Jun 262018
 


Jan van Eyck Crucifixion and Last Judgement 1430

 

A -Very- Bad Day to Be Long Wall Street’s ‘Synchronized Global Recovery’ (HE)
Fed’s Effort To Control The Rise Of Its Key Interest Rate Is Faltering (CNBC)
Russia, China And India Move To Prepare For Global Reset (Greyerz)
Trump Tariffs Force Companies To Rework Supply Chains (R.)
Trump Officials Send Mixed Signals On China Investment Curbs, Markets Sink (R.)
Pepe Escobar On Trump, ‘New York Aristocracy’ and the Deep State (ZH)
Britain Is Becoming A Stupid Country (G.)
Brexit Uncertainty Puts 860,000 Jobs At Risk, Warns Car Industry (G.)
Tesla’s “Preposterous” Model 3 Production Tent (ZH)
Accused Russian Company Says Mueller Was Unlawfully Appointed (R.)
How Comey Intervened To Kill Assange Immunity Deal (Hill)
Algeria Abandons 13,000 Migrants In The Sahara In Waves (AP)
Brazil Moves To Loosen Pesticide Laws (G.)
David Lynch on Trump (G.)

 

 

China slowdown.

A -Very- Bad Day to Be Long Wall Street’s ‘Synchronized Global Recovery’ (HE)

It’s a nasty day to be long Wall Street’s “synchronized global recovery.” Chinese stocks are down -20% from their January highs. Emerging Market equities, like Argentina and the Philippines, have been rocked by the one-two punch of a stronger dollar and slowing growth. Italian equities are down -12% since early May. Our read on global stagflation remains firmly intact. In other words, it’s not the threat of President Trump’s trade wars that continue to weigh on global equity markets, it’s slowing economic data. We don’t expect these trends to reverse anytime soon. The evidence of global growth slowing is everywhere.

The latest news out of China is that the PBoC lowered the reserve requirements for some Chinese banks, thereby releasing $108 billion in liquidity. The media quickly blamed President Trump’s “trade wars” for the move. However, the economic tea leaves suggest China’s ongoing growth slowdown is the culprit. The ripple effects of #ChinaSlowing are already being felt in Emerging Asia, like Philippine equities. (China is one of the Philippines’ primary trading partners. #ChinaSlowing = Not good.) We continue to forecast #EuropeSlowing, despite ECB head Mario Draghi’s claim that European “growth momentum” is alive and well. If the data is so good, why did Eurozone Industrial Production get more-or-less cut in half in April (1.7% YoY i! from 3.2%)?

Read more …

What control?

Fed’s Effort To Control The Rise Of Its Key Interest Rate Is Faltering (CNBC)

The Federal Reserve’s effort earlier this month to tamp down the rise of its benchmark interest rate already isn’t running as smoothly as officials might have anticipated. At its June 12-13 meeting, the Federal Open Market Committee hiked its target overnight funds rate 0.25 points to a range of 1.75 percent to 2 percent. At the same time, it raised the interest on excess reserves 0.2 points to 1.95 percent. The move was meant to contain the rise of the funds rate, which historically trails the IOER. In the weeks running up to the meeting, the funds rate closed within 5 basis points, or 0.05 percent, of the IOER, instead of staying within the midpoint of the target range as it has done since the Fed began hiking the funds rate in December 2015.

However, in the days since, the funds rate has moved even closer to the IOER. As of Friday trading, the funds rate has edged up to 1.92 percent — now just 3 basis points away from the IOER, though still 8 points away from the top of the trading range set at this month’s meeting. For the Fed, it’s a potential headache as the central bank sees to unwind the programs it initiated the pull the economy out of the financial crisis. The Fed kept interest rates at historically low levels and bought up nearly $4 trillion worth of Treasurys and mortgage-backed securities in an effort to keep rates anchored and maintain liquidity flow through the financial system. For investors, it means that continued upward pressure on the funds rate as the Fed unwinds the bonds on its balance sheet could keep the FOMC at bay in its stated intention to continue hiking interest rates.

“Here we are, and I think they will be lucky to get one more done this year, because whenever the curve flattens the market’s going to look at the Fed and say, ‘Really?’ and the Fed will have to blink,” said Christopher Whalen, head of Whalen Global Advisors, an investment bank consultancy. “They’re telling everyone there’s going to be a couple more rate increases, and that’s fanciful.”

