerously perverting institutions that may not recover from being written into the script. For instance, the Department of Justice, its subsidiary, the FBI, and sundry intel outfits whose highest officers have been enlisted as cast members. Can I be alone in wondering how these agencies can mount massive prosecutions of nobodies like George Papadopoulos and Rick Gates while ignoring the much better documented intrigues of officials such as Bruce Ohr, Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, Sally Yates, James Comey, Loretta Lynch, John Brennan, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, Hillary Clinton, and possibly even the sainted Barack Obama?

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All the west has left is fabricated narratives.

• East Ghouta: The Last Great Battle Of The Syrian War? (Duran)

Just as was the case with the crisis in Aleppo in 2016, the crisis in east Ghouta today is the subject of much handwringing in the Western media. There are also – just as there were in 2016 – pleas to President Putin to “show mercy”. In 2016 these pleas came mainly from British Foreign Minister Boris Johnson. This time they are coming from German Chancellor Merkel and French President Macron. Meanwhile – as in 2016 – there is grandstanding against Russia at the UN Security Council by the US’s UN ambassador. In 2016 it was Samantha Power; this time it is Nikki Haley. Just as in 2016 we are now seeing overheated and hysterical demands for ‘military action’ to ‘bring the killing to a stop’, with all concerns about what that might lead to brushed aside.

To complete the truly extraordinary parallels, there has even been a US bombing raid on Syrian forces far away in eastern Syria in Deir Ezzor province, just as there was during the fighting in Aleppo in 2016. Moreover the Russian response to the US threats and to the US bombing raid appears to be the same as it was in 2016: the deployment of further powerful additional military forces to Syria and to Khmeimim air base. In 2016 it was S-300VM Antey 2500 anti aircraft missiles; today it is additional S-400 anti aircraft missiles and (reportedly) SU-57 fighters. As to what is really behind the furious campaign to stop the attack on east Ghouta, it is the same as was the case with the furious campaign to stop the attack on eastern Aleppo in 2016: to prevent a Jihadi enclave which threatens one of Syria’s two great cities – Aleppo in 2016, Damascus today – from being destroyed.

As to what would actually happen if – or rather when – that Jihadi enclave is finally destroyed, I can do no better than quote Marcus Papadopoulos “Once East Ghouta is liberated from Al-Qaeda, the world will see the same response from its inhabitants as the world saw once East Aleppo was liberated: jubilation. And, like with East Aleppo, East Ghouta will serve as another testimony about the facade that is the White Helmets.” Why all these frantic attempts to save an Al-Qaeda controlled Jihadi enclave from being destroyed near Damascus? The short answer is that just as the destruction in 2016 of the Jihadi enclave in eastern Aleppo showed to the Western ‘democracy promotion’ lobby that their regime change war in Syria could not be won, so the destruction of the Jihadi enclave in east Ghouta near Damascus today would show to the Western ‘democracy promotion’ lobby that their regime change war in Syria is irretrievably lost.

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The UN is just as guilty as Oxfam etc.

• Women ‘Sexually Exploited In Return For Aid’ By Charities In Syria (BBC)

Women in Syria have been sexually exploited by men delivering aid on behalf of the UN and international charities, the BBC has learned. Aid workers said the men would trade food and lifts for sexual favours. Despite warnings about the abuse three years ago, a new report shows it is continuing in the south of the country. UN agencies and charities said they had zero tolerance of exploitation and were not aware of any cases of abuse by partner organisations in the region. Aid workers told the BBC that the exploitation is so widespread that some Syrian women are refusing to go to distribution centres because people would assume they had offered their bodies for the aid they brought home. One worker claimed that some humanitarian agencies were turning a blind eye to the exploitation because using third parties and local officials was the only way of getting aid into dangerous parts of Syria that international staff could not access.

The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) conducted an assessment of gender based violence in the region last year and concluded that humanitarian assistance was being exchanged for sex in various governorates in Syria. The report, entitled “Voices from Syria 2018”, said: “Examples were given of women or girls marrying officials for a short period of time for ‘sexual services’ in order to receive meals; distributors asking for telephone numbers of women and girls; giving them lifts to their houses ‘to take something in return’ or obtaining distributions ‘in exchange for a visit to her home’ or ‘in exchange for services, such as spending a night with them’.” It added: “Women and girls ‘without male protectors’, such as widows and divorcees as well as female IDPs (Internally Displaced Persons), were regarded as particularly vulnerable to sexual exploitation.” Yet this exploitation was first reported three years ago.

