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Debt Rattle December 15 2024

Dec 152024
 
 December 15, 2024  Posted by at 10:35 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  79 Responses »


Pablo Picasso The classical head 1922

 

• Self-Deportation Comes To Washington Ahead Of Trump’s Return (JTN)
• Trump Invites World Leaders, Not Their Messengers, To Inauguration (JTN)
• ABC To Pay Trump $15 Million For Defamation, Issue Apology (ZH)
• Biden Planning Last-minute Ukraine Arms Surge – CNN (RT)
• Biden Aims to Go Out With a Bellicose Bang (Ottenberg)
• Trump Calls For Ending Daylight Saving Time (JTN)
• Biden Never Considered Specifics of the 1500 Clemency Cases He Commuted (PJM)
• Macron To Push For Sending EU Troops To Ukraine (RT)
• More Regions Could Be Added To Russia – Medvedev (RT)
• Serbian President Vucic Confirms Moscow Trip For WW2 ‘Victory Day’ (RT)
• Trump Says No to ‘Foolish’ US Missile Attacks on Russia (Lauria)
• Syria Will Be Chaotic For The Foreseeable Future – John Mearsheimer (RT)

 

 

 

 

George

Rogan

Watters

Siri

RFK Amish

 

 

 

 

Spring self cleaning.

• Self-Deportation Comes To Washington Ahead Of Trump’s Return (JTN)

Government bureaucrats are abandoning ship ahead of President-elect Donald Trump’s return to the White House, anticipating either their termination or an intolerable upending of the status quo at their agencies. Trump has vowed to thoroughly overhaul the executive branch agencies, in part through his new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) led by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy. The duo have called for drastically reducing the size of the government bureaucracy by encouraging voluntary departures through the end of remote work and the relocation of key agencies out of the D.C. area. Thus far, it seems to be Trump’s appointees, and the prospect of working under them, that is doing much of the heavy lifting in driving out longtime agency employees. Former Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., for instance, caused such an uproar within the Department of Justice over the prospect of his confirmation as attorney general that it prompted a litany of headlines about “anxiety” within the DOJ and potential mass retirements.

Though Gaetz withdrew his nomination, the phenomenon appears to go beyond the Florida lawmaker and high profile officials have resigned from other agencies ahead of their impending replacement. Trump’s backup pick of ex-Florida AG Pam Bondi appears to have DOJ officials quaking in their boots. Some key government officials, including those whose posts are not necessarily tied to political appointments, have taken it upon themselves to exit government service in light of the initiative and Trump’s return. Wray replaced James Comey as FBI director after Trump fired Comey in his first term. Wray could have conceivably stayed on for a few more years as the office has a ten-year service limit. But Trump previously made clear his dissatisfaction with Wray and nominated Kash Patel, a stalwart loyalist and former federal prosecutor at the U.S. Department of Justice to succeed him.

Rather than face termination, Wray resigned this week and cleared the way for Trump to put Patel in the post. Despite some internal agency grumblings, Patel seems to have a clear path to confirmation, with even moderate and neoconservative lawmakers expressing optimism that he will secure confirmation to the post. Wray’s management of the FBI came under intense scrutiny from conservatives, especially during the Biden administration, over its apparent politicization and targeting of conservative parents and Christians as potential “domestic terrorists.” . Patel, for his part, has previously described a system within the bureau wherein those responsible for mistakes often receive promotions to mask broader FBI errors.

“Every person implicated in your mistakes has an interest in covering up what they did, so they will promote you. That means the people at the very top are usually the most immoral, unethical people in the entire agency,” he wrote in his 2023 book “Government Gangsters: The Deep State, the Truth, and the Battle for Our Democracy.” Patel has vowed a large-scale “house cleaning” effort to reform the bureau and is thoroughly on board with relocating portions of the FBI out of D.C. FAA chief Michael Whitaker announced on Thursday that he would resign in January, after serving since October 2023. The job is typically a five-year post and Whitaker’s departure opens the path for Trump to pick a replacement. His resignation led to bipartisan disappointment in light of broad approval of his handling of the position.

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, for instance, said that Whitaker had “ably led the agency during a challenging period” while Rep. Rick Larsen, D-Wash., called his resignation “unfortunate.” The FAA chief works with the Secretary of the Department of Transportation, an ordinarily non-contentious post that has attracted attention under the Biden administration amid train derailments and mass airport disruptions and closures. “This has been the best and most challenging job of my career,” he said. Trump has nominated former Rep. Sean Duffy, R-Wisc., to serve as Transportation secretary, but has yet to announce a successor for Whitaker. Gensler announced in late November that he would step down on Jan. 20, despite his term ending in 2026, NPR reported at the time. Security and Exchange Commision (SEC) chairs serve a five-year term and the president can’t technically fire Gensler, despite his vow to do so. His resignation solved that issue for Trump, who nominated Paul Atkins to replace him.

“Paul is a proven leader for common sense regulations,” Trump said. “He believes in the promise of robust, innovative capital markets that are responsive to the needs of Investors, & that provide capital to make our Economy the best in the World. He also recognizes that digital assets & other innovations are crucial to Making America Greater than Ever Before.” Throughout Gensler’s tenure, he came under repeated scrutiny from Trump Media & Technology Group CEO Devin Nunes, who accused him of politicizing the SEC to slow-walk the company’s merger with Digital World, which ultimately went through after lengthy delays. That merger permitted the company to appear on the stock exchange and resulted in Trump making billions.

Though not a voluntary departure, Democrats lost another key official they had hoped to keep in place during Trump’s second term this week when independent Sens. Joe Manchin, W.V., and Kyrsten Sinema, Ariz., joined with Republicans to tank Lauren McFerran’s renomination to the National Labor Relations Board. The vote ended her tenure and cost Democrats their majority on the panel. The panel is a key intermediary between unions and the firms that employee their members. Republicans will accordingly have an opportunity to confirm two members to the panel and claim the majority on the board. The narrow, 49-50 vote saw Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, fly from Mar-a-Lago to vote, The Hill reported.

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It’ll be busy.

• Trump Invites World Leaders, Not Their Messengers, To Inauguration (JTN)

Up until now, formal international representation at U.S. presidential inaugurations has usually been limited to ambassadors and other diplomats. National leaders have preferred one-on-one meetings with the incoming U.S. leader in the weeks and months following his installation rather than being another face in the crowd. That precedent will be broken on Jan. 20, 2025. The international guest list for Donald Trump’s inauguration as the nation’s 47th president is still not firm five weeks out. But indications are that – despite some high-profile leaders who said they won’t come – it’ll be the largest gathering of national leaders in Washington at least since the state funeral of George H. W. Bush in 2018. Reports are that Trump and his team have extended multiple invitations to world leaders, either directly or indirectly as the 78-year-old Trump looks to use the event to pat international friends on the back and strengthen ties with others.

