Turley Archives - The Automatic Earth

The deep state is a disease.

So many of us deal with terrible sicknesses in our lives. When afflicted, we try to protect the ones we love and fight the disease in any way we can.

Our infected military-industrial complex is no different.

Be a part of the cure by renting or… pic.twitter.com/8q0Nxe8PAn

— General Mike Flynn (@GenFlynn) June 27, 2024

RFK jr

Since CNN rigged the rules to qualify, my exclusion from tomorrow’s presidential debate was, as it turns out, a foregone conclusion. Not just for me–but for ANY third party candidate, since none of us could have reached the 270-electoral-vote threshold in time for CNN’s deadline,… pic.twitter.com/38pTUEMDGZ

— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) June 27, 2024

Vivek

I give President Trump a lot of credit for agreeing to do a debate on these terms: hosted by CNN, in Atlanta, without a live audience, is the equivalent of Biden agreeing to a debate hosted by Fox News in front of an audience of 3,000 people in Alabama. pic.twitter.com/NwXNB0KXMn

— Vivek Ramaswamy (@VivekGRamaswamy) June 26, 2024

In 2020, the Hunter Biden laptop story was suppressed on the eve of the election which may have changed the outcome. This time, imagine a scenario where Biden wins narrowly after repeatedly labeling Trump a “convicted felon,” and then the Supreme Court overturns the conviction… pic.twitter.com/vxOVKbWeHH

— Vivek Ramaswamy (@VivekGRamaswamy) June 26, 2024

Zelaya

Manuel Zelaya, ex-president of Honduras, commented to The Grayzone's @anyaparampil on the importance of Assange in exposing the US role in the coup that forced him from power 15 years ago:

"Julian Assange is a symbol of freedom in the world today, tomorrow and forever. He will… pic.twitter.com/vz0hob7KCQ

— Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) June 26, 2024

Pool
https://twitter.com/i/status/1806058499282969012

Lots of Assange articles again today. Well, he deserves it.

• Julian Assange: Free At Last, But Guilty Of Journalism (Pepe Escobar)

The United States Government (USG) – under the “rules-based international order” – has de facto ruled that Julian Assange is guilty of practicing journalism. Edward Snowden had already noted that “when exposing a crime is treated as committing a crime, you are being ruled by criminals.” Criminals such as Mike “We Lie, We Cheat, We Steal” Pompeo, former Trump Secretary of State, who had planned to kidnap and kill Julian when he was head of the CIA. The indomitable Jennifer Robinson and Julian’s U.S. lawyer Barry Pollack sum it all up: the United States has “pursued journalism as a crime”. Julian was forced to suffer an unspeakably vicious Via Crucis because he dared to expose USG war crimes; the inner workings of the U.S. military in their rolling thunder War Of Terror (italics mine) in Afghanistan and Iraq; and – Holy of Holies – he dared to release emails showing the Democratic National Committee (DNC) colluded with the notorious warmongering Harpy Hillary Clinton.

Julian was subjected to relentless psychological torture, and nearly crucified for publishing facts that should always remain invisible to public opinion. That’s what top-notch journalism is all about. The whole drama teaches the whole planet everything one needs to know about the absolute control of the Hegemon over pathetic UK and EU. And that bring us to the kabuki that may – and the operative word is “may” – be closing the case. Title of the twisted morality play: ‘Plead Guilty or Die in Jail’. The final twist in the plot line of the morality play runs like this: the combo behind the cadaver in the White House realized that torturing an Australian journalist and publisher in a maximum security U.S. prison in an electoral year was not exactly good for business. At the same time the British establishment was begging to be excluded from the plot – as its “justice” system was forced by the Hegemon to keep an innocent man and family father hostage for 5 years, in abysmal conditions, in the name of protecting a basket of Anglo-American intel secrets.

In the end, the British establishment quietly applied all the pressure it could muster to run towards the exit – in full knowledge of what the Americans were planning for Julian. Cue to the kabuki this Wednesday in Saipan, the largest of the Northern Mariana Islands, unincorporated Pacific land administered by the Hegemon. Free at last – maybe, but with conditionalities that remain quite murky. Julian was ordered by this U.S. Court in the Pacific to instruct WikiLeaks to destroy information as a condition of the deal. Julian had to tell U.S. judge Ramona Manglona that he was not bribed or coerced to plead guilty to the crucial charge of “conspiring to unlawfully obtain and disseminate classified information relating to the national defense of the United States”. Well, his lawyers told him he had to follow the ‘Plead Guilty or Die in Jail’ script. Otherwise, no deal.

Judge Manglona – in an astonishing brush aside of those 5 years of psychological torture – said, “it appears that your 62 months in prison was fair and reasonable and proportionate.” So now the – oh, so benign and “fair” – USG will take the necessary steps to immediately erase remaining charges against Julian in the notoriously harsh Eastern District of Virginia. Julian was always adamant: he stressed over and over again that he would never plead guilty to an espionage charge. He didn’t; he pleaded guilty to a hazy felony/conspiracy charge; was given time served; was set free; and that’s a wrap. Or is it? Australia is a Hegemon vassal state, intel included, and with less than zero capability to protect its civilian population.

Moving from the UK to Australia may not be exactly an upgrade – even with freedom included. A real upgrade would be a move to a True Sovereign. Like Russia. Yet Julian will need U.S. authorization to travel and leave Australia. Moscow inevitably will be a sanctioned, off-limits destination. There’s hardly any question Julian will be back at the helm of WikiLeaks. Whistleblowers may be even lining up as we speak to tell their stories – supported by official documents. Yet the stark, ominous message remains fully imprinted in the collective unconscious: the ruthless, all-powerful U.S. Intel Apparatus will go no holds barred and take no prisoners to punish anyone, anywhere, who dares to expose imperial crimes. A new global epic starts now: The Fight against Criminalized Journalism.

We’ve known this for years.

• ‘No Physical Harm To Anyone By Leaks’ (ZH)

These are the images the world has been waiting for (with the exception of all Neocons, Liberal interventionists, natsec hawks, and Killary types…). “Free at last,” WikiLeaks said in a post on X, upon Julian Assange emerging rom his plane after landing in the Australian capital of Canberra. Assange raised his fist on the tarmac, and lovingly embraced his wife Stella and his children and family. His guilty plea arrangement with the United States was a success. During the Wednesday morning stopover and court appearance in a US district court in Saipan, the 52-year old Assange formally pleaded guilty to obtaining and publishing US military secrets.

One of Assange’s lawyers, Jennifer Robinson, said after the hearing that the whole ordeal “sets a dangerous precedent that should be a concern to journalists everywhere.”During the hearing he appeared emotional and there were moments of humor and laughter in interaction with the judge and with the court, according to The Guardian. For example, when the judge questioned whether satisfied with the plea conditions, Assange responded: “It might depend on the outcome.” This immediately drew some laughter in the courtroom. Chief Judge Ramona Manglona said at the start: “Not many people recognize we are part of the United States, but that is true.” By the end she pronounced: “It appears this case ends with me” and followed with “I hope there will be some peace restored.”

Julian Assange Free At Last!!! pic.twitter.com/Vpzcxr6lbi

— Stella Assange #FreeAssangeNOW (@Stella_Assange) June 26, 2024

Crucially, the judge said something which marks a significant blow to Assange’s and WikiLeaks’ detractors, who have long maintained that the leaks – particularly the Iraq and Afghan war logs – put intelligence officers and foreign assets in danger and may have gotten some killed. Manglona explained that key to the deal for his freedom was that he already served years in a notorious and harsh UK prison, but also that no actual physical harm was actually caused due to Assange’s actions. “You stand before me to be sentenced in this criminal action,” the judge said. “I would note the following: Timing matters. If this case was brought before me some time near 2012, without the benefit of what I know now, that you served a period of imprisonment… in apparently one of the harshest facilities in the United Kingdom.”

The Australian parliament had also begun publicly lobbying for Assange’s freedom starting months ago, and this was also essential in building pressure with the Biden administration. “There’s another significant fact – the government has indicated there is no personal victim here. That tells me the dissemination of this information did not result in any known physical injury,” the judge continued. “These two facts are very relevant. I would say if this was still unknown and closer to [2012] I would not be so inclined to accept this plea agreement before me,” Manglona added. “But it’s the year 2024.”

Former intelligence officials and national security pundits have been livid and disappointed over the plea deal, claiming Assange’s leaks got people killed and harmed US operations abroad.

Importantly, as a condition of the plea WikiLeaks is required to destroy information pertaining to US state secrets that was provided to Assange and his team. While the WikiLeaks site is a large repository of world-wide leaks on various governments, it appears that sections devoted to classified US documents have now been removed. Upon Assange’s celebratory landing in Australia, his wife Stella said in a press conference that he “just arrived in Australia after being in a high-security prison for over five years and [on] a 72-hour flight.”

She said it would be “premature” for Julian to address the press and that he “has to recover”. She then declared: “The fact is that Julian will always defend human rights, will always defend victims – that’s just part of who he is.” “I hope journalists and editors and publishers everywhere realize the danger of the US case against Julian that criminalizes, that has secured a conviction for, newsgathering and publishing information that was true, that the public deserved to know,” she continued in the press conference. “That precedent now can and will be used in the future against the rest of the press. So it is in the interest of all of the press to seek for this current state of affairs to change through reform of the Espionage Act,” said Stella Assange. “Through increased press protections, and yes, eventually when the time comes – not today – a pardon.”

“..required to pay $520,000 to the Australian government..”

• Bitcoin Donor Pays For Julian Assange’s $520,000 Charter Jet (ZH)

In an anonymous effort to help secure Julian Assange’s freedom, an anonymous Bitcoiner donated over 8 Bitcoin, worth around $500,000, to help Assange’s family pay off the debt incurred by his charter jet and settlement expenses, CoinTelegraph reported. On June 24, Assange was released from the high-security Belmarsh prison in the United Kingdom after reaching a plea agreement with U.S. authorities. Shortly after his release, he departed the U.K. on a private plane from a London airport to Saipan in the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. territory. Assange appeared in a district court in Saipan on June 26, where he pleaded guilty to one charge of breaching the U.S. Espionage Act by leaking classified documents. The journey was planned to prevent Assange from touching foot on American soil.

In an interview, Stella Assange, Assange’s wife, stated that “freedom comes at a cost.” Assange is required to pay $520,000 to the Australian government for the “forced” chartering of flight VJ199 to travel to Saipan and Australia. Stella started a crowdfunding page to help the jailed founder with his debts after his return home to Australia. The donation link was posted by Stella Assange on June 25, and within 10 hours, an anonymous Bitcoiner paid over 8 Bitcoin to the fund, almost clearing the goal of $520,000. He has also received over 300,000 British pounds ($380,000) in fiat donations so far. The single Bitcoin donation was the largest donation to the fund, more than all other donations in all currencies combined. As a result, Assange will arrive in Australia debt free.

“..to my delight, District Judge Vanessa Baraitser of the Old Bailey court overseeing Julian’s case, complained about the noise protestors were making in the street outside..”

• You Saved Julian Assange (Chris Hedges)

The dark machinery of empire, whose mendacity and savagery Julian Assange exposed to the world, spent 14 years trying to destroy him. They cut him off from his funding, canceling his bank accounts and credit cards. They invented bogus allegations of sexual assault to get him extradited to Sweden, where he would then be shipped to the U.S. They trapped him in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London for seven years after he was given political asylum and Ecuadorian citizenship by refusing him safe passage to Heathrow Airport. They orchestrated a change of government in Ecuador that saw him stripped of his asylum, harassed and humiliated by a pliant embassy staff. They contracted the Spanish security firm UC global in the embassy to record all his conversations, including those with his attorneys. The CIA discussed kidnapping or assassinating him. They arranged for London’s Metropolitan Police to raid the embassy – sovereign territory of Ecuador – and seize him.

