Ryan Redhawk Standing Rock 2016
“We are now in Watergate 2.0.” “Government is going to be totally paralyzed regardless of who wins..”
• David Stockman Warns Both Trump And Clinton Could Lead To 25% Sell-Off (CNBC)
David Stockman, the man widely credited as the “Father of Reaganomics”, delivered an alarming message to investors. “The markets are hideously inflated,” warned Stockman on CNBC’s “Fast Money” this week. The former Director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Ronald Reagan urged investors to dump stocks and bonds ahead of the dangers that both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton pose to markets if either is elected as President. “If you don’t sell before the election, certainly do it afterwards. Government is going to be totally paralyzed regardless of who wins,” he said. “There could be a 25% draw down on markets.” Stockman posits that, under a Clinton administration, official investigations and new hacked email disclosures from Wikileaks will be non-stop.
Furthermore, he reasoned that the “house will become a killing field” for anything Clinton is trying to do. Ultimately, Stockman said the Democrat would enter the Oval Office bruised, bloody and all but lacking in legitimacy. “For six months, or even longer, there will acrimony, there will be brinkmanship, there will be paralysis. There will be a swarm of house committees doing investigations from all of these wiki leaks!” Stockman said of Clinton’s hypothetical early days in the White House. “Therefore, there will be no baton handed off from the Fed to fiscal policy as we slide into recession,” he added.
[..] Comparatively, Stockman likes that Trump appears ready to call out the Fed and breakup the “cozy” relationship that exists between Washington and Wall Street. However, that’s where his favorable opinion of the GOP nominee ends. “I like him because he’s against the establishment, but he has no economic program. Yes, he’s a disruptor, but has nothing to disrupt with,” Stockman said. “If elected, it will be partisan warfare and a total disaster,” Stockman explained to CNBC. “Under a Trump victory, all bets are off.”
And guns, and gold, and fuel, etc.
• Election Chaos Fears Have Preppers Stockpiling Survival Food (CNBC)
In case of an election night Doomsday, preppers are running up sales of emergency survival food. While sales for “long term food” typically see an increase around natural disasters and elections, “this is more intense than what we saw in 2012,” said Keith Bansemer, VP of marketing for My Patriot Supply, a manufacturer and seller of survival food. During the previous election his company saw sales double. This time it’s triple. “We have everyone we can on the phones,” he said. “We are overwhelmed.” Purchases at other long term food supply companies are up as well. Emergency preparedness online store TheEpicenter reports a 6% uptick in year over year sales. Another company, Legacy Foods, predicts they’ll see a 1-2 week spike in sales after the election — if Hillary Clinton wins, said owner Phil Cox.
The meals, sold by the plastic bucket or tote bin, are typically dehydrated or freeze-dried food in sealed military-grade Mylar packs. Menu items include pasta primavera, Hawaiian Style Sweet n’ Sour, cheesy broccoli and rice soup, orange energy drink mix and chocolate pudding. They’re sold in bundles based on how long they’ll feed you. For $2,000 spent at Legacy Foods, you could eat three square meals a day for an entire year. That’s 1,080 servings. TheEpicenter has a 14-day supply kit for $235 that’s recently been “selling really well,” said owner Bryan Nelson. The most popular entry-level seller at My Patriot Supply is a 3-month supply for $497. It comes a in nondescript gray slim line totes bin designed to be easy to stack in the back of a closet or slip under your bed.
Lobbyists inside the government. Good exposé.
• Exposing John Podesta (TeleSur)
With the Wikileaks release of thousands of emails belonging to John Podesta, very little is known in US society about Podesta himself. While he’s maintained a low profile, John Podesta is actually considered one of Washington’s biggest players, and one of the most powerful corporate lobbyists in the world. In this episode of The Empire Files, Abby Martin explores John Podesta’s political rise, his vast network of corporate connections and his think tank “Center for American Progress.” Learn why the Podestas and the Clintons are a match made in ruling class heaven.
“I actually feel quite sorry for Hillary Clinton as a person. Because I see someone who’s eaten alive be their ambition. Tormented literally to the point where they become sick..”
• The Secret World of the US Election: Julian Assange Talks to John Pilger (RT)
Whistleblower Julian Assange has given one of his most incendiary interviews ever in a John Pilger Special, courtesy of Dartmouth Films, in which he summarizes what can be gleaned from the tens of thousands of Clinton emails released by WikiLeaks this year.