The most notable head of state likely to be at the capitol on Inauguration Day is Benjamin Netanyahu: Israeli media reports the country’s prime minister is leaning toward coming to Washington, D.C. to help welcome Trump back to the White House for his second term. If Netanyahue does make the trip, it will be amid high tensions in the Middle East and despite a warrant for his arrest for alleged war crimes issued by the International Criminal Court that is binding in 124 countries (Israel and the U.S. are not among the them). Almost sure to come are Argentinian President Javier Milei and Giorgia Meloni, Italy’s prime minister. Milei and Meloni are both eager to strengthen ties with the White House: Milei attracted headlines last month when he enthusiastically danced to “YMCA” – the unofficial Trump anthem – while visiting the president-elect in Mar-a-Lago last month.

Regarding vocal supporter Meloni, Trump cut off an Italian reporter asking about her this week to gush, “She’s fantastic. She’s a fantastic leader and a person!” Viktor Orban of Hungary has met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago twice since July, and he is a good bet to come back in January, while there are reports that Trump personally called Nayib Bukele of El Salvador to invite him to attend. Donald Trump Jr. attended Bukele’s inauguration as his father’s envoy in June and it’s hard to imagine the El Salvadorian wouldn’t come to D.C. Among those unlikely to show up at the inauguration are Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Russia’s Vladimir Putin. It is confirmed that Trump invited Xi to the Jan. 20 event even as ties between the countries were strained by Trump’s threats of record high tariffs on Chinese goods. But while the invitation is seen as having some symbolic value experts say there is little chance Xi would accept.

“Can you imagine Xi Jinping sitting outdoors in Washington, D.C., in January, at the feet of the podium, surrounded by hawkish members of Congress, gazing up at Donald Trump as he delivers his inaugural address?” the Associated Press quoted former Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Danny Russel as saying. Russian media, meanwhile, has reported that Putin has not been asked to attend. Trump and Putin have had strong ties dating back to their bilateral summit in Finland during Trump’s first term. But asked whether Putin had received an invitation to the inauguration this week, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said only, “No, he has not” without elaborating. Putin’s absence may open the door for Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky to further lobby Trump for the U.S. to continue supporting his country’s war effort against Russia.

There is no formal indication that Zelensky will attend the inauguration, but the Ukrainian has been working hard to curry favor with Trump since his election victory – including a trilateral meeting this week in Paris during the reopening of the Notre Dame Cathedral. There, Zelensky thanked Trump for his “strong resolve” to end the 30-month-old war even though it is far from certain Trump would do so in Ukraine’s favor. The third leader in the Trump-Zelensky trilateral in Paris, for the reopening of the Notre Dame Cathedral, was French President Emmanuel Macron, the event’s host. As with Zelensky, it does not appear that Macron has formally been invited to the event, but, also as with Zelensky, Macron has rarely passed up an opportunity to cozy up to Trump in recent weeks despite past political differences.

Macron was the first world leader to formally congratulate Trump on his electoral victory in November (beating Italy’s Meloni by six minutes), and in Paris this week he showed he was willing to work with Trump despite the president-elect’s low approval levels in France and Macron’s domestic political challenges.

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“After Trump sued for defamation, Stephanopoulos was a pissy little midget..”

• ABC To Pay Trump $15 Million For Defamation, Issue Apology (ZH)

ABC News and star anchor George Stephanopoulos have reached a settlement with Donald Trump for $15 million, after Stephanopoulos asserted that Trump was found “liable for rape” in a civil case while interviewing Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) last March. After the network played a clip of Mace discussing being a victim of rape, Stephanopoulos asked: “How do you square your endorsement of Donald Trump with the testimony we just saw?” “You’ve endorsed Donald Trump for president. Judges and two separate juries have found him liable for rape and for defaming the victim of that rape,” the host continued, referring to the case brought by Trump accuser E. Jean Carroll. During his contentious discussion with Mace, Stephanopoulos repeated the claim 10 times despite the fact that a jury only found Trump liable for “sexual abuse” – which under New York law is distinctly different from rape.

“After the federal jury found Trump liable for sexual abuse, but not rape, Judge Lewis Kaplan wrote in a later ruling that just because Carroll failed to prove rape “within the meaning of the New York Penal Law does not mean that she failed to prove that Mr. Trump ‘raped’ her as many people commonly understand the word ‘rape.’” [..] The settlement was publicly filed on Saturday, revealing that the two parties have come to an agreement and avoided a costly trial. According to the settlement, ABC News will pay $15 million as a charitable contribution to a “Presidential foundation and museum to be established by or for Plaintiff, as Presidents of the United States of America have established in the past.” Additionally, the network will pay $1 million in Trump’s attorney fees.” -Fox News

After Trump sued for defamation, Stephanopoulos was a pissy little midget – telling CBS late-night host Stephen Colbert that he wouldn’t be “cowed out of doing my job because of a threat,” Fox notes further. “Trump sued me because I used the word ‘rape,’ even though a judge said that’s in fact what did happen. We filed a motion to dismiss.” “The settlement came after U.S. Magistrate Judge Lisette M. Reid recently ordered Trump and Stephanopoulos to attend an in-person deposition hearing next week ahead of the Dec. 24 deadline for the defendants to file a motion for summary judgment, in order to avoid a trial.

In his lawsuit against Stephanopoulos and ABC, Trump was represented by Florida attorneys Alejandro Brito and Richard Klugh, who also represent the president-elect in his legal case against CNN. The settlement with ABC was filed in the Southern District of Florida Federal Court where both parties signed and agreed to the terms.” -Fox News. The settlement is the latest in a string of legal victories for Trump – ranging from the dismissal of his 2020 election fraud lawsuit, to his classifieds records case. Trump was also granted a request to file a motion to dismiss in his New York ‘Stormy Daniels’ case. Trump is separately suing CBS News for $10 billion in damages over “deceptive conduct.”

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“Washington reportedly plans to deliver “hundreds of thousands of artillery rounds, thousands of rockets, hundreds of armored vehicles, and other critical capabilities” between now and January 20..”

• Biden Planning Last-minute Ukraine Arms Surge – CNN (RT)

The outgoing administration of US President Joe Biden is preparing a significant surge in weapons deliveries to Ukraine in the final weeks of his tenure, a senior official told CNN on Thursday. President-elect Donald Trump has repeatedly criticized Biden’s handling of the conflict between Moscow and Kiev, and campaigned on a promise to resolve the hostilities “within 24 hours.” However, since his election victory in November, he has not disclosed any detailed plans for achieving that goal. The US Department of Defense “is undertaking a historic effort to move massive quantities of weapons into Ukraine in the next five weeks,” the unnamed official told CNN. Washington reportedly plans to deliver “hundreds of thousands of artillery rounds, thousands of rockets, hundreds of armored vehicles, and other critical capabilities” between now and January 20, when Trump returns to the White House.