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But when?

Russia, China And India Move To Prepare For Global Reset (Greyerz)

Egon von Greyerz: “While the US government worries about the military threat of Russia, and the trade deficit with China, they show no concern for the real problems. To understand what is really happening, all we need to do is to ‘Follow the Money.’ The flows of real money reveal where global economic power is moving. “The US has not had a real budget surplus for almost 60 years and has run balance of payment deficits every year since 1975. A country that lives above its means for over half a century is technically and economically bankrupt. Its debt should have zero value and so should its currency. But the US has skillfully avoided bankruptcy, so far, by having the reserve currency of the world and being the biggest military power.

Both Russia and China can see the writing on the wall. They understand that the world’s most indebted country cannot solve its debt problem by issuing more debt. That is why Russia and China, together with India, are buying most of the global gold production every year. In May Russia added another 600,000 oz or almost 20 tonnes to its gold reserves. Since January 2018, when Trump became president, US debt has increased by 6% or $1.1 trillion to $21.1 trillion, while Russia has added another 9 million oz of gold, and are now holding $80 billion of gold reserves. So while the US economy is taking the road to perdition, Russia knows that the only money that will survive is gold — just like it always has! For years the world has financed the US debt by buying US treasuries. But we are now seeing a marked change.

Many countries are currently liquidating US Treasuries. They know what will happen to US debt and are trying to get rid of their holdings in an orderly manner in order to avoid US Treasuries crashing together with the dollar. This is what will happen at some point in the next 1-3 years. Global investors will panic out of dollar denominated bonds, leading to a crash of both the US currency and dollar debt. The Chinese know this but their US Treasury holdings are so large that they need to sell slowly in order not to shoot themselves in the foot. In the end, China is likely to take a major loss on its dollar Treasury holdings but that is the price they have been willing to pay in order to build up their economy and manufacturing sector through financing US deficit spending.

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Multinationals and de-globalization.

Trump Tariffs Force Companies To Rework Supply Chains (R.)

From global manufacturers such as Harley-Davidson to small tech startups, companies are scrambling to rework supply chains built for an era of stable, open trade policy that is now under threat. As U.S. President Donald Trump pushes to upend the status quo of global trade, companies that initially took a wait-and-see stance are starting to take action to shield their businesses from shifting trade policy. On Monday, U.S. motorcycle maker Harley warned of higher costs because of retaliatory EU tariffs, and said it would shift production of bikes destined for the European Union out of the United States to factories it has built in India, Brazil and Thailand.

The decision of the Milwaukee, Wisconsin-based company, which Trump vowed to make great again when he took office, came less than a week after Mercedes-Benz maker Daimler cut its 2018 profit forecast, citing growing trade tensions. Its German rival BMW said it was considering “possible strategic options” in view of the rising trade tensions between China and the United States. Harley is the latest example of how companies are finding themselves in the crosshairs following “tit-for-tat” retaliations over Trump’s bid to rewrite global trade rules as part of his “America First” agenda. Office furniture maker Steelcase last week reported a 230 basis-point fall in the gross margins of its American business in the first quarter due to higher raw materials costs following Trump’s metal import tariffs.

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And still negotiating.

Trump Officials Send Mixed Signals On China Investment Curbs, Markets Sink (R.)

Conflicting signals from the Trump administration over proposed restrictions on foreign investment in U.S. technology companies, along with news that recently imposed import tariffs are starting to disrupt supply chains, sent global stock markets tumbling on Monday. Proposed restrictions on foreign investment in U.S. technology would not just be confined to China, according to U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. The forthcoming restrictions would apply “to all countries that are trying to steal our technology,” he said. The U.S. Treasury is due to issue its recommendations on Chinese investment restrictions on Friday.

Late Monday White House trade and manufacturing adviser Peter Navarro sought to downplay Mnuchin’s remarks, telling CNBC television that the restrictions on investments in U.S. technology companies would just target China. Benchmark Wall Street stock indexes suffered their worst losses in two months on Monday, while safe haven Treasury debt yields fell. U.S. technology stocks were worst hit. Alphabet, the parent of Google, fell 2.6 percent, Apple lost 2.75 percent, and Amazon dropped 3.0 percent. The recent imposition of import tariffs by the U.S., and counter-measures by other countries, are also starting to affect global production and supply chains. Some U.S. steel and aluminium tariffs went into effect in April and additional tariffs begin in July.