Danielle Spencer, a humanitarian adviser working for a charity, heard about the allegations from a group of Syrian women in a refugee camp in Jordan in March 2015. [..] “I remember one woman crying in the room and she was very upset about what she had experienced. Women and girls need to be protected when they are trying to receive food and soap and basic items to live. The last thing you need is a man who you’re supposed to trust and supposed to be receiving aid from, then asking you to have sex with him and withholding aid from you.” She continued: “It was so endemic that they couldn’t actually go without being stigmatised. It was assumed that if you go to these distributions, that you will have performed some kind of sexual act in return for aid.”

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Debt Rattle December 7 2017

Dec 072017
 
 December 7, 2017  Posted by at 9:10 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  5 Responses »


MC Escher Convex and concave 1955

 

Note: no Debt Rattle tomorrow due to travel

 

• The Great Credit Party Is Almost Over, Societe Generale Says (BBG)
• Mother of All Bubbles Too Big to Pop – Peter Schiff (USAW)
• One Day Soon, The Sun Will Not Rise (Econimica)
• China’s Financial System Has Three Important ‘Tensions’ – IMF (CNBC)
• Bitcoin Mining Service NiceHash Says Hackers Emptied Its Wallet (BBG)
• Trump: Government Shutdown ‘Could Happen’ Saturday (CNBC)
• Trump Calls On Saudi Arabia To End Yemen Blockade Immediately (Ind.)
• Why the Deep State Is at War With Trump (Stockman)
• How Corporate Power Killed Democracy (CP)
• EU Regulators Threaten Court Challenge To EU-US Data Transfer Pact (R.)
• Greek Stability Attracts US Investors Amid Turkey, Middle East Tumult (CNBC)
• Greek Islands Boiling Over As Winter Arrives (K.)
• Scientists Warn Of 93% Chance Global Warming Will Exceed 4°C (Ind.)

 

 

“Emerging market and high-yield markets are the most alarming.”

• The Great Credit Party Is Almost Over, Societe Generale Says (BBG)

The great credit party that’s taken yield premiums in major markets down around lowest in a decade is probably months away from an end, as central banks normalize monetary policy and the economic outlook softens, Societe Generale predicts. “We expect next year to be a transition year, when the ultra-low yield environment finally starts to lose its grip,” Societe Generale credit strategists Juan Esteban Valencia and Guy Stear wrote in a note. “The U.S. and the eurozone are heading for an economic slowdown in 2019, and given the rising levels of corporate leverage, this should have an impact on credit.” U.S. investment-grade bond premiums will widen by mid-2018, with European counterparts following suit, as credit markets price in the economic slowdown, they wrote.

“The sword falls in 2H,” they predicted in a report that recognized last year’s annual outlook proved too bearish. Societe Generale had anticipated political risk to hurt credit in 2017, but changed tack by March as that didn’t pan out. Now, with global premiums having fallen further, “credit looks very pricey indeed,” they wrote. “Emerging market and high-yield markets are the most alarming.”

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Schiff is right, except he keeps being focused on the dollar alone. It’s an American thing.

• Mother of All Bubbles Too Big to Pop – Peter Schiff (USAW)

Money manager Peter Schiff correctly predicted the financial meltdown in 2008. Now, 10 years later, what does Schiff see today? Schiff says, “I predicted a lot more than just the stock market going down back then. I predicted the financial crisis, but more importantly, I predicted what the government would do as a result of the financial crisis and what the consequences of that would be because that’s where we’re headed. The real crash I wrote about in my most recent book is still coming. . . . This is the third gigantic bubble that the Fed has inflated, and when this one pops, it’s not going to be ‘the third time is a charm.’ It’s going to be ‘three strikes and you’re out.’ I think this bubble is too big to pop. I think it’s the mother of all bubbles, and when it bursts, there is not a bigger one that the Fed is going to be able to inflate to mask these problems, meaning we can’t kick the can down the road anymore.”

This time, the crisis is going to hit everyone in the wallet. Schiff goes on to say, “I think the problem we are going to be confronted with is going to be much worse than a financial crisis. It is going to be a dollar crisis, and it is going to be a sovereign debt crisis where the bonds people are worried about are not some sub-prime mortgages. . . . It’s going to be the U.S. government that people are worried about and the solvency of the U.S. government and the Treasury bonds. If it’s a dollar crisis and people are worried about the dollar, the only thing worse than owning a dollar today is owning the promise of being paid in dollars in the future. I don’t think we have the courage to default and admit to our creditors that we don’t have the money and we can’t repay. I think we will create all the money that we need so we can pretend to repay, but what we end up doing is wiping out the debt with inflation.”