According to the source, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan is leading an interagency effort to facilitate the deliveries. In November, he directed Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to “accelerate” the movement of various arms, including armored vehicles and missiles. The unnamed official stressed that despite the increased military support, there are no American troops deployed in Ukraine, and that this situation will not change. Since the start of the conflict, US weapons have been transported to Ukraine via Europe, but the upcoming surge will reportedly involve a substantial number of flights and sea vessels to ensure swift arrival. On Thursday evening, Biden authorized a new $500 million weapons package for Ukraine, which includes air defense, artillery, drones, and armored vehicles.

Since the escalation of hostilities in February 2022, the US Congress has approved over $174 billion in aid to Kiev. Biden has also given the greenlight for Ukraine’s strikes deep into Russia using US-supplied missiles. Trump has slammed the decision as “a very big mistake”. In an interview with Time magazine earlier this week, he said such attacks are only “escalating this war and making it worse.” That echoed the view of Moscow, which has repeatedly warned that long-range strikes will only worsen the conflict and be seen as NATO’s direct participation in the hostilities. “In this case we take the same view of the reasons for the escalation,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday, adding that Trump’s opposition to Ukraine’s use of American long-range missiles “appeals” to Moscow.

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“..dozens of Americans have or will be coming home in body bags, and U.S. weaponry got crushed and surprise! Not a peep in U.S. corporate media..”

• Biden Aims to Go Out With a Bellicose Bang (Ottenberg)

Having failed thus far to ignite Nuclear Armageddon, what’s up next for the U.S. military industrial complex? I’ll tell you: New bases in Europe, 47 of them, to be exact, in Scandinavia in coming years. That’s Joe Biden’s legacy, a blood transfusion to NATO’s moribund carcass by adding Finland and Sweden and thereby ballooning the Empire’s global military footprint, a footprint of over 800 imperial foreign military bases already bankrupting us Welp, we’re gonna get 47 more, per journalist Patrick Hennigsen, and they’re gonna be near Russia. If you’re a Finn or a Swede, you might want to consider emigrating, since the pusillanimous NATO to which you now belong has set you up as a tripwire for the Atomic Apocalypse. That’s Biden’s legacy. Don’t think for a minute these bases make anyone safer. Quite the contrary. Besides being hugely provocative and thus endangering the local population, the bases’ U.S. soldiers are in harm’s way.

Moscow eloquently demonstrated this on November 25. That was when Russia retaliated for recent ATACMS assaults, manned and operated by U.S. personnel. Most of that personnel are now dead. That’s because Russia shot its unstoppable Iskander missiles at the launchers, killing at least 30 U.S. operators. Also “up to 40 fighters, mostly from the U.S. were eliminated in a missile strike on a command center…in the city of Kharkov on November 25,” RT reported November 28 [“Russian Defense Ministry reveals response to long-range Ukrainian strikes”]. This is the fate that may await U.S. soldiers on foreign military bases, because Russia’s extensive weapons menu is chock-a-block with all types of hypersonic missiles against which the west is defenseless. And Washington’s so busy provoking Moscow, that the kremlin will much more eagerly share this technology with its allies – China, Iran and North Korea – than it did before Joe “War Is My Legacy” Biden idiotically triggered Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

So dozens of Americans have or will be coming home in body bags, and U.S. weaponry got crushed and surprise! Not a peep in U.S. corporate media. That’s because our news outlets report American, ahem, “Ukrainian” strikes on Russia, using our vaunted but really mainly symbolic ATACMS, and report it with great fanfare, groveling before supposed superlative American weapons, but the consequences? The punishment? Not so much, since, Gee, that might make Biden and by extension Washington look bad. Can’t have that in American legacy news media. But hey, the Hindustan Times reported it, with headlines, like, “Russia Reduces Ukraine’s Western Weapons to Rubble,” and “Ukraine Loses All ATACMS, Storm Shadows? ‘NATO Train’ with Long-Range Missiles Blown Up by Russia.” How reassuring to know some nations still have a free press, even if they are halfway across the globe.

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He wants the time to stop changing twice a year, whether that’s the “old time” or “new time”.

• Trump Calls For Ending Daylight Saving Time (JTN)

President-elect Donald Trump on Friday vowed Friday that the Republican Party would work to end Daylight Saving Time. “The Republican Party will use its best efforts to eliminate Daylight Saving Time, which has a small but strong constituency, but shouldn’t! Daylight Saving Time is inconvenient, and very costly to our Nation,” Trump posted on Truth Social. The Senate, in March 2022, passed legislation to making Daylight Saving Time permanent, though it did not become law. “I think the majority of the American people’s preference is just to stop the back and forth changing… but beyond that, I think their preference is, certainly based on today’s vote and what we heard certainly is to make daylight saving time permanent,” Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., said at the time.

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It could only be messy.

• Biden Never Considered Specifics of the 1500 Clemency Cases He Commuted (PJM)

A “Massachusetts woman on Biden’s clemency list was sentenced for ‘lethal’ fentanyl trafficking conspiracy,” according to the Boston Herald. She led a “large-scale criminal enterprise that reaped hundreds of thousands of dollars in profits and caused untold misery.” “Former Dixon Comptroller Rita Crundwell stole $53 million from the little town, a crime so notorious that a documentary was made — highlighting that she perpetrated the largest case of municipal fraud in American history,” reports Politico. Perhaps most incredibly, the “Cash for Kids” judge in Pennsylvania who wrongly sent dozens of minors to a for-profit prison and got kickbacks for it, was released without any examination of the facts of his case.

“The White House commuted the sentence of the judge at the center of a notorious ‘kids-for-cash’ scandal without considering the specifics of his case, beyond whether it fit into a broad set of criteria,” reports Politico. We can assume the rest of the cases of the 1500 prisoners were also examined just as thoroughly. The governor of Pennsylvania, Josh Shapiro, strongly disagreed with Biden’s decision to commute the sentence of former judge Michael Conahan, who was convicted in 2011 and sentenced to 17 years, only to be released to house arrest during the pandemic. “I do feel strongly that President Biden got it absolutely wrong and created a lot of pain here in northeastern Pennsylvania,” Shapiro, a Democrat, said at an event on Friday. Conahan, he said, “deserves to be behind bars, not walking as a free man.”