“..our continued statehood means California will continue subsidizing the other states to our own detriment, and to the detriment of our children.”
• California Secession Group To Meet At State Capitol Day After Election (SFG)
An organization hoping to facilitate the secession of California from the Union is holding a meet and greet on the Capitol steps in Sacramento next Wednesday, the day after the presidential election. The Yes California Independence Campaign, which is based in San Diego, is aiming to qualify a citizen’s initiative in 2018 to get a referendum for secession on the ballot in 2019. They’ll be in Sacramento to garner support for their initiative. “In our view,” a statement on its website reads, “the United States of America represents so many things that conflict with Californian values, and our continued statehood means California will continue subsidizing the other states to our own detriment, and to the detriment of our children.” And it appears the organization has been considering its strategy for quite a while now. On its site, you’ll find a link to a 33-page “Blue Book” wherein the organization answers any hypothetical questions about the state becoming its own country.
The details for the secession — dubbed the #CalExit — include such topics such as “Will we join the United Nations?” and “Will we have our own Olympic team?”. While the notion of an independent California does seem well-intended — points about immigration, environmental concerns, and education are thoughtful — the practicality of such a proposal is tenuous at best. Will this secession campaign be viable? In a word: No. As we know from the Civil War, just because a state wants to secede doesn’t mean the Union will let it. As Washington Post writer Philip Bump wrote earlier this year, Congress simply would not, for many reasons, allow it. “There’s no mechanism for Congress to simply say, ‘Sure, off you go.’ Once you’re in, you’re in,” he wrote. “The United States was born an expansionist enterprise, and the idea of contraction, it seems, never really came up.”
A failed attempt at a promising topic.
• Tech Is Disrupting All Before It – Even Democracy Is In Its Sights (Cadwalladr)
[..] ..what the last week of this presidential campaign has shown us is that technology has disrupted, is disrupting, is threatening to upturn the democratic process itself – the best, most stable, most equitable form of governance the world has yet come up with. In many crucial ways, it doesn’t even matter who wins on Tuesday because perhaps the best thing you can say about Trump is that if it hadn’t been him it would have been someone else. It’s the opposite of the Great Man theory of history: a misogynistic ex-reality TV star is not the game-changer here, it’s technology. Two days ago, the same hackers who took down Twitter and Netflix and the Guardian and Reddit and CNN last week in the biggest attack of its kind that the world has ever seen, started practising on a country.
Computer malware had been used to infect inanimate objects in our homes – the connected devices that comprise the so-called internet of things and that, it’s been discovered, a bit late, are hopelessly insecure. It has harnessed these to create a gigantic internet-destroying machine, the so-called Mirai botnet, and it’s honing its power. Last week it took aim at an entire country – Liberia. A huge attack was launched against the two companies that own the only fibre going into the west African country — bringing its entire internet infrastructure to a halt. The worst case scenario? That the hackers behind it are “practising” for Tuesday, when they’ll aim their massed computing power against America. This is everyday objects in our own homes, “smart” objects, intenet-enabled toasters and refrigerators.
Because this is where we are: our toasters and refrigerators may be about to be used to subvert the democratic process of the greatest democracy on Earth. And if that reads like the most lunatic sentence you’ve ever read, you maybe haven’t been paying close enough attention to 2016. Because this is possibly, finally, the year when it hits home that technology is not just some cool titanium-coloured gadget in our pockets. It’s the facilitator of the degraded news space that treats facts and lies the same. That has enabled thousands of Twitterbots – algorithms – to scrape the internet for stories about Trump and then retweet them. It was robot accounts that caused “#TrumpWon” to trend after each TV debate and allowed Trump to claim “victory”.
It’s how a man who hasn’t set foot on the street for four years, can, with just his laptop, create havoc in the critical last week of the campaign. By leaking emails that potentially implicate Hillary Clinton, Julian Assange has inserted himself – like computer malware — into the heart of the American democratic process. He’s infected it. He is, like Donald Trump, the law of unintended consequences writ large, in human form. In 2010, we didn’t mind the fact that the data he leaked was stolen. Here in the liberal press, we championed it. Because it was stolen data that served to underscore our liberal sensibilities. Or, at least mine. And now? Not so much.
Not a cloud in the sky…
• China Premier Li Says Economy To Maintain Steady Growth (R.)