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China has much more to lose than the US.

Pepe Escobar On Trump, ‘New York Aristocracy’ and the Deep State (ZH)

Trump, Escobar explains, wasn’t born into the Manhattan aristocracy. And though the “Masters of the Universe” – a group that includes the country’s top bankers along with the leaders of the military and intelligence communities – were initially reluctant to embrace him (as were many factions within the Republican Party), they eventually changed their minds once they understood that he would advocate for their interests. “He’s not born in lower Manhattan…and he’s not part of the New York aristocracy, the establishment that’s been there for some 150 to 200 years…he’s still regarded in New York as a wealthy outsider. But in the end, he was accepted by some sectors of the Republican Party – even though they initially didn’t want to accept him – Washington, some sectors of the Republican Party.”

He was the candidate of the establishment from the beginning, or he was a genuine candidate whose regime has now been disturbed by the Deep State. He was vetoed by the establishment – this is something that people who know how the Deep State works in DC they will tell you always the same thing: You don’t become a candidate for a President of the United States if you are not vetted…by the people who actually run the US.” Trump was vulnerable to this manipulation because he doesn’t have a nuanced enough understanding of geopolitics…which has forced him to rely on advisors whispering in his ear…advisors whose intentions aren’t always working in the best interest of the president, or the American people, for that matter.

One example is Trump’s insistence on instigating a trade war between China and the US. While China has many ways to retaliate against the US, as least when it comes to finding markets for their goods, US companies have more options than their Chinese peers. “Trump still doesn’t understand that the retaliation is going to be really huge from the Chinese and they have ways of hurting badly – they even have ways of ratcheting up taxes on products made in the Midwest. But they’re going to lose much more than we do. We have other markets. We export more to Asia, we export more to South America and we export more to Europe.”

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Been coming for a while now.

Britain Is Becoming A Stupid Country (G.)

Melvyn Bragg has said Britain is becoming a stupid country, in part because its university system is being destroyed. The broadcaster and Labour peer criticised the state of British higher education in an interview with the magazine Radio Times. “We have, per capita, the best university system in the world, but it’s being – carelessly and utterly stupidly – destroyed very slowly,” he said. “We used to be the clever country and now we’re clearly the stupid country. Except for certain highlights.”

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Wait till the bankers start to protest.

Brexit Uncertainty Puts 860,000 Jobs At Risk, Warns Car Industry (G.)

The car industry has warned Theresa May there is “no Brexit dividend” for the business, with 860,000 jobs being put at risk unless the government “rethinks” its red lines in negotiations. In the starkest warning yet from a single business sector, the car lobby has told the government that it needs “as a minimum” to remain in the customs union and a deal that delivers “single market benefits”. “There is no Brexit dividend for our industry,” Michael Hawes, chief executive of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, said. It said Brexit uncertainty was thwarting investment and repeated calls for the UK to stay in the customs partnership until the government came up with a “credible plan B”.

With investment slowing and time running out, negotiators must get on with the job of agreeing a deal that will put an end to uncertainty and prioritise the needs of the automotive sector, the SMMT said. The sector had grown for the eighth successive year with turnover at a record £82bn in 2017. However it said 2018 has showed a slowdown in output with investment earmarked for new models, equipments and facilities in the UK halving to around £347m. [..] “With decisions on new vehicle models in the UK due soon, government must take steps to boost investor confidence and safeguard the thousands of jobs that depend on the sector,” it said ahead of a key conference for the automotive industry.

The government had “no credible Plan B” for customs arrangements post-Brexit, it said, that would keep the Port of Dover flowing freely. Car manufacturers rely on what is known as “just in time” production whereby components, mostly from the EU, cross the channel just hours before they are needed on the assembly line. More than 1,000 trucks a day cross the channel with these components.

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Not even Onion.

Tesla’s “Preposterous” Model 3 Production Tent (ZH)

Bears and bulls alike following Tesla’s gripping nailbiter of a story – the company has until the end of the month to pumpt out 5,000 Model 3 sedans a week – both agree on one thing: the output of the company’s new “tent” structure which Musk erected recently to produce Model 3 vehicles is going to decide whether or not the company hits its production goal that it has touted over the last couple of months. The tent was erected in just a matter of weeks, and came online in early June, to help the company produce more vehicles at a time when they are under the microscope. Until recently, we didn’t know the details as to when it was erected, what the timing looked like and what it is expected to produce.