The mother of one teen wrongly sentenced by Conahan who then committed suicide, Sandy Fonzo, said she was “shocked…and hurt” by Biden’s clemency. “Conahan‘s actions destroyed families, including mine, and my son‘s death is a tragic reminder of the consequences of his abuse of power,” Fonzo told a local publication. “This pardon feels like an injustice for all of us who still suffer. Right now I am processing and doing the best I can to cope with the pain that this has brought back.” Rita Crundwell, the Dixon, Illinois comptroller who stole $54 million to fund a lavish lifestyle of expensive homes, dream vacations, and some serious bling, was sentenced to 20 years. She served less than half that time. “With my deteriorating health condition and the danger of the Covid 19 pandemic, I feel like I have been given a death sentence,” she wrote to the judge, asking to be released during the pandemic.

Chicago’s WGN reported Thursday: “The judge denied release but the following year the Bureau of Prisons put her on home confinement even though she had only served less than half her sentence. Former US Marshal Jason Wojdylo met with Crundwell in prison several times as he worked to sell her assets.“She conveyed to me more of a sense of disgust that she had been sentenced that long,” he said back in 2021. “She was very visibly shaken by the fact she was serving a nearly 20 year sentence.” So she’s not sorry about her crime. Shouldn’t “remorse” have been one of the top criteria Biden should have looked at? With Biden’s mania for being “the first, “the best,” “the biggest,” and “the most,” it’s not surprising that he and his aides gave little thought to the specifics of the cases, as long as they “fit into a broad set of criteria” for release.

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What a broken record sounds like in French.

• Macron To Push For Sending EU Troops To Ukraine (RT)

French President Emmanuel Macron plans to urge EU leaders to send a peacekeeping mission to Ukraine in the event of a ceasefire with Russia, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported on Friday, citing sources. The force would be tasked with observing a truce, if peace talks between Moscow and Kiev are successful. According to the US state-funded news outlet, the French leader plans to discuss the issue at next week’s EU summit. The idea of sending Western peacekeepers to Ukraine was reportedly pitched by US President-elect Donald Trump at his December 7 meeting with Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky and Macron in Paris. According to an earlier report by the Wall Street Journal, Trump has been drafting proposals for a diplomatic solution to the conflict, and wants European nations to play a leading role in monitoring a ceasefire.

The idea was later discussed by British and French officials, according to media reports, and Macron was said to have presented it to Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk during their meeting in Warsaw earlier this week. Tusk, however, said no such plans are in place “for the time being” for either Poland or the rest of the EU. Warsaw, one of Kiev’s staunchest backers, will assume the EU Council presidency next month. Discussions on the topic are reportedly still at an early stage, and it is unclear which countries could be involved, and how many troops. A number of EU officials have also cautioned that it is premature to discuss peacekeepers’ deployment at this stage in the conflict. The EU’s top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, stressed on Thursday that Russia and Ukraine first need to agree to a ceasefire for any peacekeeping missions to be possible. She also noted that it would be “up to every single European country” to decide whether to participate in such an effort.

Sources told Radio Free Europe the matter is currently being raised to lay the groundwork for discussions with Trump, to ensure the EU’s presence at potential peace talks. The US president-elect has repeatedly pledged to end the Ukraine conflict within 24 of returning to the White House. His pick for special envoy on Ukraine and Russia, retired Army General Keith Kellogg, is reportedly among the authors of a draft peace plan that would freeze the conflict along the current line without recognizing Russia’s sovereignty over territories claimed by Ukraine, while suspending Kiev’s NATO membership bid. Russia has repeatedly ruled out freezing the conflict, insisting that a settlement is only possible if Ukraine withdraws its forces from Russian territory, including former Ukrainian regions, and if the goals of Moscow’s military operation – including Ukraine’s neutrality and demilitarization – are met.

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“This experience may be in demand in the future if new regions very close to us appear in our country, because this is possible..”

• More Regions Could Be Added To Russia – Medvedev (RT)

The Russian Federation could welcome more territories into the country in the future, former President Dmitry Medvedev suggested on Saturday during the ongoing United Russia party congress. Commenting on the ruling party’s efforts in helping to incorporate and develop the new regions that have joined the country, Medvedev, who currently serves as the deputy chairman of the nation‘s security council and the head of the United Russia party, suggested that this experience could one day come in handy again. “This experience may be in demand in the future if new regions very close to us appear in our country, because this is possible,” he noted.

In 2022, four former Ukrainian territories, including the People’s Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk as well as Kherson and Zaporozhye Regions, held public referendums where they decided to break with Kiev and become part of Russia. Before that, in 2014, the citizens of Crimea, a historically Russian region, had voted to leave Ukraine and return to Moscow. Ukraine and its Western backers have refused to acknowledge the legitimacy of these referendums; Kiev has continued to claim authority over these territories and vowed to retake all of them. Moscow however, has repeatedly urged Kiev to accept the new realities “on the ground,” with President Vladimir Putin calling the complete withdrawal of all Ukrainian forces from all Russian territories a key prerequisite for peace talks.

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“..he intends to attend the parade so long as “the end of the world doesn’t happen.”

• Serbian President Vucic Confirms Moscow Trip For WW2 ‘Victory Day’ (RT)

The leaders of Slovakia and Serbia will travel together to Moscow to attend the May 9 Victory parade next year, President Aleksandar Vucic confirmed on Saturday in an interview with the news channel TV Informer. Both Vucic and Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico had previously been personally invited by Russian President Vladimir Putin to attend the celebrations of the 80th anniversary of the Soviet Union’s defeat of Nazi Germany in the Great Patriotic War. Last month, Vucic said that he intends to attend the parade so long as “the end of the world doesn’t happen.” In a statement on Saturday, the Serbian president highlighted the importance of May 9 as the day of celebration of the WWII defeat of fascism, and stated that he will attend the celebrations together with Fico. The plans of the two leaders to conduct a joint visit to Moscow for the celebrations were initially revealed last month by Fico.

At the time, he also emphasized that the USSR had played a key role in liberating both Slovakia and Serbia from fascism and that his and Vucic’s visit would symbolize their recognition of the historic defeat of Nazism. Previously, Vucic had also stressed that both Serbia and Slovakia would not allow history to be rewritten and would work together to “defend the achievements of the fight against fascism and Nazism,” adding that the peoples of the two countries will always respect those who fought for the liberation of Europe. Meanwhile, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has stated that the number of leaders and high-ranking officials invited to next year’s May 9 celebrations is comparable to the last BRICS summit held in Kazan. Vladimir Putin has already invited the leaders and military units of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) countries, which include Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.

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“..after his party lost the White House in November, Biden suddenly reversed himself on his sensible positions..”