They held him for five years in the high security HM Prison Belmarsh, often in solitary confinement. And all the while they carried out a judicial farce in the British courts where due process was ignored so an Australian citizen, whose publication was not based in the U.S. and who, like all journalists, received documents from whistleblowers, could be charged under the Espionage Act. They tried over and over and over to destroy him. They failed. But Julian was not released because the courts defended the rule of law and exonerated a man who had not committed a crime. He was not released because the Biden White House and the intelligence community have a conscience. He was not released because the news organizations that published his revelations and then threw him under the bus, carrying out a vicious smear campaign, pressured the U.S. government.

He was released — granted a plea deal with the U.S. Justice Department, according to court documents — in spite of these institutions. He was released because day after day, week after week, year after year, hundreds of thousands of people around the globe mobilized to decry the imprisonment of the most important journalist of our generation. Without this mobilization, Julian would not be free. Mass protests do not always work. The genocide in Gaza continues to exact its gruesome toll on Palestinians. Mumia Abu-Jamal is still locked up in a Pennsylvania prison. The fossil fuel industry ravages the planet. But it is the most potent weapon we have to defend ourselves from tyranny.

This sustained pressure — during a London hearing in 2020, to my delight, District Judge Vanessa Baraitser of the Old Bailey court overseeing Julian’s case, complained about the noise protestors were making in the street outside — shines a continuous light on injustice and exposes the amorality of the ruling class. This is why spaces in the British courts were so limited and blurry eyed activists lined up outside as early as 4 a.m. to secure a seat for journalists they respected, my spot secured by Franco Manzi, a retired policeman. These people are unsung and often unknown. But they are heroes. They move mountains. They surrounded parliament. They stood in the pouring rain outside the courts. They were dogged and steadfast. They made their collective voices heard. They saved Julian. And as this dreadful saga ends, and Julian and his family I hope, find peace and healing in Australia, we must honor them. They shamed the politicians in Australia to stand up for Julian, an Australian citizen, and finally Britain and the U.S. had to give up. I do not say to do the right thing. This was a surrender. We should be proud of it.

MSM view. Where was the BBC all that time?

• How The Deal To Free Julian Assange Was Agreed (BBC)

In the end, it was a mixture of diplomacy, politics and law that allowed Julian Assange to take off in a private jet from London’s Stansted airport on Monday, bound ultimately for Australia and freedom. The deal that led to his liberty – after seven years of self-imposed confinement and then five years of enforced detention – was months in the making but uncertain to the last. In a statement, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said the possibility of a plea deal “first came to our attention in March”. Since then, it had been advising the United States “on the mechanics” of how to get Mr Assange released and to appear before a US federal judge “in accordance with his wishes and those of the US government”. But the origins of the deal – after so many years of deadlock – probably began with the election of a new Australian government in May 2022 that brought to power an administration determined to bring home one of its citizens detained overseas.

Anthony Albanese, the new Labor prime minister, said he did not support everything Mr Assange had done but “enough was enough” and it was time for him to be released. He made the case a priority, largely behind closed doors. “Not all foreign affairs is best done with the loud hailer,” he said at the time. Mr Albanese had cross-party support in Australia’s parliament too. A delegation of MPs travelled to Washington in September to lobby US Congress directly. The prime minister then raised the issue himself with President Joe Biden at the White House during a state visit in October. This was followed by a parliamentary vote in February when MPs overwhelmingly supported a call to urge the US and the UK to allow Mr Assange back to Australia. They lobbied hard the influential US ambassador to Australia, Caroline Kennedy. A key player was Stephen Smith, who arrived in London as the new Australian High Commissioner in early 2023. Diplomatic sources said he “did a lot of the heavy lifting, making it a personal thing to get this over the line”.

Mr Smith – who paid an early visit to Mr Assange in Belmarsh prison in April 2023 – was also foreign minister in a former Australian government led by Kevin Rudd, the current ambassador in Washington who was also involved in the negotiations. Simon Jackman, Honorary Professor of US Studies at the University of Sydney, told the BBC there was a “natural inclination” for Australian governments to support the US but public and political sentiment had shifted just enough in both countries to give Mr Albanese “cover” to agitate for Mr Assange’s release behind closed doors. Australian ministers even at times compared the detention of Mr Assange to other Australian nationals held as political prisoners by Iran and China. Greg Barns, a barrister and legal adviser to the Australian Assange campaign, said it was the politics that made a difference. “The Albanese government was the first to elevate the matter with the US. And Albanese got support from the opposition. “The treatment [of Assange] stuck in the craw of many Australians. People would ask, ‘where’s the public interest in that?'”

Then came the law. On May 20, the High Court in the UK gave Julian Assange a legal lifeline. It ruled that he could bring a new appeal against attempts to have him extradited to stand trial in the US for obtaining and publishing military secrets. At this point, he faced multiple charges under the US espionage act: 17 of publishing official secrets, each of which carried a maximum 10-year prison term, and one of hacking, which was punishable by up to five years. One key part of the judgement was about whether Mr Assange – as an Australian citizen – would be able to use the US constitutional First Amendment right to free speech as a defence. Nick Vamos, former head of extradition at the CPS and head of business crime at the law firm Peters & Peters, said that the May ruling put pressure on both sides to come to the table and complete the deal. He said the ruling potentially allowed Mr Assange to argue that publishing secret US information was protected by the First Amendment, something that could have led to “months if not further years of delays and pressure”.

“Faced with this uncertainty and further delay, it looks as if the US have dropped the publishing charges in exchange for Mr Assange pleading guilty to hacking and ‘time served’, finally bringing this saga to end,” he said. Mr Vamos added that Mr Assange’s legal team would however have recognised that the First Amendment would have made no difference to the separate charge related to hacking. So even if they eventually saw off the charges relating to the publication of the secret material, there would be no protection against the hacking charges that went alongside them. “Both sides saw the risks and that brought them to the table,” he said. Whitehall sources said the date of the next High Court hearing was fast approaching on July 9 and 10 and both sides knew that if they were to agree a deal, it had to happen now.

“On the contrary, Assange worked meticulously with sources and partnered media outlets to redact information that could’ve endangered or exposed anyone referenced within the leaked documents.”

• ‘Every Citizen on the Planet’ Subject to US Persecution (Miles)

The last decade saw a string of revelations about the inner workings of the US government that shocked the world. Wikileaks founder Julian Assange published a series of leaked documents that implicated the United States in everything from foreign political meddling to surveillance of allies and adversaries. He was aided in his efforts by US Army whistleblower Chelsea Manning, who exposed gross violations of international law in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Edward Snowden, an NSA contractor who revealed the security agency’s sweeping spying capabilities. The international scope of US influence was a common thread among each of the revelations. Various governments throughout history have violated their citizens’ rights, but few global powers have ever possessed the ability to bend the entire planet to their will. By the 2010s the United States had become just such a power, with political, technological, and economic might that could be imposed on any person at any place in the world.

“It sounds like they’re now saying every citizen on the planet is susceptible to being charged under the US Espionage Act,” said independent journalist Steve Poikonen on Sputnik’s The Critical Hour program. Poikonen was among a number of Sputnik contributors who weighed in on news of Assange’s plea deal with the Biden Justice Department Tuesday, questioning the implications of the agreement even as press freedom advocates everywhere celebrate the liberation of the longtime US political prisoner. “The thing that I found most surprising about all of this is the way that the plea deal was written, mostly because it’s a charge that we’ve historically only seen for government contractors or employees,” said Poikonen, the host of the online news program AM Wake Up. “The argument that the US prosecution was making the entire time hinged on ‘Julian Assange isn’t a journalist.’”

“If they’re charging him as a private citizen for mishandling classified information, and that’s something that before this they could only charge an employee or a contractor with, then doesn’t that put the rest of us under even more of a hot seat than we were before?” “He never should have been charged,” insisted cartoonist and syndicated columnist Ted Rall of Assange’s 12-year struggle against the US government. “He never committed a crime. He was never an American citizen and, therefore, not subject to American law. The Espionage Act is disgusting and probably unconstitutional and shouldn’t be on the books, and certainly never should apply to journalists.”

The United States’ pursuit of Assange was frequently justified under the pretense that his activity endangered the lives of American citizens or service members. Similar claims were made decades prior against Pentagon Papers leaker Daniel Ellsberg, who former Secretary of State Henry Kissenger dubbed “the most dangerous man in America.” US Congress passed legislation making it a crime to reveal the identity of CIA employees after the former head of the agency George H.W. Bush blamed whistleblower Philip Agee for the killing of an officer by militants in Greece. But no concrete details ever emerged of anyone targeted, or even placed under threat, by Julian Assange’s journalist. On the contrary, Assange worked meticulously with sources and partnered media outlets to redact information that could’ve endangered or exposed anyone referenced within the leaked documents.

“..He has vowed to stay on as president until his five-year term ends in 2027..”s

• Macron’s Brand ‘Toxic’ – Bloomberg (RT)

French President Emmanuel Macron’s allies could distance themselves from him ahead of snap elections as the leader has become a “toxic brand” due to his waning popularity, Bloomberg has reported, citing sources. The heads of communication at the Elysee Palace have admitted they have “no polls or data to suggest candidates should publicly align themselves with Macron to retain their seats,” the outlet said on Wednesday, citing attendees at an emergency meeting of top French government officials. Soon after Macron called snap elections earlier this month, dozens of lawmakers who initially supported the French leader now want him to keep a “low profile” as his behavior grows increasingly “erratic,” Bloomberg claimed. Even political heavyweights such as French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire and Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, once Macron’s closest allies, are keeping their distance, the outlet stated.

Most pro-government candidates have not placed the president’s image in their campaign posters or leaflets as the Macron brand is feared to be toxic, Bloomberg added. A person close to the president claimed that it’s normal for candidates not to use his image, arguing that the election is about the parliament, not the presidency. Speaking on Monday on the ‘Generation Do It Yourself’ podcast, Macron claimed that upcoming legislative elections in France could lead to civil war, should the far right or the leftist bloc sweep to power. Only his centrist ruling coalition can prevent such a scenario, Macron insisted, arguing that both the right-wing National Rally party and the left-wing France Unbowed party have espoused divisive policies that stoke tensions. Macron’s popularity has tumbled in recent months, and opinion polls indicate that his party is lagging far behind National Rally.

Macron, who has presented himself as a leading backer of Ukraine in the conflict with Russia, has floated the possibility of sending French – and other Western – troops to the battlefield. Jordan Bardella, the National Rally leader, recently said that if he becomes prime minister, he will not send troops or long-range missiles to Ukraine, describing any such moves as “very clear red lines.” Macon dissolved the country’s parliament and called snap elections earlier this month, after the National Rally party trounced his ruling coalition in the European Parliament elections. He has vowed to stay on as president until his five-year term ends in 2027, but an opposition-controlled legislature and government would dramatically shift the balance of power. The first round of the elections will be held on Sunday, while the second round is scheduled for July 7.

You. Lost.

• France Faces Threat Of ‘Civil War’ – Macron (RT)

Upcoming legislative elections in France could lead to civil war if political parties on either the far-left or the far-right sweep to power, President Emmanuel Macron has warned. Only his centrist ruling coalition can prevent such a scenario, he added. Speaking on Monday in an interview on the “Generation Do It Yourself” podcast, Macron argued that both the right-wing National Rally party and the left-wing France Unbowed party have espoused divisive policies that stoke tensions. The first round of the elections will be held on Sunday, while the second round is scheduled for July 7. Macron labeled the opposition parties as extremist and claimed that their rhetoric would trigger more conflict. “When you are fed up and daily life is hard, you can be tempted to vote for the extremes that have quicker solutions,” he said. “But the solution will never be to reject others.”