However, a Bloomberg article out today helped shed some light on the details of what is arguably the most important – if archaic – structure that Tesla has built yet. Not surprisingly, opinions extend the whole gamut, with some manufacturing experts claiming the tent is “basically nuts”: “Elon Musk has six days to make good on his pledge that Tesla will be pumping out 5,000 Model 3 sedans a week by the end of the month. If he succeeds, it may be thanks to the curious structure outside the company’s factory. It’s a tent the size of two football fields that Musk calls “pretty sweet” and that manufacturing experts deride as, basically, nuts. [..] Inside the tent in Fremont, California, is an assembly line Musk hastily pulled together for the Model 3. That’s the electric car that is supposed to vault Tesla from niche player for the wealthy to high-volume automaker, bringing a more affordable electric vehicle to the masses.”

Analysts at Bernstein are equally unimpressed. Here is a quote from Max Warburton who benchmarked auto assembly plants before his job as a financial analyst: “Words fail me. It’s insanity,” said Max Warburton, who benchmarked auto-assembly plants around the world before becoming a financial analyst. [..] What gives manufacturing experts pause about Tesla’s tent is that it was pitched to shelter an assembly line cobbled together with scraps lying around the brick-and-mortar plant. It smacks of a Hail Mary move after months of stopping and starting production to make on-the-fly fixes to automated equipment, which Musk himself has said was a mistake. “The existing line isn’t functional, it can’t build cars as planned and there isn’t room to get people into work stations to replace the non-functioning robots,” Warburton said. “So here we have it—build cars manually in the parking lot.”

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Surprising argument. They must think it has merit.

Accused Russian Company Says Mueller Was Unlawfully Appointed (R.)

A Russian company accused of helping fund a propaganda operation to sway the 2016 presidential election in Donald Trump’s favor asked a federal judge on Monday to dismiss charges brought by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, saying Mueller was unlawfully appointed and lacks prosecutorial authority. Concord Management and Consulting LLC, a firm that prosecutors say is controlled by a businessman dubbed by Russian media as “Putin’s cook,” argued in a filing in U.S. district court in Washington that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein violated the Appointments Clause of the U.S. Constitution when he hired Mueller in May 2017.

Concord is one of three entities, along with 13 Russian individuals, indicted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office in February in an alleged criminal and espionage conspiracy to tamper with the U.S. race, boost Trump and disparage his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton. The indictment said Concord is controlled by Russian businessman Evgeny Prigozhin, who U.S. officials have said has extensive ties to Russia’s military and political establishment. In it, Concord is alleged to have controlled funding, recommended personnel and overseen the activities of the propaganda campaign. Concord is the only one of the defendants in the case to have formally responded to the charges in federal court. Earlier this year, it hired American lawyers to fight the indictment.

Under the Constitution’s Appointments Clause, principal officers such as cabinet secretaries are appointed by the president and confirmed by the United States Senate while “inferior officers” may be appointed by courts or department heads if permitted by Congress. Concord’s lawyers say that Mueller qualifies as an “officer” under the clause and not a routine federal employee under the law because of his vast prosecutorial authority. They say that no matter whether Mueller is deemed an “inferior” or “principal” officer, his appointment still violates the Constitution. As a principal officer, they say, he should have been appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate.

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Behind the scenes.

How Comey Intervened To Kill Assange Immunity Deal (Hill)

One of the more devastating intelligence leaks in American history — the unmasking of the CIA’s arsenal of cyber warfare weapons last year — has an untold prelude worthy of a spy novel. Some of the characters are household names, thanks to the Russia scandal: James Comey, fired FBI director. Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Department of Justice (DOJ) official Bruce Ohr. Julian Assange, grand master of WikiLeaks. And American attorney Adam Waldman, who has a Forrest Gump-like penchant for showing up in major cases of intrigue. Each played a role in the early days of the Trump administration to try to get Assange to agree to “risk mitigation” — essentially, limiting some classified CIA information he might release in the future.