• Trump Says No to ‘Foolish’ US Missile Attacks on Russia (Lauria)

President-elect Donald Trump accused the Biden administration of “escalating this war” in Ukraine and “making it worse” by allowing U.S. long-range ATACMS missiles to be fired from Ukraine deep into Russia. “I disagree very vehemently with sending missiles hundreds of miles into Russia,” Trump told Time magazine in an interview published on Thursday. He said: “Why are we doing that? We’re just escalating this war and making it worse. That should not have been allowed to be done. Now they’re doing not only missiles, but they’re doing other types of weapons. And I think that’s a very big mistake, very big mistake.” Last Thursday former U.N. weapons inspector Scott Ritter was on a day-long venture in the labyrinth of House office buildings on Capitol Hill to lobby members of Congress and their staffs to prevent the U.S. from attacking Russia with ATACMS.

That alone, Ritter argued, would reduce the threat of a nuclear exchange with Russia, which had warned would be possible if the missile attacks continue. Among the steps Ritter recommended to Republican Congressmen was to get word to Trump’s transition team to get Trump to make an immediate statement that after he is sworn in he will order a cessation of ATACMS being fired into Russia. Such a statement from Trump, Ritter argued on Capitol Hill, would lessen tension with Moscow over the ATACMS and possibly avert catastrophe. Trump’s comments to Time was what Ritter had in mind. Trump said: ”I think the most dangerous thing right now is what’s happening, where Zelensky has decided, with the approval of, I assume, the President, to start shooting missiles into Russia. I think that’s a major escalation. I think it’s a foolish decision. But I would imagine people are waiting until I get in before anything happens. I would imagine. I think that would be very smart to do that.”

Just two months ago, in September, President Joe Biden had bowed to the realists in the Pentagon to oppose allowing long-range British Storm Shadow missiles from being fired by Ukraine deep into Russia out of fear it would lead to a direct NATO-Russia military confrontation with all that that entails. Putin warned at the time that because British soldiers on the ground in Ukraine would actually launch the British missiles into Russia with U.S. geostrategic support, it “will mean that NATO countries — the United States and European countries — are at war with Russia. And if this is the case, then, bearing in mind the change in the essence of the conflict, we will make appropriate decisions in response to the threats that will be posed to us.” That was a clear warning that British and U.S. targets could be hit. Biden thus wisely backed off.

It was the second time that Biden had sided with the Pentagon against the neocons in his administration when it came to avoiding direct war with Russia. The first time was in March 2022 when his neocon Secretary of State Antony Blinken stepped out of line to announce that the U.S. would give NATO-member Poland a “green light” to send Mig-29 fighter jets to Ukraine to enforce a no-fly zone against Russian aircraft. Members of Congress and the media then piled the pressure on Biden to approve it until cooler heads at the U.S. Defense Department, the greatest purveyor of violence in history, stepped in to stop it. Biden ultimately sided with the Pentagon, and he couldn’t be more explicit why. He opposed a NATO no-fly zone over Ukraine fighting Russian aircraft, he said, because “that’s called World War III, okay? Let’s get it straight here, guys. We will not fight the third world war in Ukraine.”

But then, after his party lost the White House in November, Biden suddenly reversed himself on his sensible positions and defied the Pentagon to roll the dice that Russia’s warnings are bluffs that won’t lead to nuclear conflict. While he previously would not even authorize British long-range missile attacks into Russia in September, let alone U.S. ATACMS, he authorized the ATACMS, risking Russia taking direct action against U.S. targets. It remains to be seen if Trump’s words can reassure the Kremlin. Of course it was Trump who provided Ukraine with lethal aid. Barack Obama had refused, saying Ukraine was not a vital U.S. interest, as it was for Russia and there was no point in angering Moscow. Obama also worried that U.S. weapons could wind up in the hands of “thugs” — i.e., Azov, neo-nazi types in Ukraine.

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“These journalists understand full well, most Americans understand … that the US is supporting terrorist..”

• Syria Will Be Chaotic For The Foreseeable Future – John Mearsheimer (RT)

Syria is set to go through a prolonged period of chaos now that Bashar Assad’s government has fallen, John Mearsheimer, a professor of political science at the University of Chicago, has predicted. Last week, opposition forces, led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) jihadists, launched a surprise offensive across Syria and took control of its major cities, including the capital Damascus. The erstwhile president has since resigned and sought asylum with his family in Russia. In the latest episode of Going Underground, published on Saturday, Mearsheimer suggested that it’s hard to imagine that a “coherent government” will soon be formed in Damascus that would be capable of controlling the entire country.

“How this all plays out moving forward is almost impossible to say, other than it looks like there will be considerable chaos in Syria for the foreseeable future,” the professor said, noting that the sudden regime change is only a “short-term success” for those who had backed the opposition forces, primarily the US. “We [the US] basically threw our lot in with a number of Al Qaeda and ISIS operatives and they won,” Mearsheimer said, adding that the White House and American media were now doing everything they can to “clean up” HTS leader Mohammed al-Jolani, who is still an internationally wanted terrorist and has a US-issued $10 million bounty on his head. “These journalists understand full well, most Americans understand … that the US is supporting terrorists” despite the media trying to portray the HTS victory as a positive development, the professor said.

As for how the HTS had managed to overthrow the Syrian government, which had for years been assisted by Russia and Iran, Mearsheimer suggested that the country’s military had long-standing critical issues that Assad had failed to address and was “hollowed out” and simply “couldn’t stand up to the rebels.” The professor claimed that while the fall of the Assad government was not a critical loss for Russia, it could prove to be an “existential” development for neighboring Iran and prompt Tehran to fast track its development of nuclear weapons. He admitted, however, that the country’s leadership has yet to make any indications regarding such a move and it would still take it several years to develop this kind of capacity.

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Debt Rattle Christmas Day 2020

Dec 252020
 
 December 25, 2020  Posted by at 10:14 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  24 Responses »


Juan Gris Man in the café 1912

 

• COVID19 Immunity Lasts For At Least 8 Months – Australian Researchers (RT)
• Fauci Admits To Lying About Herd Immunity To Get Support For Vaccine (RT)
• Study Investigates Effects Of COVID19 Vaccine On Male Fertility (L10)
• Trump Told Congress To Give Americans More Money, Gets Bill With Less (Fox)
• Larry Summers: $2,000 Checks Could Overheat Economy, Even $600 Is Too Much (RT)
• Trump Granted Clemency Less Than Every President In Modern History Bar One (ZH)
• One In Four Greek Companies Say They May Have Shut Down For Good (K.)
• How Hunter Biden Allegedly Traded On Family Name, Influence (ZH)
• Google Could Face Trillions In Fines In Texas Antitrust Suit (Pol.)
• Facebook Managers Trash Their Own Ad Targeting In Unsealed Remarks (IC)

 

 

“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.”
– Plato

 

 

 

 

Why is everything white Mohammed Ali

 

 

But they still don’t know.