The French president dissolved the country’s parliament and called for snap elections earlier this month, after the National Rally party trounced his ruling coalition in the European Parliament elections. He has vowed to stay on as president until his five-year term ends in 2027, but an opposition-controlled legislature and government would dramatically shift the balance of power in Paris. National Rally’s response to France’s problems would be to “reduce people to their religion or their origin,” Macron said, which “pushes people toward civil war.” Likewise, he added, Jean-Luc Melenchon’s France Unbowed party also promotes civil war “because it reduces people to their religious or ethnic group.” An Ipsos poll conducted last week showed that National Rally is favored by 35.5% of French voters. A leftist coalition that includes France Unbowed was pegged at 29.5%, while Macron’s alliance came in at 19.5%.

Macron has acknowledged that voters made their desire for change clear in the European Parliament election. “Yes, the way we govern must change profoundly,” he noted in announcing the snap elections. However, he added, “The government to come, which will necessarily reflect your vote, will, I hope, bring together republicans of different persuasions who have shown courage in opposing the extremes.” Macron and his allies have portrayed their opposition as dangerous and bigoted. “In our country, some people have hatred, impulses, desires to attack certain communities or certain French people,” Prime Minister Gabriel Attal said on Monday. He added, “Probably the victory of the extremes would release these impulses and could lead to violence.”

“Our interest was much broader and more comprehensive, but the West was not ready for mutually beneficial, equal cooperation..”

• West ‘Unable To Negotiate’ – Lavrov (RT)

The West has repeatedly displayed its “inability to negotiate,” which has now become evident to everyone, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said. Western “vassals” of the US are willing to breach “any agreements” and violate international law upon receiving “orders” from Washington, Lavrov claimed at the Primakov Readings International Forum in Moscow. Russia had been interested in a mutually beneficial relationship with the collective West, but building one has proven to be effectively impossible, the top diplomat argued. “Our interest was much broader and more comprehensive, but the West was not ready for mutually beneficial, equal cooperation,” Lavrov stated. “When it needs to do something on orders from Washington, it resorts to breaking any agreements, any violations of international law.”

Moscow is now seeking to ensure its security and prevent any threats emanating from the “Western direction,” Lavrov said. The collective West, at the same time, is trying to make an example of Russia to assert its neocolonial policies, the diplomat claimed. “The Westerners are seeking to punish our country, using our example to intimidate everyone who is pursuing or seeks to pursue an independent foreign policy, who puts national interests above all, and not the whims of the former colonial powers,” Lavrov stated. The Western efforts to “punish” Russia, however, are doomed to fail and are “already producing effects opposite to the intended ones,” the minister insisted.

Leading Western officials have repeatedly said they are seeking to inflict a “strategic defeat” on Russia in the Ukraine conflict, or at least ensure that it does not emerge victorious. Moscow perceives the hostilities as a proxy conflict being waged by the collective West. Russia has insisted it will fully achieve its stated military goals, but has nonetheless signaled it is ready to negotiate an end to the hostilities through a diplomatic settlement.

The only sane voice in Britain.

• Farage Tells Zelensky Only Peace Can Save Ukraine (RT)

Ukraine has no hope against Russia on the battlefield due to a lack of manpower, British politician Nigel Farage stated on Tuesday. The Reform UK leader has been embroiled in a row with Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky and former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson after arguing that NATO expansion in Europe contributed to the ongoing hostilities. Farage defended his position on the BBC’s Panorama program last week, prompting Zelensky’s office to claim that the politician is infected with a “virus of Putinism.” Johnson branded Farage’s remarks “nauseating ahistorical drivel” and “Kremlin propaganda,” calling him “morally repugnant.” Speaking to British journalists on Tuesday, Farage took aim at his critics, in particular Johnson, who he accused of pushing Zelensky into rejecting a peace deal with Russia in 2022. The former Tory leader “very clearly did [that] for his own reasons. How many people have died as a result of that, I don’t know,” Farage said.

He estimated that there have been “a million battle casualties” in the conflict. Considering the heavy losses, “there may be no young men left in Ukraine” to achieve Kiev’s stated goal of defeating Russia, Farage pointed out. He said it was Zelensky’s choice whether to cede territory to stop the bloodshed and lamented that “no one is even talking about peace.” “All we are talking about is ‘Ukraine is going to win’. Really? I’m pretty skeptical about that,” Farage added. “I just think some attempt to broker negotiations between these two sides needs to happen,” the politician said, after citing his past opposition to Western military campaigns in Iraq and Libya.

Farage issued a similar rebuke during a campaign rally in Maidstone on Monday, when he suggested that Johnson is the one who is “morally repugnant.” He showed supporters a Daily Mail article from 2016 featuring a pro-Brexit speech by Johnson, a key figure in the campaign. In it, Johnson blamed the EU’s expansionist foreign policy for stoking tensions with Russia in Ukraine. He was accused of being an “apologist” for Russian President Vladimir Putin for the remarks. Farage told the crowd that Johnson was a hypocrite for criticizing him for saying similar things.

Vovan and Lexus.

• UK’s Cameron Dashes Ukraine’s NATO Summit Hopes (RT)

Ukraine will not receive an invitation to join NATO at the bloc’s summit next month, UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron has said. He added that Kiev can only expect a strong declaration of support regarding its conflict with Moscow. In a phone call with Russian prankster duo Vovan and Lexus – one of whom posed as former Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko – which was made public on Wednesday, Cameron confirmed that Ukraine should not hope to make strides on its path to become a NATO member when the military bloc’s leaders convene in Washington July 9-11. ”There is not going to be an invitation because America won’t support one,” Cameron said, adding that he told Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky that Kiev and the West should come up with the best language possible with regard to NATO’s support for the country and its eventual inclusion in the bloc.

”But we can’t have an argument between NATO and Ukraine before the summit… Let’s make sure we go into the conference united. We can’t afford a sort of public argument about where Ukraine is vis-à-vis NATO in the run-up to the July summit,” the foreign secretary said, adding that he personally supports the country’s accession to the US-led military bloc. “I’m sure it will happen. But we are not going to get there this time.” NATO first announced that Ukraine would become a member of the bloc back in 2008, without giving an exact timeline. In 2019, after the Western-backed coup in Kiev several years prior, Ukraine officially declared NATO membership to be a strategic objective. In 2022, after the conflict with Russia escalated and four of its former regions voted to join the neighboring country, Ukraine formally applied to join the bloc.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has said that Ukraine will not be able to join the bloc while it is embroiled in the conflict, amid widespread concerns that the move could trigger a direct clash with Russia. Moscow has for years sounded the alarm about NATO’s expansion towards its borders, with President Vladimir Putin citing Ukraine’s aspirations to join the bloc as one of the main reasons for the conflict. Earlier this month, Putin said Russia is ready to begin peace talks with Ukraine once it withdraws from its four former regions and commits to neutrality. Both Kiev and its Western backers have rejected the offer.

Excellent Paul Sperry.

• How Obama’s Intel Czar Rigged 2016 and 2020 Debates Against Trump (Sperry)

Just before Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton faced off in their second presidential debate, then-National Intelligence Director James Clapper met in the White House with a small group of advisers to President Obama to hatch a plan to put out a first-of-its-kind intelligence report warning the voting public that “the Russian government” was interfering in the election by allegedly breaching the Clinton campaign’s email system. On Oct. 7, 2016 – just two days before the presidential debate between Trump and Clinton – Clapper issued the unprecedented intelligence advisory with Obama’s personal blessing. It seemed to lend credence to what the Clinton camp was telling the media — that Trump was working with Russian President Vladimir Putin through a secret back channel to steal the election. Sure enough, the Democratic nominee pounced on it to smear Trump at the debate.

And that wouldn’t be the only historically consequential maneuver for Clapper, whose role in skewing presidential campaigns might deserve a special place in the annals of nefarious election meddling – by, in this case, a domestic, not foreign, intelligence service.

In 2020, he was the lead signatory on the “intelligence” statement that discredited the New York Post’s October bombshell exposing emails from Hunter Biden’s laptop, which documented how Hunter’s corrupt Burisma paymasters had met with Joe Biden when he was vice president. It was released Oct. 19, just three days before Trump and Biden debated each other in Nashville. Fifty other U.S. “Intelligence Community” officials and experts signed the seven-page document, which claimed “the arrival on the U.S. political scene of emails purportedly belonging to Vice President Biden’s son Hunter, much of it related to his time serving on the board of the Ukrainian gas company Burisma, has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.” In hindsight, Clapper’s well-timed pseudo-intelligence in 2016 and 2020 helped Clinton and Biden make the case against Trump as a potentially Kremlin-compromised figure, charges that crippled his presidency and later arguably denied him reelection.

The phony laptop letter actually helped Biden seal his narrow victory since many of his voters in the close election told pollsters they would have had second thoughts about backing him had they known of the damning materials contradicting his denials he knew anything about his son’s shady foreign dealings. A post-election survey by The Polling Company, for one, found that thanks to the discrediting and suppression of the laptop story, 45% of Biden voters in swing states said they were “unaware of the financial scandal enveloping Biden and his son” and that full awareness of the Hunter Biden laptop scandal would have led more than 9% of these Biden voters to abandon their vote for him – thereby flipping all six of the swing states he won over to Trump and giving Trump the victory.

In effect, Joe Biden was elected president because millions of voters were steered away by Clapper and his intelligence colleagues from learning about the damning contents on Hunter Biden’s laptop. In 2016, Clapper appeared to use his authority as Obama’s chief of intelligence to try to trip up Trump on behalf of Clinton. But not everyone in the administration was on board with releasing his official statement about supposed Kremlin meddling. Then-FBI Director James Comey had also met in the Situation Room in early October to discuss the plan. But Comey balked at accusing “Russia’s senior-most officials” of authorizing the “alleged hack” of the Clinton campaign and trying “to interfere in the U.S. election process,” as the two-page document claimed. Conspicuously, the FBI did not sign on to the intelligence.

Still, Clapper implied in his statement that this was the finding of the entire “U.S. Intelligence Community” and that it was “confident the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of emails.” Aside from Clapper’s Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the only other agency that attached its name to the assessment was the Department of Homeland Security. Also remarkable was the paucity of underlying evidence. The joint ODNI-DHS statement based its conclusion primarily on a report by a cybersecurity contractor hired by the Clinton campaign’s law firm, who later walked back his finding in a sworn congressional deposition, allowing: “We did not have concrete evidence [Russian agents stole campaign emails].” At best, Clapper’s finding was shoddy tradecraft. At worst, it was manufactured, or simply “dreamed up,” as one former FBI counterintelligence official described it to RealClearInvestigations.

“The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage”

• Age of Rage: America’s Anti-Free Speech Movement (Turley)

Time and again, this country has abandoned our free speech values as political dissidents were met with state rage in the form of mass crackdowns and imprisonments. It is an unvarnished story of free speech in America and for better or worse, it is our story. Yet, we have much to learn from this history as this pattern now repeats itself. The book explains why we are living in the most dangerous anti-free speech period in our history. In the past, free speech has found natural allies in academia and the media. That has changed with a type of triumvirate — the government, corporations, and academia — in a powerful alliance against free speech values.

Ironically, while these groups refer to the unprecedented threat of “fake news” and “disinformation,” those were the very same rationales used first by the Crown and then the U.S. government to crack down on free speech in the early American republic. The difference is the magnitude of the current censorship system from campuses to corporations to Congress. Law professors are even calling for changing the First Amendment as advancing an “excessively individualistic” view of free speech. The amendment would allow the government to curtail speech to achieve “equity” and protect “dignity.” Others, including President Biden, have called for greater censorship while politicians and pundits denounce defenders of free speech as “Putin lovers” and “insurrectionist sympathizers.”