The effort resulted in the drafting of a limited immunity deal that might have temporarily freed the WikiLeaks founder from a London embassy where he has been exiled for years, according to interviews and a trove of internal DOJ documents turned over to Senate investigators. But an unexpected intervention by Comey — relayed through Warner — soured the negotiations, multiple sources tell me. Assange eventually unleashed a series of leaks that U.S. officials say damaged their cyber warfare capabilities for a long time to come. This yarn begins in January 2017 when Assange’s legal team approached Waldman — known for his government connections — to see if the new Trump administration would negotiate with the WikiLeaks founder, holed up in Ecuador’s London embassy.

[..] Ohr consulted his chain of command and the intelligence community about what appeared to be an extraordinary overture that raised hopes the government could negotiate what Assange would release and what he might redact, to protect the names of exposed U.S. officials. Assange made clear through the lawyer that he would never compromise his sources, or stop publishing information, but was willing to consider concessions like redactions. Although the intelligence community reviled Assange for the damage his past releases caused, officials “understood any visibility into his thinking, any opportunity to negotiate any redactions, was in the national security interest and worth taking,” says a senior official involved at the time.

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Unconscionable EU comment: “sovereign countries” can expel migrants as long as they comply with international law..”

Algeria Abandons 13,000 Migrants In The Sahara In Waves (AP)

Assamaka, Niger — From this isolated frontier post deep in the sands of the Sahara, the expelled migrants can be seen coming over the horizon by the hundreds. They look like specks in the distance, trudging miserably across some of the world’s most unforgiving terrain in the blistering sun. They are the ones who made it out alive. Here in the desert, Algeria has abandoned more than 13,000 people in the past 14 months, including pregnant women and children, stranding them without food or water and forcing them to walk, sometimes at gunpoint, under temperatures of up to 48ºC (118ºF). In Niger, where the majority head, the lucky ones limp across a desolate 15-kilometer (9-mile) no man’s land to Assamaka, less a town than a collection of unsteady buildings sinking into drifts of sand.

Others, disoriented and dehydrated, wander for days before a U.N. rescue squad can find them. Untold numbers perish along the way; nearly all the more than two dozen survivors interviewed by The Associated Press told of people in their groups who simply could not go on and vanished into the Sahara. [..] Algeria’s mass expulsions have picked up since October 2017, as the European Union renewed pressure on North African countries to head off migrants going north to Europe via the Mediterranean Sea or the barrier fences with Spain. These migrants from across sub-Saharan Africa — Mali, the Gambia, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Niger and more — are part of the mass migration toward Europe, some fleeing violence, others just hoping to make a living.

A European Union spokesperson said the EU was aware of what Algeria was doing, but that “sovereign countries” can expel migrants as long as they comply with international law. Unlike Niger, Algeria takes none of the EU money intended to help with the migration crisis, although it did receive $111.3 million in aid from Europe between 2014 and 2017. Algeria provides no figures for the expulsions. But the number of people crossing on foot to Niger has been rising steadily since the International Organization for Migration started counting in May 2017, when 135 people were dropped at the crossing, to as high as 2,888 in April 2018. In all, according to the IOM, a total of 11,276 men, women and children survived the march.

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Corrupt countries have no chance against Monsanto.

Brazil Moves To Loosen Pesticide Laws (G.)

A Brazilian Congress commission has approved a controversial bill to lift restrictions on pesticides despite fierce opposition from environmentalists, prosecutors, health and environment ministry bodies, and even United Nations special rapporteurs. Driven by a powerful agribusiness lobby, the bill now needs to be voted on in both houses of Congress and sanctioned by President Michel Temer before becoming law. Its proponents say it will free up bureaucracy and modernise dated legislation. But the bill has generated fierce opposition in Brazil, one of the world’s biggest food producers and biggest consumers of pesticides, even those banned in other countries.

Opponents dubbed it the “poison package” and said it would lead to the indiscriminate use of dangerous pesticides, while 250,000 signed an online petition against it. “The law will make us more permissive than we already are,” said Larissa Bombardi, a professor of geography and pesticides specialist at the University of São Paulo. “The economic interest will prevail over human and environmental health.” Of 121 pesticides permitted in Brazil for coffee production, 30 are already banned in the European Union, including the toxic herbicide paraquat, Bombardi reported in an extensive 2017 study. The bill overhauls existing legislation, allowing for pesticides to be given temporary register if the approval process has taken over two years and three countries in the OECD have already approved it.