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Many more graphs in this from Chris Hamilton. US population growth? It was all immigration: “.. the US fertility rate has been negative for 45 years..”

• One Day Soon, The Sun Will Not Rise (Econimica)

When the Q4 US resident population data is released, something that has not happened in the post WWII era will take place. The population of adults aged 15-64 years old will decline. This was not supposed to happen and will put an end to seven plus decades of continuous population growth which has meant a growing workforce, a growing consumer base, and growing tax base. A growing core US population, something considered as sacrosanct as the sun rising, will not happen. On a year over year basis, where there once were up to 3 million more homebuyers than the previous year, 3 million more car buyers than the year before, 3 million more potential customers…there will be likely be thousands fewer.

Many will assume this is a demographic issue of boomers exiting the working age population… but actually demographics is simply the early onset of a disease that will only progressively worsen. This is truly a population growth issue, not simply a demographic distribution problem. The economic system the US and world have adopted are dependent on perpetual growth on a quarter over quarter and year over year basis. Two negative quarters (or even zero growth) and a recession is called and all the Federal Reserve’s and federal governments tools are employed. Given the importance of growth, the most important factor in growing the economy is the rising demand represented by a growing population. But the US fertility rate has been negative for 45 years (chart below) meaning the native population (plus immigrants) have continually failed to replace themselves.

This means US population growth has simply been a story of immigration. And until 2000, N. America was the primary destination for the majority of the world’s immigrants. However, since ’00 and particularly since ’05, the migration patterns have significantly changed.

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The soft approach.

• China’s Financial System Has Three Important ‘Tensions’ – IMF (CNBC)

An almost two-year long study of the Chinese financial system by the International Monetary Fund found three major tensions that could derail the world’s second-largest economy. Those tensions emerged as China moves away from its role as the world’s factory to a more modern, consumer-driven economy, the IMF said. The financial sector is critical in facilitating that transition, but in the process it evolved into a more complicated and debt-laden system. “The system’s increasing complexity has sown financial stability risks,” the fund said in the 2017 China Financial Sector Stability Assessment report released on Thursday morning Asia hours. The report was a culmination of the fund’s several visits to China between October 2015 and September 2017.

The assessment is intended to identify key sources of systemic risk in the financial sector so that policies can be implemented to enhance resilience to shocks and problems that could spread across the globe. The first tension in China’s financial system, according to the IMF, is the rapid build-up in risky credit that was partly due to the strong political pressures banks face to keep non-viable companies open, rather than letting them fail. Such struggling firms have, in recent years, taken on more debt to achieve growth targets set by the authorities. The overall debt-to-GDP ratio in the Asian economic giant grew from around 180% in 2011 to 255.9% by the second quarter of 2017, data by the Bank for International Settlements showed. The rise coincided with a slowdown in productivity growth and pressures on asset quality in the banking system – increasing the risks faced by the Chinese economy.

The second tension identified by the IMF is that risky lending has moved away from banks to the less-regulated parts of the financial system, commonly known as the “shadow banking” sector. That adds to the complexity of the financial sector and makes it more difficult for authorities to supervise activities in the system, the IMF said. And the third issue identified by the international organization is that there’s been a rash of “moral hazard and excessive risk-taking” because of the mindset that the government will bail out troubled state-owned enterprises and local government financing vehicles. An example is the “implicit guarantees” that financial institutions offer when selling products to retail investors. That is a situation where the financial product sold are not guaranteed, but banks almost always compensate investors for principal losses by dipping into their own capital.

The People’s Bank of China, in response to the IMF assessment, said in a statement on its website that it disagrees with some points in the report but the fund’s recommendations are “highly relevant in the context of deepening financial reforms” in the country. One of the points the Chinese central bank said it disagrees with is the conclusion that many banks lack the ability to withstand shocks. The IMF’s stress tests found that 27 out of 33 banks studied were under-capitalized. But the PBOC said the Chinese financial system is resilient.

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NiceHash is the largest bitcoin-mining exchange. Well, its coins have been found. But what now?