• COVID19 Immunity Lasts For At Least 8 Months – Australian Researchers (RT)

People who build immunity against the coronavirus virus enjoy long-term protection from the illness, researchers in Australia have concluded, suggesting that vaccines could be effective for long periods of time. Melbourne’s Monash University announced that a team of researchers found that antibodies guard against reinfection for at least eight months. Their paper, published in the journal Science Immunology, is the “strongest evidence” yet that coronavirus jabs could be a workable solution to the health crisis, the university said. Previous studies suggested that antibodies to Covid-19 begin disappearing within several weeks or months. However, the new Australian research shows that specific cells within the immune system, called memory B cells, “remember” infection by the virus, and trigger a protective immune response by producing antibodies if re-exposure occurs.

The study examined 25 Covid-19 patients, taking 36 blood samples from them, starting four days after infection. The last samples were taken 242 days post-infection. Researchers saw that antibodies against the virus started to wane after 20 days following infection, but found that memory B cells specific to the Covid-19 virus remained stable for at least eight months. The results are good news for the efficacy of vaccines, and also help explain why there have been so few examples of people being reinfected by the virus, said Associate Professor Menno van Zelm, from the Monash University Department of Immunology and Pathology. This has been a black cloud hanging over the potential protection that could be provided by any COVID-19 vaccine and gives real hope that, once a vaccine or vaccines are developed, they will provide long-term protection.

Although there is a wide range of coronavirus vaccines that have shown to be effective at building immunity against the virus, it’s still unclear how long the protection lasts. However, vaccines will also have to keep up with mutations of the virus. BioNTech CEO Ugur Sahin said earlier this week that the German company would soon have a jab to counter a new strain of Covid-19 that appeared in the UK, but expressed confidence that the current vaccine developed with US firm Pfizer will still be effective for the time being. Russia’s homegrown Sputnik V vaccine is also effective against the new strain of the coronavirus, according to Kirill Dmitriev, CEO of The Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), which bankrolled the jab’s development.

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Fauci sells vaccines. It’s not difficult.

• Fauci Admits To Lying About Herd Immunity To Get Support For Vaccine (RT)

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the epidemiologist revered almost religiously as a hero by mainstream media outlets and Democrat politicians, has admitted that he lied to Americans to manipulate their acceptance of a new Covid-19 vaccine. The intentional deception involved estimates for what percentage of the population will need to be immunized to achieve herd immunity against Covid-19 and enable a return to normalcy. Earlier this year, Fauci said 60-70 percent – a typical range for such a virus – but he moved the goalposts to 70-75 percent in television interviews about a month ago. Last week, he told CNBC that the magic number would be around “75, 80, 85 percent.” When pressed on the moving target in a New York Times interview, Fauci said he purposely revised his estimates gradually.

The newspaper, which posted the article on Thursday, said Fauci changed his answers partly based on “science” and partly on his hunch “that the country is finally ready to hear what he really thinks.” “When polls said only about half of all Americans would take a vaccine, I was saying herd immunity would take 70 to 75 percent,” Fauci said. Then, when newer surveys said 60 percent or more would take it, I thought, ‘I can nudge this up a bit,’ so I went to 80, 85. Fauci added that he doesn’t know the real number but believes the range is 70-90 percent. He said it may take nearly 90 percent, but he won’t give that number because Americans might be discouraged, knowing that voluntary acceptance won’t be high enough to reach that goal.

The article was published on Fauci’s 80th birthday, which was celebrated in the nation’s capital as “Dr. Anthony Fauci Day” after being proclaimed as such by Washington’s Democrat mayor, Muriel Bowser. CNN and other media outlets covered the occasion glowingly, including Fauci being surprised with a “serenade” by emergency medical workers as he left his office at the National Institutes of Health on Wednesday. A CNN video of the serenade included an audio clip of President-elect Joe Biden and his wife, Jill Biden, singing the birthday song. But the doctor’s changing story on herd immunity is only the latest in a series of Covid-19 flip-flops, including 180-degree shifts on such core issues as whether members of the general public should wear masks and whether children should be sent back to school.

Just as his tone on herd immunity changed, his view on prospects for a return to normalcy shifted dramatically. A few days before the November 3 presidential election, he echoed Biden’s gloomy Covid-19 outlook and implied that the Democrat challenger would deal with the crisis more seriously than would President Donald Trump. After the election, he turned far more optimistic.

Read more …

“To protect fertility, some men may want to consider freezing their sperm prior to vaccination.”

• Study Investigates Effects Of COVID19 Vaccine On Male Fertility (L10)

The University of Miami is investigating the possible effects of the coronavirus vaccine on male fertility. Lead researchers Dr. Ranjith Ramasamy, a reproductive urologist with U Health, initiated an earlier study which found the virus was present in the testicles for up to six months following infection. That spurred his team to question the virus’ effect on sperm and reproduction. His team is now looking at the potential impact of the vaccine as well. “We’re evaluating the sperm parameters and quality before the vaccine and after the vaccine. From the biology of the COVID vaccine we believe it shouldn’t affect fertility but we want to do the study to make sure that man who want to have kids in the future to assure them it’s safe to go ahead and get the vaccine,” Ramasamy said. Study participants must have a fertility evaluation before receiving the vaccine. To protect fertility, some men may want to consider freezing their sperm prior to vaccination.

Read more …

Paralysis.

• Trump Told Congress To Give Americans More Money, Gets Bill With Less (Fox)

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday said a bipartisan coronavirus relief and omnibus bill has been enrolled and is on its way to President Trump for his signature. “We urge him to sign this bill into law to give immediate relief to hardworking families,” Pelosi, D-Calif., tweeted. The enrollment comes after House Republicans rejected the president’s demand for $2,000 checks for most Americans. The rare Christmas Eve session of the House lasted just minutes, with help for millions of Americans awaiting Trump’s signature on a smaller COVID relief and government funding bill. Trump’s refusal of the $900 billion package, which is linked to a $1.4 trillion government funding bill, could spark a federal shutdown at midnight Monday.

His push to increase direct payments for most Americans from $600 to $2,000 for individuals and $4,000 for couples has gotten support from Democrats but splits the GOP. The Senate cleared the relief package on Monday by a 92-6 vote after the House approved it 359-53. Those vote totals would be enough to override a veto should Trump decide to take that step. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., helped negotiate the year-end deal, a prized bipartisan compromise that won sweeping approval in the House and Senate after the White House assured GOP leaders that Trump supported it.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin boasted that the $600 checks all sides had agreed to for Americans would in the mail in a week. Democrats will recall House lawmakers to Washington for a vote Monday on Trump’s proposal, with a roll call that would put all members on record as supporting or rejecting the $2,000 checks. They are also considering a Monday vote on a stop-gap measure to at least avert a federal shutdown, keeping the government running until President-elect Joe Biden is inaugurated next month. Even if the House is able to approve Trump’s $2,000 checks on Monday, that measure would likely die in the GOP-controlled Senate, which is due back in session on Tuesday.