[..] Under Brazil’s current legislation, pesticides with elements considered teratogenic, carcinogenic, mutagenic, endocrine disruptive, or posing risks to the reproductive system can’t be registered, they said. But under the bill, hazardous pesticides will only be prohibited when there is a “scientifically established unacceptable risk” – a definition too vague to be effective. Greenpeace attacked lawmakers for approving the bill in the face of such wide opposition. “They want a toxic product to look less threatening,” said Marcio Astrini, Greenpeace Brazil’s public policy coordinator. “The toxic garbage being banned in the rest of the planet will be sold here.”

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He’s not that wrong. He won’t be a great president, but the disruption is needed.

David Lynch on Trump (G.)

David Lynch on Trump: “He could go down as one of the greatest presidents in history because he has disrupted the thing so much. No one is able to counter this guy in an intelligent way.” While Trump may not be doing a good job himself, Lynch thinks, he is opening up a space where other outsiders might. “Our so-called leaders can’t take the country forward, can’t get anything done. Like children, they are. Trump has shown all this.”

Read more …

Apr 212018
 
 April 21, 2018  Posted by at 12:43 pm Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , ,  11 Responses »


Arthur Rothstein Lower Broadway, New York 1941

 

British media report today that Donald Trump may visit the country in late summer. (Renewed) calls for mass protests are everywhere, of course. The Metro news outlet features a picture of a pamphlet that reads No To Racism. No To Trump, that dates from an earlier occasion (Trump was supposed to come several times, but never did).

Now, good luck with those protests, it’s still a free country, in name at least. But boy oh boy, would you guys miss the point. Because as we now all know – or could-, your country is being governed by a group of people who are so racist they make even Trump’s fake tan pale in comparison. If Theresa May is still in office by the time Trump visits, you’re all a bunch of racists.

Both May and her Home Secretary Amber Rudd – and you all know they’re far from alone- look so completely deranged in reports about the Windrush scandal that you will have to get rid of them first, or else shut up about Trump because you will have no moral ground whatsoever left on which to protest his visit.

For those of you who don’t know what Windrush is about, and if you’re British you have no excuse not to know, it’s the name given to a group of people who arrived, on invitation, in Britain between the late 1940s and early 1970s, often as children, and whose legal status in the country is now put in so much doubt that some have already been deported, some are denied health care, and all live in fear. Despite having lived and worked and paid taxes all their lives.

There are many instances of people who have never left Britain for a family visit, some who can’t see their own children because they did go for that visit and weren’t allowed back in, the entire story is so appalling and disastrous it’s hard to read the various reports on it. The common denominator of all of these people? They are black.

 

Windrush: When Even Legal Residents Face Deportation

In the aftermath of World War II, the British government invited thousands of people from Caribbean countries in the British Commonwealth to immigrate to the United Kingdom and help address the war-torn country’s labor shortages. Now, nearly 70 years later, many of those same people, now elderly, are having their legal status in the country questioned and are facing deportation. Though the deportation threats date as far back as October, the crisis burst into wider view this week after Caribbean diplomats representing a dozen Commonwealth nations chastised the U.K. government publicly. “This is about people saying, as they said 70 years ago, ‘Go back home.’ It is not good enough for people who gave their lives to this country to be treated like this,” Guy Hewitt, the high commissioner from Barbados to the U.K., said at a gathering of the diplomats.

As for the Guardian, which claims it broke the story, here’s a question: where were you all those years? As for Theresa May, who when she occupied the Home Office from 2010-2016 and devised all manner of tough-on-immigrants measures that have now spread to people the UK itself invited into its nation: you have to go. You cannot continue to be the face of Britain, because you blemish any and all of your fellow country men and women.

 

 

As for Donald Trump, as much as we would like to engage in constructive criticism of the man and his government, we find we no longer can. The anti-Trump echo-chamber has turned so deafening that any intelligent debate about his policies is being drowned out amid the never ending flow of fake news and half truths and innuendo and empty smears that US media continue to spout. With a brief lull when the bombs fell on Syria.

Thank you, New York Times, WaPo, CNN, MSNBC. Thank you for killing the entire discussion, thank you for killing off journalism. There is a lot to say about Trump, much of it critical, but we can no longer open our mouths. Because we don’t want to be in the same camp as you. Life in the echo chamber has given us vertigo. We had to get out.