China will maintain steady growth and speed up economic transformation, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said on Saturday, adding that the world’s No. 2 economy would be able to overcome current challenges, official news agency Xinhua reported. China is trying to rebalance its economy to adapt to slower growth both at home and abroad but policymakers are struggling to contain a range of domestic issues such as surging home prices and rising debt levels. Li said China’s moves to ensure “supply-side structural reform” while appropriately expanding aggregate demand have boosted the domestic economy, and economic restructuring and liberalization have also generated new areas of growth.
Data released last month showed China posted economic growth of 6.7% in the third quarter, steady from the previous quarter, as increased government spending and a property boom offset stubbornly weak exports. China has full confidence in sustaining a “medium-high” growth rate, added Li, speaking on an official visit to Riga. He said that China has consistently followed proactive fiscal policy and prudent monetary policy, and adopted new ways of macroeconomic regulation, reported Xinhua, while using “market-oriented and rules-based methods” to defuse risk.
“..the number of interest-only loans is rising despite banks increasing interest rates..”
• Attempts To Cool Over-Heating Australia Property Market Are Failing (AFR)
Attempts to cool the property market are failing as the number of interest-only loans surges back towards last year’s highs, an analysis of new lending figures reveals. The Reserve Bank of Australia said in its quarterly statement of monetary policy on Friday that despite recent strengthening in Sydney and Melbourne, “overall conditions in the established housing market have eased relative to mid last year”. The RBA said house price inflation remained below the peaks in 2015 and there had been a drop in the share of interest-only loans which raise concerns for regulators because of the risk that borrowers will not be able to repay once the interest-only period ends. Latest analysis, however, shows the number of interest-only loans is rising despite banks increasing interest rates on some products and toughening lending terms and conditions.
Loan volumes, which dropped from 40% to 30% of total lending in the nine months to March, have since risen back to 35% following recent rate cuts and better returns from property than other asset classes, such as shares and savings accounts. Martin North, principal of Digital Finance Analytics (DFA), a consultant to commercial and investment banks, said interest-only loans did fall last year but have since started to raise again. “Loan to value ratios are indeed down but that does not change the interest-only question, how many have a repayment plan and will need one the next loan review,” he said. “The RBA is sanguine on the housing market but ignores the highest ever household debt.”
Meanwhile there are fears thousands of property investors using the interest-only loans could be caught by rules that might force them to make bigger repayments five years into the term of the loan. “There is a trap being set for the unwary investors,” warns Mr North. Some lenders, such as Bankwest, a subsidiary of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, are telling their mortgage broker network to impose tough new conditions where a borrower wants to switch from a principal-and-interest to interest-only loan, or extend the interest-only period. Confidential documents show borrowers will be required to provide reasons for the change and “must” be informed of their potential repayment at the end of the interest-only period.
I see a legal quagmire in your future.
• May: Parliament Must Accept Brexit Vote Was Legitimate (R.)
Parliament must accept that Britain’s vote to leave the EU was legitimate and let the government get on with delivering Brexit, Prime Minister Theresa May said on Sunday. May has said she is confident of overturning a British court ruling that the government needs parliamentary approval to start the process of leaving the EU. The government, which has given little away about its plans for Britain’s future relationship with the EU, has said that having to set out a detailed negotiating strategy to parliament would put it at a disadvantage in talks with the bloc. “While others seek to tie our negotiating hands, the government will get on with the job of delivering the decision of the British people,” May said in a statement ahead of her first trade trip to India on Sunday.
“It was MPs (members of parliament) who overwhelmingly decided to put the decision in their hands. The result was clear. It was legitimate. MPs and peers who regret the referendum result need to accept what the people decided.” May will use her first bilateral trade trip since taking office to try to boost ties with India before Britain leaves the EU and to pave the way for a free trade deal as soon as possible once Brexit is completed. Parliament could in theory block Brexit as most members supported staying in the EU in June’s referendum, although it is unlikely to do so. The ruling could allow lawmakers to temper the government’s approach, however, making a “hard Brexit” – where tight controls on immigration are prioritized over remaining in the European single market – less likely.
Of course the headline said ‘higher inflation’, but it’s not. It’s currency devaluation.
• Higher Prices And Rising Debt Threaten Millions In UK (G.)