“a highly professional attack with sophisticated social engineering”

• Bitcoin Mining Service NiceHash Says Hackers Emptied Its Wallet (BBG)

NiceHash, the marketplace for cloud-based mining of cryptocurrencies, said hackers breached its systems and stole an unknown amount of bitcoin from its virtual wallet. “We are working to verify the precise number of BTC taken,” the company said Wednesday in a statement on its Facebook page. It’s halting operations for 24 hours, it said. The venture’s main webpage showed a “maintenance” error message, linking to its social media accounts. NiceHash helps match people who can spare computing capacity with miners looking to solve complex math problems to obtain a variety of new coins. It later facilitates periodic payments to the service providers with bitcoin. A wallet address circulated by NiceHash users shows that more than $60 million of bitcoins might be affected, according to CoinDesk, the cryptocurrency research and news website.

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Seems a bit early, but echo chambers are deafening.

• Trump: Government Shutdown ‘Could Happen’ Saturday (CNBC)

President Donald Trump on Wednesday said that a government shutdown “could happen” as soon as Saturday. “It could happen,” Trump said during a Cabinet meeting at the White House, in response to a reporter’s question about the Friday deadline for a spending bill to fund the government. “The Democrats are really looking at something that could be very dangerous for our country,” Trump said. “They are looking at shutting down. They want to have illegal immigrants, in many cases people that we don’t want in our country, they want to have illegal immigrants pouring into our country, bringing with them crime, tremendous amounts of crime.” Congress has until midnight on Friday to approve a short-term spending package to keep the government open. Despite majorities in both chambers, Republicans will need Democratic votes to pass the bill.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., responded on Twitter to Trump’s comments saying: “President Trump is the only person talking about a government shutdown. Democrats are hopeful the President will be open to an agreement to address the urgent needs of the American people and keep government open.” What congressional Democrats want in exchange for supporting the spending bill are permanent protections for the nearly 800,000 young, undocumented immigrants currently living in the United States who were brought here as children, the so-called Dreamers. Earlier this year, Trump canceled an Obama-era protection policy for Dreamers, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA. The president’s order gave Congress until March 2018 to pass a bill with DACA-like protections.

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To balance out the Jerusalem decision? Jerusalem should be a religious city, not a political one.

• Trump Calls On Saudi Arabia To End Yemen Blockade Immediately (Ind.)

US President Donald Trump has called on Saudi Arabia to end its Yemen blockade immediately, citing humanitarian concerns. Mr Trump said in a statement that he has directed US officials to call Saudi Arabian leaders and request they “completely allow food, fuel, water and medicine to reach the Yemeni people.” He said Yemenis “desperately need it.” A Saudi-led coalition has been fighting to defeat the Iran-backed Houthis and Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s forces in Yemen since March 2015 with the aim of reinstating the internationally recognized government of Mr Saleh’s successor, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi. The US has been supporting the coalition through weapons sales, some intelligence sharing, and refuelling capabilities for air operations.

Since the conflict began, at least 10,000 people have died as a result and 40,000 have been wounded, Al Jazeera reported. Mr Saleh was killed earlier this week after moving to switch allegiances in the bloody conflict, making the situation in the country unpredictable according to experts. [..] The Saudi-led coalition had imposed a blockade on the country last month after Houthi rebels fired a missile on the Saudi capital of Riyadh. It responded by sending a slew of missiles into Yemen’s capital Sanaa. The blockade was partially lifted at the Hudaya port of the international airport in Sanaa and the first aid shipments were allowed to enter the country just last week. In the meantime, aid groups were forced to buy their own fuel in order to assist with relief work.

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Stockma’s not the lonly one pointing out that the NSA already knows everything. They don’t have to interview Flynn for that.

• Why the Deep State Is at War With Trump (Stockman)

If you were a Martian visitor just disembarked from of one of Elon Musk’s rocket ships and were therefore uninfected by earth-based fake news, the culprits in Washington’s witch-hunt de jure would be damn obvious. They include John Brennan, Jim Comey, Sally Yates, Peter Strzok and a passel of deep state operatives – all of whom baldly abused their offices. After Brennan had concocted the whole Russian election meddling meme to sully the Donald’s shocking election win, the latter three holdovers – functioning as a political fifth column in the new Administration – set a perjury trap designed to snare Mike Flynn as a first step in relitigating and reversing the voters’ verdict. The smoking gun on their guilt is so flamingly obvious that the ability of the Trump-hating media to ignore it is itself a wonder to behold.