And now, what are you going to do? The DNC lawsuit-for-campaign-cash which was launched yesterday against everything Trump, plus Wikileaks, plus everything Russia, may appear to you to be a nice and juicy next episode in your ‘impeach the comb-over’ narrative, but if I were you, I’d be careful. Because the suit creates the ideal ground upon which the empire can strike back.

And the counter suits look a lot stronger. The DNC has nothing on Russia, Wikileaks and most Trump affiliated people and organizations, as the Mueller investigation has shown by now. But Loretta Lynch, the “Pakistani mystery man”, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Comey, McCabe, and many more around Hillary Clinton, that’s a whole different story.

First of all, they haven’t been investigated for well over a year. But can you see Rosenstein now still refusing to appoint a second special counsel and going after anything Democrat? It would cost him his job, and for good reason. And then what will the place of the echo chamber be? What have been your sources on Trump et al over the past, let’s say, 18 months? How are you going to report on your own role? Someone’s going to ask these questions.

And, you know, you do know that at least someone will name Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize if he pulls off ‘pacifying’ North Korea. How will you address that? See, you can’t praise the Donald anymore even if he does achieve things -other than missiles-, and we can’t criticize him anymore for what does indeed go wrong because you monopolized that criticism with your opinionated 24/7 non-news. While claiming to be the serious press.

Trump must be very grateful to you for what you’ve done. Come to think of it, perhaps that second special counsel should look into any payments you have received from Russia. Because nobody has helped Trump more than you have. Except perhaps for the Britons who plan to protest his visit with their racist prime minister.

Why do I feel like most of the world has lost its compass? Like we’re all just aimlessly bobbing around on a sea of meaningless words? You know, Trump territory.

 

 

Oct 302016
 
 October 30, 2016  Posted by at 7:51 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  1 Response »


Jack Delano The Chicago & North Western between Chicago and Clinton, Iowa 1943

It looks like I owe you an update. Things move fast in the FBI vs Huma Abedin case. When only some 24 hours ago I started writing my article “Throw Huma Under the Bus?”, there was one thing I did not know at all, one thing I was guessing at as much as the reporters who brought it up, and one I couldn’t verify sufficiently to feel comfortable about including it in the piece.

First, what I did not know at all was the role of Department of Justice head and US Attorney General, Loretta Lynch. Nobody I had read wrote a single word about her role, and I said “Wait a minute! Anybody seen Loretta Lynch lately?”. 24 hours later we know that Lynch, and the DOJ, actively attempted to keep James Comey from writing his infamous letter to members of Congress.

These attempts were ostensibly based on a ‘longstanding’ tradition of the DOJ and FBI to minimalize any potential interference in (presidential) elections. Given that Comey didn’t have ‘enough’ solid evidence gathered from the emails, Lynch et al apparently told him he should not come forward. But it turns out there’s a dark flipside to this argument, please bear with me.

Second, there was the ‘rumor’, or whatever we may call it, that Comey faced pressure from agents (or ‘assets’) in the Bureau to either come forward or risk having details leaked into the press from within the FBI. This is still not verified, and maybe never will be, but it does fit a narrative that’s starting to take shape. Though perhaps not quite the way one might have suspected.

Third, something I couldn’t verify sufficiently, was the issue of a warrant the FBI would need to examine the emails on devices owned by, and in at least some cases shared by, Huma and husband Anthony Weiner. I had seen this, and wrote in yesterday’s Debt Rattle at the Automatic Earth that “The NY Post suggests that NBC suggests that the FBI needs a fresh warrant to study the new batch of emails..”. Nobody else mentioned it though.

But now there’s more on that aspect, and it changes the story, perhaps a lot. In an overall pretty good article, Yahoo’s Michael Isikoff has this:

FBI Still Does Not Have Warrant To Review New Abedin Emails Linked To Clinton Probe

When FBI Director James Comey wrote his bombshell letter to Congress on Friday about newly discovered emails that were potentially “pertinent” to the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server, agents had not been able to review any of the material, because the bureau had not yet gotten a search warrant to read them, three government officials who have been briefed on the probe told Yahoo News.

At the time Comey wrote the letter, “he had no idea what was in the content of the emails,” one of the officials said, referring to recently discovered emails that were found on the laptop of disgraced ex-Rep. Anthony Weiner, the estranged husband of top Clinton aide Huma Abedin. Weiner is under investigation for allegedly sending illicit text messages to a 15-year-old girl.