Despite watching the alarming rise of this anti-free speech movement and the rapid loss of protections in the West, there is still reason to be hopeful.For those of us who believe that free speech is a human right, there is an inherent and inescapable optimism. We are wired for free speech as humans. We need to speak freely, to project part of ourselves into the world around us. It is essential to being fully human. In the end, this alliance may reduce our appetite for free speech but we will never truly lose our taste for it. It is in our DNA. That is why this is not our first or our last age of rage. However, it is not the rage that defines us. It is free speech that defines us.

“If the allegations made by plaintiffs are true, the present case arguably involves the most massive attack against free speech in United States’ history,” wrote Doughty.”

• Supreme Court Tosses Case Over Biden Coercion Of Social Media (ZH)

The Supreme Court on Wednesday tossed a case claiming that the Biden administration unlawfully coerced social media companies into removing content and banning users based on political views. In a 6-3 decision, the Court found that the plaintiffs did not have standing to sue – as opposed to tossing the case on merit – just like the vast majority of election fraud cases which didn’t make it past lower courts. Clearly it was easier to punt this one than focus on the mountain of evidence that the Biden administration and US intelligence agencies were directly pressuring social media platforms to censor free speech disfavorable to the regime. GOP attorneys general in Louisiana and Missouri, along with five social media users, filed the underlying lawsuit claiming that US government officials exceeded their authority by pressuring social media platforms to moderate content. The individual plaintiffs include Harvard’s Martin Kulldorff and Stanford’s Jay Bhattacharya, as well as Gateway Pundit owner Jim Hoft.

Turley

NEW: Jonathan Turley shreds the Supreme Court's decision to allow the U.S. government to demand the removal of 'misinformation' on social media.

The Supreme Court ruled that the government’s communications with social media giants about removing Covid-19 "misinformation" did… pic.twitter.com/QUtnpJd5gD

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) June 26, 2024

The laws sought to prevent social media companies from banning users based on their political views, even if users violate platform policies. The lawsuit included various claims relating to activities that occurred in 2020 and before, including efforts to deter the spread of false information about Covid and the presidential election. Donald Trump was president at the time, but the district court ruling focused on actions taken by the government after President Joe Biden took office in January 2021. In July last year, Louisiana-based U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty barred officials from “communication of any kind with social-media companies urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner the removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech.” -NBC News. “If the allegations made by plaintiffs are true, the present case arguably involves the most massive attack against free speech in United States’ history,” wrote Doughty.

“The plaintiffs are likely to succeed on the merits in establishing that the government has used its power to silence the opposition.” Dozens of people and agencies were bound by the injunction including President Biden, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, the Food and Drug Administration, Centers for Disease Control, the Treasury Department, State Department, the US Election Assistance Commission, the FBI and entire Justice Department, and the Department of Health and Human Services. Bhattacharya and Kulldorff, who are among the originators of the Great Barrington Declaration that denounced the lockdown regime, have been victims of social media censorship. For example, the pair says their censorship-triggering statements included assertions that “thinking everyone must be vaccinated is scientifically flawed,” questioning the value of masks, and stating that natural immunity is stronger than vaccine immunity.

While the case was dominated by Covid-19 censorship, it also encompasses the Justice Department’s efforts to suppress reporting about Hunter Biden’s “laptop from hell” in the run-up to the 2020 election. Doughty gave credence to that accusation. “The evidence thus far depicts an almost dystopian scenario,” wrote Doughty in a 155-page ruling. “During the COVID-19 pandemic, a period perhaps best characterized by widespread doubt and uncertainty, the United States Government seems to have assumed a role similar to an Orwellian ‘Ministry of Truth’.” “The White House defendants made it very clear to social-media companies what they wanted suppressed and what they wanted amplified,” wrote Doughty. “Faced with unrelenting pressure from the most powerful office in the world, the social-media companies apparently complied.”

13 dogs
https://twitter.com/i/status/1805852394946712055

Rematch

What lesson did you learn from this? pic.twitter.com/2p2Nm6ADjx

— Nature is Amazing ☘️ (@AMAZlNGNATURE) June 26, 2024

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Debt Rattle June 20 2024

Jun 202024

June 20, 2024 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 8:52 am Finance Tagged with: AI, Boeing, ceasefire proposal, Hezbollah, Israel, landmines, North Korea, peaceful negotiations, Tories, Turley 64 Responses »

Roy Lichtenstein Woman in Bath 1963

• Russia Willing to Commit to Peaceful Negotiations (Manley)

• Polish MP Calls For Landmines At Russian Border (RT)

• Washington Weaponized Domestic Law and “Rules-based-order” (Paul Craig Roberts)

• North Korea, Shunned For Decades, Welcomed Into New Multipolar World (Sp.)

• ‘No Place’ Is Safe If Israel Starts War – Hezbollah (RT)

• Joe Biden’s ‘Ceasefire Proposal’ Was Just ‘Kabuki Theater’ (Sp.)

• Hunter Biden’s Charge of Lying Under Oath (Patrick Lawrence)

• Ryanair CEO: “It’s a Complete Scam, These People Are Not Refugees” (MN)

• UK Tories Face Election Wipeout – Polls (RT)

• ‘God Destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah’ (RT)

• Jonathan Turley: There’s A Movement To Rewrite The First Amendment (RCP)

• Boeing Can’t Find New CEO – WSJ (RT)

• McDonald’s Scraps AI Trial After Bacon Added To Ice Cream (RT)

Boondoggle

EXPOSED: Biden’s latest taxpayer-funded infrastructure boondoggle has just been revealed. Three years ago, @JoeBiden bragged about spending billions to wire every inch of America with better internet. $43 billion later and no one has gotten better internet. pic.twitter.com/CYekG7Q0DU

— Jesse Watters (@JesseBWatters) June 20, 2024

Gaetz

The J6 committee destroyed evidence, was improperly constituted, and concealed video of Nancy Pelosi taking the blame for the attack in the immediate aftermath.

Since 2015, the House of Representatives speaks in litigation through an entity called the Bipartisan Legal Advisory… pic.twitter.com/PkkpZ7zrIO

— Rep. Matt Gaetz (@RepMattGaetz) June 19, 2024

Ritter
https://twitter.com/i/status/1803500858656825589

Hillary
https://twitter.com/i/status/1803481223009808415

Mayorkas

Sen John Kennedy blasts Alejandro Mayorkas: “Did you just parachute in from another planet, Mr. Secretary? Because you're the only person in the Milky Way who believes that we’re not having massive, massive illegal immigration into America#bidenborderINVASION #BIDENBORDERCRISIS pic.twitter.com/9K4UYjVPix

— 5DME81 (@5dme81) June 19, 2024

“..you want to stop the fighting and the killing? Just withdraw troops.”

• Russia Willing to Commit to Peaceful Negotiations (Manley)

At the end of March of this year, a nationwide poll asked Ukrainians how they thought their draft-age acquaintances might respond to a call to serve. Just 10% who responded to the poll said they would accept. Ukraine’s current military recruitment campaign has fallen short of expectations, a recent article from The Conversation suggested. The recruitment plan was first announced on April 16, 2024, with the goal of enlisting “hundreds of thousands of young Ukrainian men”, the report claimed. However, the effort has been met with “public skepticism, draft dodging and opposition to unpopular, heavy-handed attempts to root out those not heeding the call to sign up,” the report writes, adding that it has “left Ukraine struggling to fill the positions officials say are needed to beat back the invading army.”

Nicolai Petro, a professor of political science at the University of Rhode Island, sat down with Sputnik’s The Critical Hour on Monday. According to Petro, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s specific proposals on Ukraine, and world development in the future comes down to “two points”. “Putin simplified the path to negotiation, because from Russia’s perspective it’s now boiled down to just two points,” said Petro. “Withdraw Ukrainian troops from the four regions that have been admitted to Russia and, secondly, issue an official statement. Ukraine should issue an official statement that it does not intend to join NATO. And as soon as that happens, Russia is willing to commit to an immediate ceasefire and peace negotiations.”

“So why is this easier than what Ukraine proposed? Well, because Ukraine has ten sets of demands rather than just one from Russia’s perspective, which is an official statement that Ukraine will not join NATO,” he added. “The second thing that’s interesting about Russia’s proposal is that it is offering something that Ukraine has not offered, which is an end to the bloodshed. In other words, you want to stop the fighting and the killing? Just withdraw troops.”

Issues with Ukraine’s draft also highlight the fundamental issue: without funding from Western allies, Ukraine is likely to “exhaust its resources long before Russia does”, The Conversation report writes In December of 2023, former commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian armed forces, General Valerii Zaluzhnyi told leader Volodymyr Zelensky that he needed nearly 500,000 more troops. But a nationwide poll conducted at the end of March showed that Ukrainians believe only 10% of their draft-age acquaintances might respond to a call to serve.“And thirdly,” the professor continued. “Putin’s proposal essentially [shows the lie of] Western statements that Russia intends to conquer all of Ukraine and then all of Europe, because he now specifically says Russia’s territorial ambitions are limited to the four occupied regions of Crimea, which is why I think it is aimed primarily not at Ukraine.”

“The Ukrainian, Western position is we cannot negotiate and we don’t want to negotiate because negotiation itself would be an acknowledgment of an immoral act of aggression, and therefore there’s nothing to negotiate, which is why we have this summit in Switzerland not even including Russia.”“So we’re not actually negotiating or willing to negotiate anything,” Petro said. “We’re simply making a statement of defiance against a Russian invasion versus the other side, in Russia’s case, which is saying [Russia] feels threatened by NATO’s expansion, which is why [they are] taking these actions. There’s also humanitarian reasons, but we are, we have always been and continue to be willing to negotiate on what our mutual security interests are.”

“..The treaty that banned the use, production, stockpiling and proliferation of landmines came into effect in 1999 and has been ratified by 164 countries..”

• Polish MP Calls For Landmines At Russian Border (RT)

Poland should withdraw from the ban on anti-personnel mines and deploy them along the border with Kaliningrad Region, former defense minister Mariusz Blaszczak has said. Blaszczak is currently a member of parliament with the Law and Justice (PiS) party. He was the defense minister from 2018 until 2023, when PiS lost power to Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s Civic Platform coalition. “As part of the program to strengthen the eastern border, the authorities must withdraw from the Ottawa Convention,” Blaszczak said at a PiS press conference on Wednesday, referring to the treaty banning the use of anti-personnel landmines. Warsaw should then mine the length of its border with Kaliningrad Region, the Russian territory between Poland and Lithuania, Blaszczak argued. Last month, Tusk publicly opposed mining the border with Russia and Belarus, a move originally proposed by the PiS government. According to Tusk, Warsaw does not intend to leave the Ottawa Convention, either.

The treaty that banned the use, production, stockpiling and proliferation of landmines came into effect in 1999 and has been ratified by 164 countries. The US, Russia, India and China are among the dozen nations that have declined to participate in the ban. Blaszczak oversaw the deployment of tens of thousands of Polish troops along the border with Russia and Belarus last year, in the run-up to the general election. The new government has chosen to continue that mission, citing the alleged “hybrid war” threat from Moscow and Minsk. Warsaw has been an outspoken supporter of Ukraine under both Tusk and the previous PiS government. Poland has also served as the logistics hub for almost all deliveries of NATO weapons, equipment, and ammunition to Ukraine since the conflict with Russia escalated in February 2022.

“..maintained by his hope that the West will come to its senses before it is too late for the survival of the Western world..”