After all, anyone fresh off Elon’s rocket ship would learn upon even cursory investigation of the matter that the National Security Agency (NSA) intercepts electronically every single communication of the Russian Ambassador with any person on US soil – whether by email, text or phone call. So the clear-minded visitor’s simple question would be: What do the transcripts say? In fact, a Martian visitor would also quickly understand that the entire world – friend, rival, foe and enemy, alike – already knows of NSA’s giant digital spying operation owing to Snowden’s leaks, and that therefore there are no “sources and methods” on the SIGINT (signals intelligence) front to protect. Accordingly, the disinterested Martian would undoubtedly insist: Declassify the NSA intercepts and publish them on Facebook (and, for old timers, on the front page of the New York Times) so that the truth would be known to all.

Of course, that would punch a deep hole in the entire RussiaGate witchhunt because NSA, in fact, did record Flynn’s late December conversations with Russian Ambassador Kislyak. And there was not a single word in them that related to alleged campaign collusion or otherwise inappropriate communications by the in-coming national security adviser to a newly-elected President who was three-weeks from inauguration. Indeed, as explained below, Mueller has effectively told us that Flynn’s communications with Kislyak were clean as a whistle.

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Corporatism. Another name for Mussolini’s version of fascism.

• How Corporate Power Killed Democracy (CP)

The rise of Corporate Power was the fall of democracy. Over the long haul, US politics has revolved around a deep tension between democracy and an unrelenting drive for plunder, power and empire. Granted that our democracy has been seriously flawed and only rarely revolutionary, yet the democratic movements are the source of every good thing America has ever stood for. Since the mid-1970s, when the corporations fused with the state, a new imperial order emerged that killed what remained of representative democracy. Not only would corporations exercise public authority as only government once had, but government would coordinate and serve corporate activity. Power and profits became one and the same. Corporate power has replaced democracy with oligarchy and justice with a vast militarized penal system.

Instead of innovative production, they plunder people and planet. To achieve this new order, elections and the economy had to be drained of any remaining democratic content. Both Democrats and Republicans were eager to have at it. By the 1990s “Third Way” Democrats like Bill Clinton abandoned what was left of the New Deal to try to outdo the Republicans as the party of Wall Street. The Republicans pioneered election fraud on a national scale in 2000, 2004, and 2016; a lesson the Democrats learned all too well by the 2016 Primary. Neither major party wants election reform since free and fair elections would threaten the system itself. So-called private corporations like Facebook, Google and Twitter control information and manage the 1st Amendment.

The corporate media now broadcast propaganda and play the role of censor once monopolized by the FBI and CIA. The migration of propaganda work to civilian organizations began under Ronald Reagan. While both major parties offer the people nothing beyond austerity and the worst kind of identity politics, the big banks like Goldman Sachs gained positions of real influence with both Republican and Democratic administrations and always with the Department of the Treasury and the Federal Reserve. Without pubic money and political protection the banking system — the headquarters of the mythical free market — could not function.

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Yes, this has everything to do with Google, Facebook et al (not just government spies). It involves some $260 billion in digital trade.

• EU Regulators Threaten Court Challenge To EU-US Data Transfer Pact (R.)

European Union privacy regulators have threatened to bring a legal challenge to a year-old EU-U.S. pact on the cross-border transfer of personal data if their concerns about its functioning and U.S. surveillance practices are not resolved by the autumn of 2018, they said in a report. The EU-U.S. Privacy Shield pact was agreed last year after the European Union’s highest court had struck down the previous Safe Harbour Principles agreement which allowed companies to transfer European citizens’ personal data to the United States, due to concerns about intrusive U.S. surveillance of online data. The Privacy Shield pact enables companies to easily conduct everyday cross-border data transfers in compliance with EU data protection rules.

“The WP29 (Article 29 Working Party) has identified a number of significant concerns that need to be addressed by both the (European) Commission and the U.S. authorities,” the regulators – known as the Article 29 Working Party – said in their report. The European Commission, which negotiated the Privacy Shield deal, conducted its first annual review in September and said it was satisfied with the way it was working. It did however ask Washington to improve it, including by strengthening the privacy protections contained in a controversial portion of the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), known as Section 702. Section 702 allows the U.S. National Security Agency to collect digital communications from foreign suspects living outside the United States. It is due to expire on Dec. 31 in the absence of congressional action.

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It won’t remain stable. Or rather, it never was: poevry is making more victims every day.