As of Saturday night, the FBI was still in talks with the Justice Department about obtaining a warrant that would allow agency officials to read any of the newly discovered Abedin emails, and therefore was still in the dark about whether they include any classified material that the bureau has not already seen. “We do not have a warrant,” a senior law enforcement official said.

When I saw that confirmed, a whole new picture started emerging. You have on the one side James Comey who does something ‘unprecedented’, for which he knows he’ll face a lot of flack. On the other you have Loretta Lynch, a staunch Democrat not known to be nearly as impartial as Comey, trying to keep him from sending the letter.

And on top of that you have ‘negotiations’ between the DOJ and FBI about obtaining a warrant to get access to the emails. The DOJ can, and still may, refuse to grant the FBI that warrant. But that chance is a lot smaller now than if Comey had not sent his letter. By bringing the matter out into the open, he’s hugely increased the pressure on Lynch to issue the warrant.

What we have here in fact is a power struggle. And as I hinted before, this may not be Lynch vs Comey directly, but it may come from within the FBI. Where various ‘assets’ have become so frustrated with how the investigations have been conducted so far that they have put pressure on Comey that may even have taken the form of an ultimatum. “We’ll leak unless we get a warrant”.

But it’s quite possible that Comey himself is the one behind the pressure on the DOJ, it’s quite possible that he has grown as weary as his people of the ‘progress’ in the entire Hillary email proceedings.

There is no indication from the eight-page FBI report on the interview, however, that the agents ever pressed her on what has now turned into an explosive issue in the final days of the 2016 campaign: Did Weiner have access to any classified government documents on his laptop and iPhone — devices that, he apparently used to exchange sexually charged messages with women he met online, including in one alleged case, an underage teenager in North Carolina?

The fact that FBI agents failed to follow up on this shows that the original probe into the Clinton email server was “not thorough” and was “fatally flawed,” said Joseph DiGenova, a former U.S. attorney and independent counsel who has been a strong critic of Comey and the FBI probe. “The first thing they should have done was gotten a sworn affidavit about all her accounts and devices,” he said, adding that agents should have immediately attempted to obtain the devices, including Weiner’s.

We don’t know why the agents haven’t. The suggestion I referred to yesterday that Huma Abedin may have been granted a ‘secret immunity’ deal could have played a big part in that. After all, there must be some reason why no devices were seized in ‘part 1’ of the investigation; even if that reason is not exactly public knowledge. The ‘secret immunity’ and the lack of devices seized, of course remind us again of Lynch’s meeting with Bill Clinton on a tarmac in Phoenix back in June.

Agents may simply not have had the authority to ‘obtain’ the devices. Whether that was because the DOJ actively frustrated their investigation, or the orders came from Comey, we don’t know and we never may. But something’s changed since then. That’s what Comey’s letter, and its timing, strongly seems to suggest.

About the material found on Weiner’s devices, Hillary’s side of course has a good idea what’s in the emails. Huma has been thoroughly grilled by now, if she hadn’t been before. The FBI probably has at least a partial idea: it’s highly likely they have seen things when investigating Weiner that would now be a part of the Hillary email investigation if the warrant were issued.

Hillary and other Dems can now protest Comey’s actions all they want, and demand full openness, but they know full well that this openness depends on ‘their own Loretta Lynch’ granting the FBI that warrant. And every single second that the warrant is not issued is a dark cloud on Hillary’s campaign, and indeed on the whole of America.

Of course the Democrats would love to lift this whole thing over November 8, and that’s why they seek to play for time and focus -again- not on the content but on the process, the proceedings and the individuals involved. People inside the FBI -whether that includes Comey or not- appear to think that would not serve democracy. But they have tens of thousands of mails to dig through even if they get the warrant, and that takes time. Will they get that time?

There’s no way Comey is not smart enough to have seen coming what’s happening now. From the Democrats’ favorite son he’s become in their eyes so incompetent they even suggest he may be yet another of Putin’s assets in America.

Is he seeking to right a wrong? Did he think that no matter what he did he would be fed to either the Republican or the Democrat sharks anyway? Or was he pressured by his ‘assets’? Right now, it seems too soon to tell. But don’t be surprised if James Comey comes out of this looking like a true American Hero. Even if it costs him his job.