UK households should brace themselves for a combination of rising inflation, low pay and increased debt that will squeeze living standards next year and push more people into financial difficulty, experts have warned. Higher inflation, weak wage growth and rising levels of consumer debt are expected to weigh on households next year as the economy adjusts to the post-referendum environment. Joanna Elson, chief executive of the Money Advice Trust, the charity that runs National Debtline, said: “The spectre of significantly higher inflation is a real concern. Many households have still not recovered from the last big squeeze on incomes in the aftermath of the financial crisis. The risk is that this new pressure on household budgets could tip many more people into financial difficulty.
“As a society we need to prepare for what could be a significant increase in problem debt in the years ahead.” Economists at the National Institute of Economic and Social Research are predicting inflation will rise from a current rate of 1% to almost 4% in 2017, as the sharp fall in the value of the pound since the Brexit vote makes imports more expensive. Wage growth on the other hand is expected to be weaker, as firms seek to control costs amid slowing economic growth and heightened uncertainty. There are also signs that household debt is returning to highs not seen since the financial crisis. The British Bankers’ Association has said that consumer credit is growing at the fastest rate in almost a decade, as record low interest rates fuel demand for personal loans and credit cards.
Gillian Guy, chief executive of Citizens Advice, said the rise in borrowing could lead to difficulties. “More people are turning to credit … While this borrowing might be manageable now, a sudden change in circumstances could lead to debt problems.”
Sure looks that way.
• Turkey Is Headed For A Bloodbath (Rubin)
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called the failed July 15 coup attempt a “gift from God.” The Turkish government immediately blamed Erdogan’s former ally-turned-rival Fethullah Gülen for being behind the plot, the genesis of which remains unclear. But the simple fact is that none of the material Turkish officials have given to their U.S. counterparts has yet risen to the standard of proof—let alone credible evidence—to support Erdogan’s charges. It is noteworthy that the Turkish press purports to describe the U.S. reaction as accepting of the Turkish material, yet no American officials have ever been quoted as saying anything near what the Turkish press describes. Indeed, alternate narratives about the July 15 coup attempt are equally compelling.
The only certainty is that the attempted coup became the excuse Erdogan needed or crafted in order to purge those opposed to or insufficiently enthusiastic about his agenda. Much of what has been reported in the Western media has focused on the ongoing purge of teachers and university professors. Certainly, there is a newsworthy irony to a man whose university diploma appears to be forged assuming the right to appoint university presidents through a board he has staffed with his cronies. But it is what Erdogan has done in recent days to the police that should put chills down the spines of those who care about his intent and Turkey’s future. Last week, Erdogan appointed new police chiefs for 61 out of Turkey’s 81 provinces. He also assigned 55 police chiefs to central departments that act as police professional bodies.
Some of the police chiefs Erdogan fired were religious, and some even supported him. None were followers of Gülen, simply because those who were had long ago been purged. Most of the chiefs whom Erdogan has appointed are fiercely nationalist, very young and relatively inexperienced, and so are likely to more easily defer to Erdogan’s orders. The problem seems to be not that Erdogan believed all the sacked chiefs disloyal—most were not, and he had appointed many in the first place. Rather, he considered them soft and unwilling to use the extreme violence he believes will be necessary to exert not only against Turkey’s Kurds but also against many liberal or apolitical Turks as he moves to further consolidate control.
“..succumbing to a retro personality cult…”
• Turkey Was Once A Free Society. Now It Is Rapidly Destroying Itself. (WaPo)
The speed of Turkey’s decline is mind-boggling, even when you live through its the day-to-day machinations. This week started with the Turkish government announcing plans to reintroduce the death penalty at the urging of the country’s strongman, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in order to garner the support of ultra-nationalists in his bid to expand the powers of his presidency. Later in the week came the arrests of the editor-in-chief and columnists of Cumhuriyet, Turkey’s oldest paper and a symbol of its fast-eroding secularism, on trumped-up charges of terrorism. And finally, Thursday night brought the detentions of Selahattin Demirtas, the charismatic leader of the country’s pro-Kurdish party, and Figen Yuksekdag, the co-leader of the party. Ten other elected Kurdish deputies were also arrested.
As I write these lines, citizens cannot communicate to organize demonstrations — Twitter is down in Turkey, Facebook is unreachable, and social media applications such as WhatsApp remain blocked. The social media crackdown is an entirely unnecessary measure; who would go out and risk arrest when there is an emergency rule and a formal ban on protests? Protests happen in free and semi-free societies — or when people have the feeling that they have a chance to make an impact. There was a time when mass urban protests shook the country and pushed the government to announce a series of reforms. Today’s Turkey is a shell of itself. No such optimism remains.