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Larry doesn’t need $2,000, thank you very much.

• Larry Summers: $2,000 Checks Could Overheat Economy, Even $600 Is Too Much (RT)

Larry Summers, a lead player in Democrat financial policies since the 1990s, triggered left-wing outrage by suggesting that sending Americans $2,000 stimulus checks amid the Covid-19 pandemic could cause the economy to overheat. “I’m not even sure I’m so enthusiastic about the $600 checks, and I think taking them to $2,000 would actually be a pretty serious mistake that would risk a temporary overheat,” Summers said Thursday in a Bloomberg TV interview. The former Harvard University president added that he would like to see more money allocated to bail out financially troubled local governments, but promoting consumer spending shouldn’t be a priority.

Summers made his comments as some lawmakers on both sides of the aisle worked to increase payouts to consumers to $2,000, rather than the $600 called for in the latest Covid-19 relief legislation. President Donald Trump on Tuesday night called the current bill a “disgrace” and said stimulus checks should be $2,000. Conservative Republican Senator Josh Hawley and far-left Democrat Senator Bernie Sanders are among the proponents of larger payouts to Americans. “I have to say that when you see the two extremes agreeing, you can almost be certain that something crazy is in the air,” Summers said. “And so when I see a coalition of Josh Hawley, Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump getting behind an idea, I think that’s time to run for cover.”

Summers was a World Bank economist before joining President Bill Clinton’s administration in 1993. He was named Clinton’s Treasury secretary in 1999, and he was director of the National Economic Council under President Barack Obama. “Careful everyone,” a self-described trade unionist tweeted. “This Clinton administration alumnus is worried that the inflation god is going to strike us down all of a sudden. Funny how austerity is firmly back on the Dem agenda immediately when one of them gets into office.”

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Trump gets criticized because he’s Trump.

• Trump Granted Clemency Less Than Every President In Modern History Bar One (ZH)

Well this is going to break the mainstream media narrative… As Trump has pardoned some relatively high profile individuals such as Roger Stone, General Mike Flynn, and Paul Manafort, the liberalati has got its gender-neutral panties in a bundle over these “digusting”, “corrupt”, “cronyism” actions. It turns out however that, even including the recent surge, PewResearch reports that Trump has used his clemency power less often than any president in modern history (apart from Bush Senior), according to data from the U.S. Department of Justice. President Trump has granted clemency or pardoned 98 people in the last four years (76 pardons and 22 commutations). Obama, by comparison, granted clemency 1,927 times during his eight-year tenure, including 212 pardons and 1,715 commutations.

In terms of total executive clemency actions, Obama granted the most since Harry S. Truman The only modern president who granted clemency less frequently than Trump is George H.W. Bush, who granted 77 pardons and commutations in his single term. As PewResearch writes, clemency refers to multiple forms of presidential mercy. The two most common forms are pardons, which forgive past crimes and restore civil rights, and commutations, which completely or partially reduce sentences for those in prison or on community supervision. Two less-common forms are remissions, which reduce financial penalties associated with convictions, and respites, which are temporary reprieves that are usually granted to inmates for medical reasons.

The Justice Department’s statistics, it’s important to note, do not count clemency granted through proclamation or executive order, such as the actions taken by Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter to forgive thousands of Vietnam-era draft dodgers. The DOJ numbers also count some clemency recipients twice – for example, in cases where someone received both a pardon and a commutation. While rare so far, Trump’s use of presidential clemency has caused controversy because of the nature of his pardons and commutations. Many of Trump’s clemency recipients have had a “personal or political connection to the president,” according to a July analysis by the Lawfare blog, and he has often circumvented the formal process through which clemency requests are typically considered.

But Trump is far from the only president who has faced scrutiny over his use of clemency. Obama’s frequent use of commutations, particularly for prisoners convicted of drug-related crimes, prompted criticism from Republicans, who said it benefited “an entire class of offenders” and infringed on the “lawmaking authority” of the legislative branch. And President Bill Clinton drew bipartisan condemnation for pardoning a fugitive commodities trader, Marc Rich, on his last day in office in 2001.

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“..with the rate rising significantly in the sectors of food service (41.7%) and retail commerce (34%).”

• One In Four Greek Companies Say They May Have Shut Down For Good (K.)

About one in four enterprises (23%) is contemplating the possibility of not reopening after the coronavirus restrictions are lifted, with the rate rising significantly in the sectors of food service (41.7%) and retail commerce (34%). This is according to a survey by Opinion Poll for the Athens Professional Chamber (EEA) on December 14-18 on a sample of 1,002 chamber members. Even if they do not decide to shut down for good, a large section of enterprises say they will resort to layoffs: Almost a quarter of companies (24%) say this is a likely or very likely prospect, rising to 49.5% of enterprises in food service. In commerce, the sector that accounts for the highest share of employment in Greece, the rate comes to 22.7%.

The survey has found that the rate of intended layoffs is much higher among enterprises employing more than five people. Therefore 39.8% of companies with six to 10 workers intend to lay off staff, with the rate rising to 41.6% among those with 11-20 people and coming to 40.4% among enterprises with over 20 employees. If these intentions turn into action after the lockdown, they will send unemployment soaring. They stem from the high degree of pessimism among businesses, especially after the start of the second lockdown. One in four companies believe the economic crisis due to the pandemic will last more than two years, and another 27% think it will take a couple of years before normality returns.

Some 34% of corporations expect the crisis to last another year and only 11% are more optimistic, saying the crisis will be over in some six months. “According to our own estimates, one in three enterprises may have opened for the last time and never reopen,” Giorgos Kavvathas, president of the Hellenic Confederation of Professionals, Craftsmen and Merchants (GSEVEE), told Kathimerini. He added that the food service sector he also heads mostly considers that next year will be lost too, as unlike in the financial crisis of the 2010s, tourism will not come to the rescue.

Read more …

Twitter won’t silence WSJ.

• How Hunter Biden Allegedly Traded On Family Name, Influence (ZH)

Just days after outgoing AG William Barr said there is “no need” to appoint a special counsel to investigate Hunter Biden despite revelations about a federal criminal investigation into Biden’s business conduct, we’re seeing the latest “scoop” about the younger Biden’s alleged misdeeds. In a lengthy investigative report, the WSJ has reportedly confirmed that the younger Biden traded on his purported influence and family ties during his business dealings in Ukraine and China (along with his conduct at home in his personal life, where he has seemingly careened from one disaster to the next) to enrich himself – and, importantly, his family as well. Importantly, in the story, WSJ explicitly notes that “none of the Journal’s reporting found that Joe Biden was involved in his son’s activities, which mostly took place around the time Obama’s second term was wrapping up.”