• Washington Weaponized Domestic Law and “Rules-based-order” (Paul Craig Roberts)

Merrick Garland, Biden’s specialist in using law as a weapon against Donald Trump and his supporters, recently described in the Washington Post, a CIA asset, his critics as conspiracy theorists who are undermining trust in the Department of Justice (sic).Many Americans have a different view. Garland, claiming “executive privilege,” covers up the Justice (sic) Department’s refusal to indict Joe Biden for the same offense for which Trump has been indicted by preventing the release of special counsel Hur’s interview of Joe Biden. Hur found that Biden knowingly possessed national security documents for which he had no permission, and that he was guilty of mishandling national security documents by leaving them in the trunk of his car and spread among a variety of non-secure locations. However, Hur concluded that Biden shouldn’t be indicted because of his “diminished mental facilities.” As I previously asked, how then is Biden qualified to be president of the United States and have his finger on the nuclear button? The Justice (sic) Department doesn’t say.

This and other anomalies that characterize the Biden regime raise unavoidable serious questions about the integrity of the US Department of Justice. Contrast Garland’s reluctance to even have Biden interviewed for his possession of classified national security documents with the speed with which Trump was prosecuted for allegedly inappropriate possession of national security documents. The two cases are not comparable. Trump as president has authority to declassify national security documents. Biden as VP had no such authority. Trump’s documents were locked in a room in Mar-a-Largo, Trump’s residence which is under 24/7 Secret Service Protection. Biden’s documents were in his garage, in his Corvette’s trunk, and spread among a variety of other unsecured sites. When the FBI invaded Mar-a-Lago they spread the documents on the floor and brought with them pages marked Top Secret which they added to their spread of documents for photos handed over to a compliant and corrupt American media.

The FBI did not bring top secret pages to spread among Biden’s documents and give photos to the media. What this tells us is that the US Department of Justice is devoid of integrity. It is just another lie machine like the American media. Garland has prevented any inquiry into the evidence in Hunter Biden’s laptop showing Vice President and President Biden’s participation in, and payments from, Hunter Biden’s influence peddling schemes. Instead, the prosecution of Hunter Biden has protected Joe Biden by being limited to Hunter’s gun purchase while being a drug addict and income tax invasion from the proceeds of the influence peddling but not the influence peddling itself. If he is convicted of income tax evasion from money earned from influence peddling, how can the influence peddling go unindicted? Justice (sic) Department special counsel Jack Smith who is prosecuting President Trump on felony charges has been been found guilty of lying to the judge presiding over the case. Consequently, the judge has put the trial on hold while the matter is investigated.

The Fulton County prosecutor, Fani Willis, who is prosecuting President Trump has derailed her White House orchestrated prosecution by paying her lover a vast sum of taxpayers’ funds with which he took Fani on expensive vacations. The purpose of the Biden Justice (sic) Department is to get Trump, not to serve justice. The motto of the Democrats is: “We don’t need no stinking justice, we need to get Trump and his supporters.” The American media agrees. Consequently, the Biden regime’s misuse of law as a weapon is not a story. The complete and total failure of the American media, which our Founding Fathers mistakenly relied on to hold government accountable, has left Americans with two devastating threats, one of which is domestic tyranny and the other is war with Russia, and perhaps China and Iran also. Domestic tyranny is easily possible as an insouciant American population has permitted the Democrats to steal the last two national elections and has done nothing to prevent the Democrats from stealing the election in November.

The Democrats have made it clear that they will hold on to power at the expense of democracy. Washington no longer controls the war it has instigated. Russia has defeated Ukraine. If Washington, as seems to be the case, intends to prolong the conflict by deploying NATO troops in Ukraine and by using long range missiles to target sites deep into Russia, a fatal red line will have been crossed. So far the outbreak of war has been prevented by Putin’s willingness to accept provocations and insults. Putin’s willingness to live with the West’s declared intention to destroy Russia has been maintained by his hope that the West will come to its senses before it is too late for the survival of the Western world.

“No more sanctions against North Korea, that’s for sure. That is not going to happen. The US is not going to get anything [in the UN Security Council]..”

• North Korea, Shunned For Decades, Welcomed Into New Multipolar World (Sp.)

For decades, the people of North Korea have suffered under strict sanctions imposed by the so-called “International Rules-Based Order.” On Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Pyongyang and signed a strategic partnership with his counterpart Kim Jong Un, opening the secretive nation to the new emerging multipolar world. In a letter to the North Korean people, Putin praised the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) for being able to withstand “US economic pressure, provocation, blackmail and military threats that have lasted decades,” and said that the two countries are united in their fight against the US, which he said “is making every desperate effort to impose on the world the so-called ‘order based on rules’ which is nothing but a world-wide neocolonialist dictatorship based on the ‘double standards.’”

“This is huge,” explained international relations and security expert Mark Sleboda on Sputnik’s The Final Countdown on Wednesday. “Now the details of this are not known. It is being called a ‘mutual aid in case of aggression’ It does not specify and it does not rule out actually going to war with whoever the perpetrator of the aggression against either party. But I have to point out that neither does NATO’s Article Five mutual defense clause… So, by this analysis, without knowing the details yet, it seems and it’s being reported in the Western press that Russia and North Korea just signed a military alliance equivalent to NATO, which is huge.” North Korea has been under sanctions and embargoes by the United States since the Korean War started. While there have been brief periods of cooling between the US and the DPRK, the relationship has been overwhelmingly hostile over the decades.

Since 2006, the UN Security Council has passed nearly a dozen resolutions that sanctioned the DPRK, an action that required the support of both Russia and China, something that is unlikely to happen with this new paradigm.
“No more sanctions against North Korea, that’s for sure. That is not going to happen. The US is not going to get anything [in the UN Security Council],” explained Sleboda, adding that the mutual aid pact from Russia also prevents any US attack on North Korea, something it has threatened for decades.

“..will change the face of the region and shape its future..”

• ‘No Place’ Is Safe If Israel Starts War – Hezbollah (RT)

Hezbollah is prepared for a full-scale conflict with Israel, the Shia militia’s head Hassan Nasrallah has said. He also warned Cyprus that it could be targeted if it hosts Israeli forces. Nasrallah gave a televised speech on Wednesday, following a memorial service for Hajj Sami Taleb Abdullah, a senior Hezbollah commander who had been killed in an Israeli strike on southern Lebanon earlier this week. “The enemy knows it must expect us on land, in the air, and at sea, and if war is imposed, the resistance will fight without constraints, rules, or limits,” he said, adding that “there will be no place safe from our missiles and drones.” The current confrontation is the “greatest battle since 1948,” the year Israel declared independence, and “will change the face of the region and shape its future,” Nasrallah said.

The Shia militia that controls much of Lebanon has prodded Israeli troops in Galilee since October 7 last year, when West Jerusalem declared war on Hamas in Gaza. The intermittent rocket attacks on both sides of the border have driven more than 53,000 Israelis and almost 100,000 Lebanese from their homes. Hezbollah is striking Israeli positions “within a certain and specific schedule,” Nasrallah claimed, noting that the group has a “very, very large amount of information” about Israeli fortifications, numbers and deployments, referring to Tuesday’s release of drone footage of the port of Haifa. According to Nasrallah, Hezbollah has all the weapons it needs to strike targets inside Israel, including previously undisclosed weapons that have yet to be used on the battlefield. The group is also well-supplied with drones and rockets.

Nasrallah also threatened Cyprus for the first time, telling the government in Nicosia that the country “opening its airports and bases to the enemy to target Lebanon means it has become part of the war.” He claimed that Israel had secret plans to use airfields in Cyprus should its own airbases be disabled by Hezbollah strikes. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced on Tuesday that it had finalized “operational plans for an offensive in Lebanon.”Responding to US calls for restraint, Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said his country was “very close to the moment when we will decide to change the rules of the game against Hezbollah and Lebanon.” adding that “in a total war, Hezbollah will be destroyed and Lebanon will be hit hard.” Israel’s last major confrontation with Hezbollah was in 2006, when a ground offensive into southern Lebanon resulted in high casualties and no military gains.

“The Biden administration did not want to appear as if they were vetoing another Security Council resolution..”

• Joe Biden’s ‘Ceasefire Proposal’ Was Just ‘Kabuki Theater’ (Sp.)

The public proclamations about an alleged Israeli Ceasefire deal promoted by Biden, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and pro-Israel lawmakers in Washington was kabuki theater, designed to avoid the US having to veto another UN Ceasefire resolution and reduce domestic and international political pressure on the US Government, human rights lawyer Francis Boyle told Sputnik. “The so-called ‘peace proposal’ by Biden was a dodge,” Boyle argued on The Critical Hour. “The International Court of Justice just ruled 13 to 2 that Israel had to stop its offensive military operations in Rafah. Algeria, the Arab member of the UN Security Council then proposed a resolution… ordering the ceasefire. The Biden administration did not want to appear as if they were vetoing another Security Council resolution, both for appearances there in the Global South, the Arab-Muslim world and also here in the United States.”

“So, in order to head off that binding UN Security Council resolution terminating Israel’s offensive military operations in Rafah, the Biden administration, Blinken, concocted this phony ceasefire proposal, which was nothing more than a sort of kabuki theater.” On Tuesday, a senior Israeli official who is involved in the negotiations was quoted in Israeli media as saying that the fighting in Gaza will continue even after the Rafah offensive is finished. On Wednesday, the UN-backed Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory said that Israel had committed crimes against humanity, including forced starvation, extermination, murder and inhumane treatment of Palestinians. The chairperson of the inquiry, Navi Pillay, called for a ceasefire and the end of Israel’s siege on Gaza.

On Tuesday, two key US Democrats approved the sale of 50 F-15 fighter jets to Israel, a deal worth $18 billion. “Clearly, the United States is aiding and abetting Israeli genocide against the Palestinians in violation of Article 3 E of the Genocide Convention of prohibiting complicity in genocide, in addition [to] the Genocide Convention Implementation Act here in the United States.” The Genocide Convention Implementation Act specifies that those found guilty of violating it are subject to life imprisonment. “Israel is the American Bantustan over there in the Middle East. It’s our attack dog and cat’s paw, and without us, they simply would not survive. It’s that simple,” explained Boyle. Hamas has said it will “deal positively to arrive at an agreement,” to end the fighting. According to some reports, they asked for greater assurances that Israel would honor the ceasefire after the release of the hostages. Israel has not officially said if it supports the ceasefire deal presented by Biden.

“..keep in place a federal attorney who had just demonstrated his willingness to protect the president’s son..”

• Hunter Biden’s Charge of Lying Under Oath (Patrick Lawrence)

Much has been made of the Biden family’s displays of unity and compassion before and during Hunter Biden’s trial. President Biden flew to Wilmington for a late-night visit with Hallie Biden a few days before the trial began. Even The New York Times suggested this risked leaving the president open to charges of witness tampering, given Hallie Biden was scheduled to testify for the prosecution. Hallie Biden is the widow of Beau Biden, Joe’s oldest son, and, during Hunter Biden’s years as an addict was for a time after Beau’s death Hunter’s paramour. During testimony, Hunter’s chronic indulgences in cocaine and alcohol were almost ostentatiously played out for the jury and, it seemed, the public. The First Lady, Jill Biden, attended the trial daily but for the days she was at the Normandy beaches to join the president in marking the 80th anniversary of the D–Day landings. The Biden clan was notably stoic when the verdict was announced. Evidently for the cameras, Hunter Biden took his wife, Melissa Cohen Biden, by the shoulders, leaned to kiss her, and audibly whispered with a faint smile, “Hey.”

It is not possible to interpret these evidently rehearsed-for-the-public family displays with anything like certainty. But questions inevitably arise. They turn, almost inevitably on David Weiss’ role as the prosecutor in the gun case.Weiss is a highly problematic figure. As earlier noted, he was deeply compromised when, during federal investigations into Hunter Biden’s tax records and the broader matter of his foreign business dealings, he, Weiss, acted covertly on numerous occasions to shield Hunter Biden from the lawful scrutiny of federal investigators. Many were astonished — and many Republican political figures objected — when, the plea deal of July 2023 having collapsed, Attorney–General Garland promoted Weiss to the rank of special prosecutor. This was ostensibly to give Weiss broader powers to direct investigations into the corruption allegations Hunter Biden faced — an array that threatened to lead to the White House door.