• Greek Stability Attracts US Investors Amid Turkey, Middle East Tumult (CNBC)

A series of positive factors for the Greek economy are attracting U.S. investors back to the embattled euro zone nation, a government minister told CNBC. “There are many American investors who are interested in participating in projects in Greece, because every clever investor would be interested in an economy that now starts to have positive growth rates,” Dimitris Tzanakopoulo, Greek minister of state and the government spokesperson, told CNBC Monday. Following a meeting between President Donald Trump and Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras in October, there’s a renewed interest from the U.S. in shoring up its investments in Greece, especially in the energy sector.

Aside from a bounce back in economic growth, Tzanakopoulo said that Greece was “a pillar of stability in a region” and is winning back investors. “(The region) has many, many problems, wherever you look there’s destabilization, there is turbulence,” Tzanakopoulo said in his office in Athens. “We think we are one of the factors which will secure and guarantee stability in the region and this is something everybody knows, from the U.S. to our European partners,” he said. At the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa, Greece is a key ally for many Western countries in the face of escalating tumult in Turkey and the rest of the Middle East.

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Apparently Berlin has not given permission to move refugees to the mainland. Shame on you, mutti Merkel.

• Greek Islands Boiling Over As Winter Arrives (K.)

The decision by the Migration Policy Ministry to expand and upgrade hot spots on Chios and Lesvos have cultivated a tense atmosphere, as critics say it will do nothing to ease pressure on the eastern Aegean islands and or to alleviate the situation of thousands of stranded refugees and migrants crammed in camps designed to hold far less people. Moreover, the onset of winter has made a bad situation even worse and the calls for authorities to accelerate asylum applications so as to transfer people to the mainland have become even louder. In the bid to deal with the deteriorating conditions, a team from Medecins Sans Frontiers (MSF) has, since last week, set up operations outside the Moria camp in Lesvos, offering assistance to those in need in cooperation with the Hellenic Center for Disease Control and Prevention (KEELPNO).

In a Facebook post, MSF said the harsh conditions and the cold are posing a serious threat to the health of the some 7,000 people that remain at the Moria hot spot. The group, which has called for the immediate transfer of those living at Moria to the mainland, has set up a mobile unit outside the camp to help children under the age of 16 and pregnant women. MSF is also distributing blankets, mattresses and other basic necessities as the situation, it said, is on the brink of a humanitarian crisis. At the same time, the Migration Policy Ministry is planning to transfer another 65 prefabricated huts to Moria in a bid to increase the camp’s capacity and to improve the living conditions of those that are still staying in summer tents. But the move is set to trigger more acrimony, as islanders and local authorities have said they do not agree with the expansion of the hot spot’s capacity.

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That would mean much higher sea levels.

• Scientists Warn Of 93% Chance Global Warming Will Exceed 4°C (Ind.)

Current predictions of climate change may significantly underestimate the speed and severity of global warming, according to a new study. Reappraisal of the models climate scientists use to determine future warming has revealed that less optimistic estimates are more realistic. The results suggest that the Paris Climate Agreement, which aims to keep global average temperatures from rising by 2C, may be overly ambitious. “Our study indicates that if emissions follow a commonly used business-as-usual scenario, there is a 93% chance that global warming will exceed 4C by the end of this century,” said Dr Ken Caldeira, an atmospheric scientist at the Carnegie Institution for Science, who co-authored the new study. This likelihood is an increase on past estimates, which placed it at 62%.

Climate models are vital tools for scientists attempting to understand the impacts of greenhouse-gas emissions. They are constructed using fundamental knowledge of physics and the world’s climate. But the climate system is incredibly complex, and as a result there is disagreement about how best to model key aspects of it. This means scientists have produced dozens of climate models predicting a range of different global warming outcomes resulting from greenhouse-gas emissions. Based on a “business-as-usual” scenario in which emissions continue at the same rate, climate models range in their predictions from a 3.2C increase in global temperatures to a 5.9C increase The new study, published in the journal Nature, sought to resolve this situation and establish whether the upper or lower estimates are more accurate.

To do this, Dr Caldeira and his collaborator Dr Patrick Brown reasoned that the most accurate models would be the ones that were best at simulating climate patterns in the recent past. “It makes sense that the models that do the best job at simulating today’s observations might be the models with the most reliable predictions,” said Dr Caldeira. Their conclusion was that models with higher estimates were more likely to be accurate, with the most likely degree of warming 0.5C higher than previous best estimates.

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If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my life.
—Thoreau

 

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