The story of Turkey is fast becoming a heartbreaking saga of a budding Muslim democracy tossing out a historic chance at progress, only to settle for a familiar pattern of Middle East despotism by succumbing to a retro personality cult. A decade ago, Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) was applauded by the world for the pace of its reforms and advances toward EU membership. I myself was writing in praise of the ruling party AKP’s brand of “Muslim democrats,” which at the time seemed like a hopeful alternative to both the hard-line secularism of Kemalism and Islamic radicalism. A decade later, Turkey is barely able to hold civilized relations with its western allies, experiencing a rapid decline as rule of law, and has become a thorn in Europe’s side.
In this gradual decline, Demirtas was a breath of fresh air and one of the best things that happened in Turkish politics over the past few years. The 43-year-old former human rights lawyer commands only a small coalition of Kurds, leftists and minorities— with barely enough votes to pass the 10% national threshold. But Demirtas was effective with his powerful rhetoric on pluralism and democracy and able to project a power beyond his party’s base. This was a tale of David and Goliath. With his famous “We will not let you become an executive president” speech in March last year, and HDP’s electoral victory in June 2015 elections, Demirtas denied Erdogan the type of constitutional change and sweeping authority he wanted. With Demirtas’s detention, there are no more hurdles to Erdogan’s rise to absolute power.
While it’s great that German military counter-espionage service is called MAD, this is false flag nonsense. No government agency would ever confirm anything on any such investigations, unless there are political reasons to do so. Merkel should not allow it. But she does.
• Germany Investigates 60 Possible Islamists In Armed Forces (R.)
Germany plans security investigations of all military recruits from July 2017 after its military counter-espionage service (MAD) identified 20 Islamists in the country’s armed forces, German media group Funke reported on Saturday. A spokesman for the agency confirmed the figure, adding that 60 additional potential cases were under investigation. Draft legislation to be considered by the German parliament in the coming weeks would mandate investigations of all recruits to counter efforts by Islamic State to infiltrate the military and get weapons training, Funke Mediengruppe reported. A German Defence Ministry spokesman said existing law required investigations of soldiers after they were recruited. Before that, recruits had to provide police records and agree to unlimited access to their records in the federal register.
Recruiting offices had received an undisclosed number of queries from people who wanted to join the military for only a few months and expressed a keen interest in intensive weapons and equipment training, the MAD spokesman said. In a statement provided to the Funke media group, the agency said it was concerned about a July 2014 internet posting by Islamic State in which the group urged those with military training to join its ranks, and other calls for supporters to learn to shoot and to become familiar with weapons. German security services are on high alert after two Islamist militant attacks this summer. Almost 900,000 migrants arrived in Germany last year and while many Germans initially welcomed them, security concerns have since increased.
And this is tied into the article above. Stoke the fear.
• German Ministry Wants Migrants Returned To Africa (R.)
The German Interior Ministry wants to stop migrants ever reaching Europe’s Mediterranean coast by picking them up at sea and returning them to Africa, the Welt am Sonntag newspaper reported on Sunday. In what would be a huge shift for a country with one of the most generous asylum policies, the ministry says the EU should adopt an Australian-style system under which migrants intercepted at sea are sent for processing at camps in third countries. “The elimination of the prospect of reaching the European coast could convince migrants to avoid embarking on the life-threatening and costly journey in the first place,” the paper quoted a ministry spokeswoman as saying. “The goal must be to remove the basis for people-smuggling organizations and to save migrants from the life-threatening journey.”
The ministry’s proposal calls for migrants picked up in the Mediterranean – most of whom set off from conflict-torn Libya – to be sent to Tunisia, Egypt or other north African states to apply for asylum from there. If their asylum applications are accepted, the migrants could then be transported safely to Europe. The ministry is headed by Thomas de Maiziere, a member of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative Christian Democrats. Merkel has been under fire for her open-door refugee policy, with her party losing votes to the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) party in recent regional elections. The ministry said there were no concrete plans or discussions at EU-level about the proposal, but opposition politicians condemned the plan. Bernd Riexinger, head of the opposition Left party, said it would be “a humanitarian scandal and a further step toward elimination of the right to asylum.”
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