As many critics immediately charged, the Weiss appointment seemed intended not to extend his powers but to keep in place a federal attorney who had just demonstrated his willingness to protect the president’s son — and by extension the president, let us not miss — as a matter of partisan loyalty. Hunter Biden’s trial on various charges related to his handling of his federal taxes is to begin on Sept. 5, two months to the day before the presidential elections. Weiss will again be the prosecutor. This leaves us now with two questions. One, were Hunter Biden’s attorneys in the gun trial in essence shadow-boxing? Their defense strategies — it could not be proven Hunter was using when he purchased the gun, a guilty verdict would infringe on his Second Amendment rights — were flimsy and unpromising. Was the guilty verdict, in other words, what is called in intelligence circles a limited hangout?

Has a decision been made at top levels of the Democratic- controlled federal judiciary to find Hunter Biden guilty on the lesser crime of illegal gun possession — on the argument he had to be convicted of something — so as to prepare a skeptical public for an innocent verdict in the much more consequential trial on charges of financial corruption — a trial that could directly threaten the Biden presidency? Two, where are the House hearings likely to go from here, and what will be the next step? The June 5 criminal referrals are indication enough that the Oversight and Judiciary committees are far from done, spent, or at a dead end. As previously noted in this series, it seems clear they have enough sound evidence to support a vote to impeach President Biden. But it remains to be seen whether the House committees will have the political will to press the case they appear to have, just as the outcome in California, where Weiss will prosecute the tax and corruption cases, is for now not at all certain.

“..57 per cent of asylum seekers have no documentation to prove their identity, their age, or their country of origin..”

• Ryanair CEO: “It’s a Complete Scam, These People Are Not Refugees” (MN)

Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary asserted that the asylum system was “a complete scam” and that such individuals “are not refugees” because they are arriving from safe countries and then flushing their passports down the toilet. O’Leary made the comments during an appearance on the Newstalk radio station. The airline boss was asked how people are able to arrive in Ireland on Ryanair flights without proper documentation or being able to prove their identities. “Yeah because they flush them down the toilet, they arrive at Dublin airport and they flush them down the toilet,” he responded. O’Leary said non-EU visitors to Ireland had to have their passports photographed at the border control desk so the details could be sent to the government, but that this was impossible with economic migrants.

“They show up here…it’s a complete scam and these are not refugees, one of the things that drives me nuts in Ireland is we treat people as refugees who are coming from the UK or from France,” he complained. “Nobody got to Ireland from Afghanistan or from Kenya or from Nigeria or from Syria on a direct flight because there aren’t any, so you’re not fleeing persecution in the UK or in Germany, O’Leary added. “We should look after refugees, I have great sympathy for the Ukrainians, but people who are arriving here from the UK, France or other EU countries, we should be turning them back saying, here back to the EU countries where you came from.”

O’Leary said it was difficult to track what flight the migrants were on or what seat they were sitting in “because they tear up or flush their documentation down the toilets, and all of them have documentation when they board the RyanAir flight at the other side.” Ireland has been completely subsumed by economic migrants, vast numbers of whom have set up in tent cities in major Irish cities, notably the capital Dublin. Meanwhile, according to data released in Germany by the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees, 57 per cent of asylum seekers have no documentation to prove their identity, their age, or their country of origin, a figure that has risen from 48 per cent in 2023.

“..ending their 14 years at the helm of the UK..”

• UK Tories Face Election Wipeout – Polls (RT)

The British Conservatives are set to face a historical loss in July’s general election, ending their 14 years at the helm of the UK, according to three major polls on Wednesday. A poll by Savanta and Electoral Calculus for the Telegraph forecasts the Tories getting just 53 seats out of the 650 up for grabs in July’s vote. Not only would this mark an all-time low for the Conservative party, the poll also predicted the current Tory leader and Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, could lose his seat in Richmond and Northallerton, an unprecedented blow for a serving PM. A More in Common survey for the News Agents podcast showed the Tories heading towards getting 155 seats. Despite being the most optimistic for the Tories of the three MRP polls, this would still put them way below the current 344, and even fewer seats than they had in 1997, when the Conservative party last lost leadership to Labour.

Meanwhile, YouGov predicted the Tories will slip down to 108 seats. All three MRP polls projected that the Conservative Party would see a worse outcome than their disastrous 1906 result, when they lost to a landslide Liberal victory, with 156 seats to 397. The surveys all forecast that the Liberal Democrats will attain their best results in years. YouGov predicted the Lib Dems would get 67 seats, which would constitute their best ever general election result. More in Common put them at 49 seats, while Savanta at 50. All three surveys suggested Labour Party leader Sir Keir Starmer is on track to become the next Prime Minister, and all three predicted his party winning more than 400 seats – higher than the party’s record historical win in 1997.

“Why the Western push to promote LGBTQ in Ghana could backfire.”

• ‘God Destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah’ (RT)

Ghana, a west African country with deeply ingrained cultural and religious values, is grappling with issues surrounding the criminalization of LGBTQ lifestyles. In February 2024, the country’s parliament passed The Promotion of Proper Sexual Rights and Family Values bill, which seeks to promote traditional Ghanaian family values. The bill imposes penalties, including imprisonment for up to five years, for the promotion of LGBTQ activities. Although the bill received unanimous support from both caucuses of the parliament, it still requires the assent of the president to become law. However, its progression has been halted by a lawsuit, citing concerns of discrimination against a section of the population, which has prevented the president from reviewing it until the supreme court determines its legality.

The hearing, adjourned in May 2024 due to allegations that the petitioners had used inflammatory language, resumed this month. The fate of the bill is now in limbo as the Supreme court of Ghana is expected to give its final verdict later this year. The pending verdict is particularly significant as it will determine whether the bill can be promulgated into law. This will also help determine Ghana’s ability to uphold its sovereignty amid pressure from western countries and institutions. Ghana’s situation reflects the complex dilemma of African countries in deciding on the position of LGBTQ in their institutional framework. It is illegal in 32 countries including Nigeria, Mauritania, Sudan and Somalia where death penalty can be imposed on people engaging in gay sex. In Uganda, the office of the president has referred to homosexuals as “sick people” who need help.

This sentiment has been echoed by the former president of Zambia, Edgar Lungu, who questioned why humans should be compelled to engage in activities even animals do not do. South Africa remains the only African country to have legalized homosexuality while others such as Rwanda have rejected discussions on the issue. In Ghana, although there’s no specific law criminalizing LGBTQ activities, attempts to regulate them are based on a perception either of a western-imposed value system that contradicts Ghanaian norms, or from a human rights perspective. Ghana, a west African country with deeply ingrained cultural and religious values, is grappling with issues surrounding the criminalization of LGBTQ lifestyles. In February 2024, the country’s parliament passed The Promotion of Proper Sexual Rights and Family Values bill, which seeks to promote traditional Ghanaian family values.

The bill imposes penalties, including imprisonment for up to five years, for the promotion of LGBTQ activities. Although the bill received unanimous support from both caucuses of the parliament, it still requires the assent of the president to become law. However, its progression has been halted by a lawsuit, citing concerns of discrimination against a section of the population, which has prevented the president from reviewing it until the supreme court determines its legality.The hearing, adjourned in May 2024 due to allegations that the petitioners had used inflammatory language, resumed this month. The fate of the bill is now in limbo as the Supreme court of Ghana is expected to give its final verdict later this year. The pending verdict is particularly significant as it will determine whether the bill can be promulgated into law. This will also help determine Ghana’s ability to uphold its sovereignty amid pressure from western countries and institutions.

“..there is one constant here. Citizens don’t like censorship. They still don’t. It’s in our DNA.”

• Jonathan Turley: There’s A Movement To Rewrite The First Amendment (RCP)

GWU law professor Jonathan Turley talks about his new book, “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage,” during an interview with FNC’s “Special Report” host Bret Baier.

JONATHAN TURLEY: Free speech is under attack and what the book argues is that we are living in the most dangerous anti-free speech period in our history. And the question is why we continue to struggle with free speech, and the book goes back and looks at the very founding of the republic when the framers had a truly revolutionary idea that free speech really adheres to us as human beings. It’s not just because we are citizens, we need free speech to be fully human.

That view was lost within a few years of the Adams administration which became, until the Biden administration, the most anti-free speech in history. President Biden is rivalling that record. We have the largest censorship system in history. But, more importantly, we have this alliance of government, corporations, media, and academia and all supporting censorship, blacklisting and other forms of limitations and this book looks at that history and why we continue to struggle with what Brandeis called “the indispensable right.”

[..] I never really imagined I would see what I now see on campuses become unorthodox and unforgiving. Academics and journalists used to be the defenders of free speech. So did the Democratic Party. It’s now become really in vogue to be anti-free speech, to say free speech is harmful, it has to be curtailed. There is a movement to rewrite the First Amendment because one law professor said it’s “excessively individualistic.” Those are popular views now on campus. And this book is sort of how we got here, why do we call it “indispensable.”

[..] [In Moody vs. Netchoice LLC], the question is whether the Supreme Court will take the issue straight on or whether it will try to take off ramp. The oral argument was not very clear on that point. But you are absolutely right. It encapsulates much of this problem — we have this alliance I talked about, that is funded through the government, organized and directed in part through the government. One federal judge called it Orwellian, and it is. And many citizens don’t like it and that’s the one positive aspect. You know, I tell the stories of people who put their lives at risk to fight for free speech. And all of our periods of rage. But, there is one constant here. Citizens don’t like censorship. They still don’t. It’s in our DNA.

What this book really tries to do to see if there is this common article of faith that we can still gather around, despite all our political divisions that this defines us in a way that we can’t lose it. And I think that there is common ground there.

Masochists wanted.

• Boeing Can’t Find New CEO – WSJ (RT)

Several high-profile candidates have turned down offers to run aerospace giant, Boeing, The Wall Street Journal has reported, as the plane-maker faces scrutiny over multiple safety issues with its products. The aerospace giant announced in March that current chief executive, David Calhoun, would step down by the end of the year, as part of a management shake-up aimed at reviving Boeing’s reputation. The company’s airliners have encountered a litany of incidents this year, beginning with a door panel on a 737 MAX 9 operated by Alaska Airlines blowing off mid-air in January, leaving a gaping hole in the side of the plane.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has launched several inquiries into Boeing. Whistle-blowers have alleged that the 737 Max, the 787 Dreamliner, and the 777 had serious production issues. As part of one probe, CEO Calhoun was grilled by US senators on Tuesday over the company’s patchy safety record. GE Aerospace CEO Larry Culp, widely considered the top candidate for the job, has declined Boeing’s request to consider taking over, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) said, citing people familiar with the matter. According to the publication, Culp is known as a guru of lean manufacturing, a management philosophy focused on cutting waste while continuously improving quality. Culp has said that he intends to stay on at GE Aerospace.

Other potential candidates – the CEO of Boeing’s commercial-airplanes division Stephanie Pope, and Spirit AeroSystems CEO Pat Shanahan – face various complications on their path to the top job, the WSJ wrote. David Gitlin, CEO of the home-appliances firm Carrier and a member of the Boeing board, asked to be removed from the list of potential contenders in April. Boeing executives have said they hope to have a deal by the end of June, the WSJ noted. The US Department of Justice said in May it was considering prosecuting Boeing over two crashes in 2018 and 2019 which killed nearly 350 people. The accidents were found to have been caused by an errant pitch control system that the company had not informed pilots about.

“This technology is proven to have some of the most comprehensive capabilities in the industry, fast and accurate in some of the most demanding conditions..”