Our initial reaction: Of course it wouldn’t. But that doesn’t matter so much right now: What this shows is that the federal agents leading the “criminal tax probe” into the younger Biden are looking into how influence peddling and the Biden family name played into this, which could be very, very bad for Hunter’s father, and the Democrats. But the fact that WSJ is reporting and seemingly confirming that the younger Biden benefited ‘because of his last name and connections’ still has significance. Even though it shares an owner with Fox News, WSJ, with its closet full of Pulitzers, is still “respected” by the mainstream press.

Through reportedly talking with people familiar with Biden’s business dealings, WSJ managed to confirm various that the younger Biden received a discounted stake in a Chinese PE firm that was at the center of the NY Post’s reporting, along with consulting arrangements with a Romanian property magnate which “overall allowed him to maintain a globe-trotting lifestyle, according to interviews, documents and communications reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.” It even confirmed that Biden receiving a 2.8-carat diamond from a Chinese energy tycoon that has reportedly found its way to the center of the federal investigation into the president’s sons actions. Most of the details were clearly leaked to WSJ by Senate Republicans. But the takeaway here is pretty clear: even if the information is being used for political purposes, the investigation into Biden holds water. After all, federal investigations aren’t opened up for nothing.

By now, as Trump continues with his wave of pardons (he has of course pardoned far fewer people than his predecessor, even adjusted for his shorter time in the saddle), the GOP is ensuring that the investigation into Hunter Biden will be as fraught with leaks and bombshells and “scoops” as any other high profile investigation, including – most obviously – the Mueller probe. Social media could block out the NY Post, but they couldn’t block out WSJ. Though the story wasn’t widely covered, now that WSJ has “moved” on it, how much longer can its rivals – even WaPo and NYT – keep this from becoming an “essential” story after inauguration day. Otherwise, they will lose what little credibility they have left, as critics challenge the press to step up and hold Biden “accountable” like they did Trump.

There also might be an element of payback at play here, as WSJ owner Rupert Murdoch seeks to get back in Trump’s good graces after the president sicced his legions of loyal followers on Fox News, threatening its fat profit margins. Either way, one thing is clear: Leaks like this aren’t going to stop.

Read more …

“..tate officials are likely to use the prospect as leverage in negotiations to force the search giant to accept a breakup…”

• Google Could Face Trillions In Fines In Texas Antitrust Suit (Pol.)

Move over, Europe. Tucked in near the end of the 130-page antitrust lawsuit Texas filed against Google last week are claims that could force the search giant to pay out trillions of dollars in damages, dwarfing previous levies against the company. That would be a serious blow even to a company as large as Google, with its $1.16 trillion market cap. And it gives the states additional leverage to push for the company to agree to a breakup, perhaps in exchange for reduced fines. The lawsuit, which also includes eight other states, accuses Google of rigging online ad auctions to increase its own profits at the expense of website publishers, who have struggled to make the same kind of money from web ads as from television, print and radio.

The states have asked the court to force the company to sell off pieces of its business to take away its power to control such auctions. But there are other allegations that could cut Google even more deeply. Texas also alleges that Google violated state laws that forbid unfair or deceptive business practices — laws that mandate steep fines for each violation. The attorneys general plan to argue that every online bid allegedly manipulated by Google violates state laws, which would lead to a massive pileup of fines. “The potential for the lawsuit is in the trillions of dollars,” said Joe Crews, who served in the Texas attorney general’s office in the 1990s and now has his own firm in Austin. “This is something they are going to have to pay attention to and they are going to have to commit resources to. Even if Google ultimately prevails it’s still going to cost them a whole ton of money.”

A Google spokesperson declined to comment on the potential fines, pointing to the company’s statement when the suit was filed calling it “meritless.” The states have used these laws to force major companies to pay out large sums of money in the past. Last month, Apple agreed to pay $113 million to 34 states for slowing down the batteries in older iPhones. Credit reporting agency Equifax paid $175 million to the states as part of a settlement into its 2017 data breach. In Europe, Google has already paid more than $9 billion in fines for violating competition rules. But those penalties are widely considered failures that didn’t result in any long-term changes to Google’s behavior. But the prospect of fines substantially in excess of Google’s $160 billion in annual revenue might have a bigger deterrent effect, individuals close to the case said.

Antitrust experts say the likelihood Google has to shell out trillions in cash is minimal, but state officials are likely to use the prospect as leverage in negotiations to force the search giant to accept a breakup.

Read more …

“..more than half the time we’re showing ads to someone other than the advertisers’ intended audience..”

• Facebook Managers Trash Their Own Ad Targeting In Unsealed Remarks (IC)

Facebook is currently waging a PR campaign purporting to show that Apple is seriously injuring American small businesses through its iOS privacy features. But at the same time, according to allegations in recently unsealed court documents, Facebook has been selling them ad targeting that is unreliable to the point of being fraudulent. The documents feature internal Facebook communications in which managers appear to admit to major flaws in ad targeting capabilities, including that ads reached the intended audience less than half of the time they were shown and that data behind a targeting criterion was “all crap.” Facebook says the material is presented out of context.

They emerged from a suit currently seeking class-action certification in federal court. The suit was filed by the owner of Investor Village, a small business that operates a message board on financial topics. Investor Village said in court filings that it decided to buy narrowly targeted Facebook ads because it hoped to reach “highly compensated and educated investors” but “had limited resources to spend on advertising.” But nearly 40 percent of the people who saw Investor Village’s ad either lacked a college degree, did not make $250,000 per year, or both, the company claims. In fact, not a single Facebook user it surveyed met all the targeting criteria it had set for Facebook ads, it says.

The complaint features Facebook documents indicating that the company knew its advertising capabilities were overhyped and underperformed. A “February 2016 internal memorandum” sent from an unnamed Facebook manager to Andrew Bosworth, a Zuckerberg confidant and powerful company executive who oversaw ad efforts at the time, reads, “[I]nterest precision in the US is only 41%—that means that more than half the time we’re showing ads to someone other than the advertisers’ intended audience. And it is even worse internationally. … We don’t feel we’re meeting advertisers’ interest accuracy expectations today.” The lawsuit goes on to quote unnamed “employees on Facebook’s ad team” discussing their targeting capabilities circa June 2016:

One engineer celebrated that detailed targeting accounted for “18% of total ads revenue,” and $14.8 million on June 17th alone. Using a smiley emoticon, an engineering manager responded, “Love this chart! Although if the most popular option is to combine interest and behavior, and we know for a fact our behavior is almost all crap, does this mean we are misleading advertiser [sic] a bit? :)” That manager proceeded to suggest further examination of top targeting criteria to “see if we are giving advertiser [sic] false hope.”

Read more …

 

 

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