• McDonald’s Scraps AI Trial After Bacon Added To Ice Cream (RT)

McDonald’s is scrapping its AI drive-through trial after videos went viral of order mix-ups, including bacon being added to ice cream. The US fast food chain has been testing a voice recognition system developed by IBM to process orders since 2021. However, reliability of the AI-powered technology has been called into question after customers reported errors in their orders and shared comical mishaps on social media. McDonald’s has instructed franchisees to remove the AI-assisted technology from the more than 100 outlets that have been using it by the end of July, as reported by trade publication Restaurant Business on Friday. The fast food chain is abandoning the trial without any sort of expansion, the publication said, citing an email the company sent to franchisees on Thursday.

“After thoughtful review, McDonald’s has decided to end our current global partnership with IBM on AOT [Automated Order Taking] beyond this year,” the message read. While the Chicago-based fast food giant didn’t give the exact reason for the move, it comes after customers shared videos showing drive-through AI picking up orders from the wrong cars, multiplying orders, and producing bizarre combinations of food ranging from bacon-topped ice cream to hundreds of dollars’ worth of chicken nuggets. In one TikTok video, a woman attempts to order vanilla ice cream and a bottle of water only to end up with ketchup sachets and multiple stacks of butter. Another video shows a customer claiming that the AI drive-through assistant confused her order with someone else’s, resulting in nine portions of tea being added to her bill.

McDonald’s, which initially sought to embrace the technology to cut back on mounting labor costs, indicated that the end of the trial would not mean its experiments with AI are over. The company said that its work with IBM “has given us the confidence that a voice ordering solution for drive-thru will be part of our restaurants’ future.” IBM also said it plans to continue working with McDonald’s. “This technology is proven to have some of the most comprehensive capabilities in the industry, fast and accurate in some of the most demanding conditions,” the company said in a statement. Other major US fast food giants, including Chipotle, Wendy’s, Carl’s Jr, Taco Bell, and Pizza Hut, have also been rolling out AI systems at their drive-throughs in a bid to replace human workers and reduce labor costs.

Morgan Freeman

Morgan Freeman: “I own Tesla stock. I’m a huge fan of Elon Musk's. What he's done, nobody else has ever done.” pic.twitter.com/nJROfbKM7U

— ELON DOCS (@elon_docs) June 18, 2024

Tiny Turtle
https://twitter.com/i/status/1803045071614337039

Moose

"He's right behind me, isn't he" pic.twitter.com/SLS4kUNlYD

— Nature is Amazing ☘️ (@AMAZlNGNATURE) June 19, 2024

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Debt Rattle February 6 2020

Feb 062020

February 6, 2020 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 10:06 am Finance Tagged with: airlines, Biden, Bloomberg, Buttigieg, China, coronavirus, DNC, Iowa, Pelosi, Sanders, Senate, Shadow Inc, Trump, Turley, Xi 35 Responses »

Seattle, WA during Spanish Influenza. No ride on street cars without wearing a mask 1918/19

• China May Delay Annual Meeting Of Parliament Due To Virus Outbreak (R.)

• “Leaked” Infection Numbers Over 154,000; Deaths Approach 25,000 (NN)

• Major Mainland Chinese Airlines Place All Foreign Pilots On Unpaid Leave (SCMP)

• With Virus Deaths At 565 China Considers Trade Deal Disaster Clause (SCMP)

• Chinese Scholar Blames Xi Jinping, CCP For Not Controlling Outbreak (SCMP)

• Who Owns The Coronavirus Cure? (SCMP)

• Pelosi Shreds Decades Of Tradition In Demonstrating Against Trump (Turley)

• Buttigieg and Sanders Separated By Razor-Thin Margin In Iowa (Pol.)

• Biden Vows To Press On Despite Iowa ‘Gut Punch’ (BBC)

• In This Impeachment, People Only Heard What They Wanted To (Turley)

• Nancy Pelosi Should Resign (Turley)

• Bloomberg Surrogates Have Seats on DNC Rules Committees (Sludge)

There we go again:

• 565 deaths (up 72 from yesterday, biggest increase in official numbers to date)

• 28,339 cases (up 3,797 from yesterday’s 24,542, and yeserday’s rise of 3872)

• There are suggestions from China that the increase in cases is slowing, but that’s after yesterday’s record increase. We’ll see.

• At the same time, the increase in severe cases appears to be accelerating.

• 10 more infections on cruise ship off Yokohama

• One thing that’s certainly increasing is the skepticism about the official numbers.

Some interesting things in this article:

1) Officials returning to Beijing from other provinces after Lunar New Year are in 14-day quarantine. First time I see mandatory quarantines for Beijing.

2) There’s talk of delaying the (10+ days) National People’s Congress, which only starts on March 5.

Events have been cancelled as far out as April 15. That syncs quite well with what I said in my article The Big Lockdown.

• China May Delay Annual Meeting Of Parliament Due To Virus Outbreak (R.)

China is considering delaying the annual meeting of its top legislative body, five people familiar with the matter said, as it grapples with a coronavirus epidemic that has forced drastic curtailment of travel and other activity to curb its spread. The National People’s Congress (NPC), made up of about 3,000 delegates, typically gathers for a session lasting at least 10 days in Beijing, beginning on March 5, to pass legislation and unveil key economic targets for the year. A postponement would be the first since China adopted the current March schedule in 1995 for the meeting of parliament. “The focus remains on taking steps forward towards meeting on schedule, but we are discussing a range of options as the (virus) situation doesn’t look likely to be contained by March,” a senior government official told Reuters, declining to be identified given the sensitivity of the matter.

“A delay is one of those options,” the official said. “It should come as no surprise given that we are in a very difficult time.” Many officials who would ordinarily be involved in preparation for the NPC are staying at home under 14-day mandatory quarantines after returning to Beijing from their home provinces following the Lunar New Year holidays. Central government officials in Beijing were told to resume work on Feb. 3. China has already postponed a high-level business event, the China Development Forum, which is usually held in late March, and the venue for the Canton Fair, a trade fair in the southern city of Guangzhou, has been suspended until further notice. The spring session of the trade fair was due to begin on April 15.

The NPC gathering is crucial this year, as it is set to ratify China’s first-ever civil code, a key milestone in President Xi Jinping’s legal reform effort. The NPC is also widely expected to discuss the months-long protests in Hong Kong, and to announce the annual economic growth target along with China’s defence budget. Under China’s constitution, a full plenary session of the NPC must be held every year. Chucheng Feng, a partner at Plenum, an independent research firm in Hong Kong, put the chance of a delay at just 10% because of the meeting’s political importance. “However, as the epidemic extends into February, the gathering of China’s entire political elite in a confined Great Hall of the People for over a week looks quite dangerous,” he said.

Tyler broke the story. This is a handy write-up. It’s the smaller numbers above the big ones that all but prove we’re looking at an automatically updating database.

• “Leaked” Infection Numbers Over 154,000; Deaths Approach 25,000 (NN)

Zero Hedge reported this morning, “As Taiwan [News] reports in a report first spotted by user @TheHKGroup, over the weekend, Tencent “seems to have inadvertently released what is potentially the actual number of infections and deaths, which were astronomically higher than official figures”, and were far closer to the catastrophic epidemic projections made by Jonathan Read.” According to official numbers from mainland China, which are updated daily, the current number of coronavirus infections is still under 25,000. Even then, it currently appears to be expanding at roughly 20% per 24-hour period, which represents a doubling of infections every 3.5 days (because the growth is compounded). (The left column is infections, and the right column is deaths.)

However, observers have noted that the official numbers reported by the communist Chinese government recently slipped into the “real numbers,” suddenly showing far higher confirmed infections and deaths: 154,024 infections and 24,589 deaths. Here’s a screen shot that was captured before the numbers reverted back to the lower, “official” numbers:The initial reaction from observers might be something along the lines of, “That was just a typo. So they corrected it.” However, there’s more to this story:

The higher numbers didn’t merely appear by themselves, out of context. Above each number is an “increase” factor that calculates how much larger today’s numbers are compared to yesterday’s numbers. For the 24,589 deaths, located at the lower right of this graphic, you’ll notice a number above it that states, “+1546.” The Chinese characters next to the numbers explain, “Compared to yesterday.” This means there is an underlying database that’s tracking daily numbers and being used to calculate the day-to-day differences. Similarly, there’s a number above the infection count of 154,023 that explains, “+20979.” This indicates the day-over-day increase from the previous day.

These numbers are clearly being automatically calculated, because if human error were to blame for typing the wrong numbers representing infections and deaths, it would be extremely unlikely that two more typos would coincidentally appear above those numbers, accidentally showing day-to-day increases that are consistent with a second set of numbers that are obviously being stored in parallel.

The highest paid.

• Major Mainland Chinese Airlines Place All Foreign Pilots On Unpaid Leave (SCMP)

All foreign pilots working for China Southern Airlines, Hainan Airlines, and a host of smaller mainland Chinese carriers have been placed on indefinite unpaid leave, according to multiple sources and a memo seen by the Post. With the coronavirus crisis forcing airlines to slash flights, several hundred foreign pilots have seemingly become surplus overnight, with some telling the Post they were considering their options amid the uncertainty now facing the world’s fastest-growing air market. “All foreign pilots, including those who have applied for leave exemption and those who have not, shall start a non-fixed term leave without pay as soon as possible,” a Tuesday memo to a batch of foreign pilots for China Southern, the country’s largest carrier, said.

Their grounding was effective that day, with the pilots told they would “return to work when [the] situation gets better.” Xiamen Airlines along with Hainan Airlines, Tianjin Airlines and Beijing Capital Airlines (BCA) – a trio of carriers owned by debt-laden HNA Group – have also placed foreign aircrew on unpaid leave, according to multiple sources. A source at BCA said their pilots had been offered the option of taking a significant pay cut that would bring them in line with their Chinese counterparts. China Eastern Airlines, meanwhile, was understood to have offered unpaid leave to its foreign pilots but had not made it mandatory at this point.

The trade deal should be the least of Beijing’s worries by now.

Also, there are suggestions here that new cases rise less fast than before. But severe cases seem to rise.

• With Virus Deaths At 565 China Considers Trade Deal Disaster Clause (SCMP)

Daily deaths caused by the new coronavirus have reached another record in China, with 73 fatalities confirmed in figures released by health authorities on Thursday morning, taking the death toll in mainland China to 563. The number of new infections in mainland China and Hubei province both fell on Wednesday compared to the day before, with 3,694 additional cases in the country and 2,987 in Hubei, national and provincial health authorities announced Thursday morning. The last time new infection figures dropped was January 28, with the daily increase in confirmed cases in China and Hubei steadily rising to a record high on Tuesday – 3,887 and 3,156, respectively. The deadly new coronavirus, which first emerged at the end of December, has killed at least 565 people worldwide, and sickened more than 28,000.

Mainland media on Tuesday reported that China may consider using a disaster-related clause in the phase one trade deal with the US because of the coronavirus outbreak. The Global Times, a nationalist newspaper affiliated to People’s Daily, cited an unnamed Chinese trade expert close to the government as saying a decision on launching a consultation with the US on the disaster clause was unlikely until the end of the first quarter. In a commentary published on Wednesday, the newspaper said that even if China was unable to reach the goal of increasing purchases from the US, there was still a sensible path forward without jeopardising the agreement and the negotiation process.

“The phase one agreement clearly stated that the two parties would consult with each other, ‘in the event that a natural disaster or other unforeseeable event outside the control of the parties delays a party from timely complying with its obligations under this agreement’. Without doubt the epidemic fits this scenario,” it said.

Very popular man, I’m sure.

• Chinese Scholar Blames Xi Jinping, CCP For Not Controlling Outbreak (SCMP)

A prominent Chinese scholar has published an article criticising the country’s leadership for failing to control the coronavirus outbreak that has infected almost 25,000 people around the world. Xu Zhangrun, a law professor at Tsinghua University in Beijing, who has been under close surveillance by the authorities, blamed Communist Party leaders for putting politics ahead of the people in his strongly worded piece, which was published on several overseas Chinese-language websites this week. “The political system has collapsed under the tyranny, and a governance system [made up] of bureaucrats, which has taken [the party] more than 30 years to build has floundered,” he said in a reference to how reform-minded leaders sought to rebuild the country and modernise the government after the death of Mao Zedong in 1976 and moved away from one-man rule to collective leadership.

Xu was suspended from teaching at Tsinghua University in 2018, after the publication of an article in which he criticised the decision by party leaders to lift the two-term limit for presidents, allowing Xi Jinping to remain in office beyond his second term, which ends in 2023. His latest criticism came as China’s leaders and law enforcement officials warned that internet controls must be tightened to prevent the spread of rumours and misinformation. On Monday, Xi chaired a meeting of the Politburo Standing Committee at which it was agreed that officials must maintain a tight grip on online media and direct public opinion about “winning the war over the virus”.

On Tuesday, the Ministry of Public Security held a meeting to remind all police officers that political security was of utmost importance in handling the outbreak. The police would “strike harshly” on any and all disruption by “hostile forces”, according to a report by Xinhua. One of Xu’s close friends confirmed on Wednesday that the professor had written the article. “He has already been stripped of his teaching position but he is likely to face more punishment this time,” said the person, who asked not to be named. “We are concerned they [the police] will take him away now that he has published this article.”

There’s no such thing. Ridiculous headline.

• Who Owns The Coronavirus Cure? (SCMP)

China has applied to patent a drug candidate being developed by Gilead Sciences as the government rushes to find the cure for the deadly coronavirus, a move that could raise questions on intellectual property and marketing rights. The state-backed Institute of Virology in Wuhan filed the patent for using remdesivir to fight the novel coronavirus on January 21, according to a statement posted on its website two weeks later on February 4. If approved, the drug will be used to facilitate its potential global market entry, it added. Studies have been conducted outside the human bodies and found that Gilead’s remdesivir compound and the off-patent chloroquine malaria drug are both “highly effective” in the control of coronavirus infection, the Wuhan institute and the Beijing Institute of Pharmacology and Toxicology said in a research published in Cell Research Journal.

“Since these compounds have [separately] been used in human patients with a safety track record and shown to be effective against various ailments, we suggest that they should be assessed in human patients suffering from the novel coronavirus disease,” the researchers wrote. Remdesivir has not been approved anywhere globally and has not been showed to be safe or effective for any use, Gilead’s chief medical officer Merdad Parsey said in a statement on Friday. The firm is working with Chinese health authorities to conduct a clinical trial on patients with pneumonia symptoms to test its safety and efficacy, it said. Past clinical data on other coronaviruses give it “hope,” it added.

3 Turley articles today. One at the Hill, one at the BBC, one on his own site.

When The Dems lost to Trump in 2016, I said his role was to show how rotten the entire system is. And that they should take a good look at themselves, and try to figure out how that loss could ever come about. They never did, they only ever and exclusively looked at Trump, not themselves. This will not change as long as Hillary, Biden, Schiff et al lead the party.

• Pelosi Shreds Decades Of Tradition In Demonstrating Against Trump (Turley)

Forty-four years ago, I walked on to the floor of the House of Representatives as a new Democratic 15-year-old page from Chicago. I stood and marveled at the beehive of activity on the floor in the People’s House. I can still remember that moment because it forged a bond and reverence that has never weakened for me. As a Democratic leadership page during the speakership of Tip O’Neill, I watched some of the most passionate and important debates of the generation from the Neutron Bomb to civil rights legislation to sweeping national park bills. The country was deeply divided, but both parties maintained the tradition of civility and decorum. I was struck how members, even in the heat of furious debates, would not attack each other by name and followed rigid principles of decorum.

They understood that they were the custodians of this institution and bore a duty to strengthen and pass along those traditions to the next generation. That is why I was (and remain) so offended by this display. I believe that President Trump himself is worthy of criticism for not shaking the hand of Pelosi. I also did not approve of aspects of his speech, including bestowing the Medal of Freedom on Rush Limbaugh in the gallery like a reality show surprise scene. There was much to object to in the address, but presidents often make comments that enrage or irritate speakers. However, none of that excuses Pelosi. At that moment, she represents the House as an institution — both Republicans and Democrats. Instead, she decided to become little more than a partisan troll from an elevated position.

The protests of the Democratic members also reached a new low for the House. Pelosi did not gavel out the protest. She seemed to join it. It was the tradition of the House that a speaker must remain in stone-faced neutrality no matter what comes off that podium. The tradition ended last night with one of the more shameful and inglorious moments of the House in its history. Rather than wait until she left the floor, she decided to demonstrate against the President as part of the State of the Union and from the Speaker’s chair. That made it a statement not of Pelosi but of the House. For those of us who truly love the House as an institution, it was one of the lowest moments to unfold on the floor. That is why I argue in the Hill that, if Pelosi does not apologize and agree to honor the principle of neutrality and civility at the State of the Union, she should resign as speaker.

Tweet: “Buttigieg campaign manager’s wife owns the app company that ruined the Iowa caucuses, and his campaign DONATED $42,500.00 to that same company, Shadow Inc.”

The video is educative.

• Buttigieg and Sanders Separated By Razor-Thin Margin In Iowa (Pol.)

Pete Buttigieg and Bernie Sanders are running neck and neck in the Iowa caucuses with almost all of the votes counted. Buttigieg has 26.23 percent of the state delegate count to 26.06 percent for Sanders with 97 percent of precincts reporting, making the race too close to call, according to The Associated Press. Elizabeth Warren is in third at 18 percent of the state delegate count, followed by Joe Biden at nearly 16 percent and Amy Klobuchar at 12 percent. After a technical meltdown created significant delays in the reporting of results in Monday’s caucuses, the Iowa Democratic Party released almost all of the remaining data Wednesday night. The latest results came as CNN wrapped up a series of town halls with candidates in New Hampshire.

Earlier results came Wednesday afternoon as Sanders, Warren and Klobuchar were in the Senate voting in President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial. The Republican-led chamber ultimately voted to acquit Trump on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress as the numbers from Iowa were released. The latest results don’t change the order of the top five candidates, but they do show a razor-thin race at the top, where both the Buttigieg and Sanders campaigns have already declared themselves winners. Buttigieg insisted as early as Monday night that he was the clear victor, and he reportedly reassured supporters of that in a phone call on Wednesday. Sanders, meanwhile, told supporters in New Hampshire that he was leading in popular-vote totals and would come out of Iowa with the same number of national convention delegates as Buttigieg.

In terms of raw votes, Sanders leads in by more than 2,500 votes in the final alignment of Iowa caucus-goers, after supporters of non-viable candidates had the chance to realign at their precincts on Monday night.

This is very genuinely funny. (Please don’t watch if you’re not American or you’ll know we’re a failed state) pic.twitter.com/HAiyP9bKSz

— rob delaney (@robdelaney) February 5, 2020

The entire impeachment trial was based on Trump wanting dirt on his “main political rival”. But Biden was never that. At the time of the Trump/Zelensky call, enough was known about Hunter/Burisma to realize Joe had no chance. And there was very little to suggest that Hunter/Burisma did not warrant an investigation. But Dems keep on saying it was “debunked”, without being able to suggest who did the debunking.

• Biden Vows To Press On Despite Iowa ‘Gut Punch’ (BBC)

White House hopeful Joe Biden has called his poor performance in the Democrats’ first 2020 leadership vote, in Iowa’s caucuses, a “gut punch”. Mr Biden has come fourth, according to incomplete results from the election to pick a Democratic presidential nominee. “I’m not going to sugarcoat it,” Mr Biden said. “This isn’t the first time in my life I’ve been knocked down.” With most results declared in Monday’s glitch-plagued caucuses, Pete Buttigieg and Bernie Sanders are neck and neck. But Mr Biden told an audience in New Hampshire: “I’m not going anywhere.”

According to partial results from Iowa, the former US vice-president under Barack Obama has failed to pick up a single one of the delegates needed to clinch the Democratic White House nomination under America’s quirky political system. New Hampshire will be the next state to vote on 11 February in a string of nationwide votes culminating with the crowning of the party’s presidential candidate in July. Eleven contenders remain in the race to challenge President Donald Trump, a Republican, in November’s election.

[..] On Wednesday, Mr Biden sharpened his attacks, targeting the two Democratic front-runners by name. “We need a nominee who can help Democrats up and down the ticket,” Mr Biden said. He suggested that self-described democratic socialist Mr Sanders would be unelectable in a general election. Mr Biden also said it would be a “risk” to nominate 38-year-old Mr Buttigieg, “someone who’s never held an office higher than mayor of a town of 100,000 people”. Mr Buttigieg responded by saying “the bulk of the credit for the achievements of the Obama administration belong with President Obama”.

As go strictly partisan battles.

• In This Impeachment, People Only Heard What They Wanted To (Turley)

Recently, MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell declared that his show will not allow Trump supporters on as guests because all Trump supporters are “liars”. Likewise, Trump recently denounced Fox for even interviewing Democratic senators. When that is the state of our news, why should trials be any different? In our hardened political silos, even Framers are bit players in a crushingly formulaic play. Witnesses are as immaterial as facts when the public demands the same predictability from politicians that they do from cable hosts. We are all to blame. Politicians achieve their offices by saying what voters want to hear and today voters have little tolerance for hearing anything that contradicts their preset views of Trump.

As a result, the trial was pre-packed by popular demand. Speaker Nancy Pelosi even declared that Trump would “not be acquitted” even if he was acquitted. When the actual vote doesn’t matter, why should the actual testimony? Just as voters get the government that they deserve, they also get the impeachment trials that they demand. Watching on their favourite biased cable networks, voters raged at the bias of the opposing side in the impeachment as refusing to see the truth. Viewers thrilled as their side denounced their opponents and hissed when those opponents returned the criticism. The question and answer period even took on a crossfire format as senators followed up one side’s answer with a request for the other side to respond.

It was precisely the “fight, fight” tempo that has made cable news a goldmine. As the trial ends, perhaps justice has been done. The largely partisan vote showed that the trial could have had the sound turned off for the purposes of most viewers. We are left with our rage undiluted by reason. It really did not matter what anyone had to say because we were only hearing half of the trial anyway. It provided the perfect verdict on our times.

Nancy should go home and be a grandma. She acted like a 5-year old during and after the SOTU. You don’t express your “hatred” of someone by imitating their behavior. Grace.

• Nancy Pelosi Should Resign (Turley)

The House has its share of infamies, great and small, real and symbolic, and has been the scene of personal infamies from brawls to canings. But the conduct of Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) at the State of the Union address this week will go down as a day of infamy for the chamber as an institution. It has long been a tradition for House Speakers to remain stoic and neutral in listening to the address. However, Pelosi seemed to be intent on mocking President Trump from behind his back with sophomoric facial grimaces and head shaking, culminating in her ripping up a copy of his address.

Her drop the mic moment will have a lasting impact on the House. While many will celebrate her trolling of the president, she tore up something far more important than a speech. Pelosi has shredded decades of tradition, decorum and civility that the nation could use now more than ever. The House Speaker is more than a political partisan, particularly when carrying out functions such as the State of the Union address. A president appears in the House as a guest of both chambers of Congress. The House Speaker represents not her party or herself but the entirety of the chamber. At that moment, she must transcend her own political ambitions and loyalties.

Tensions for this address were high. The House impeachment managers sat as a group in front of the president as a reminder of the ongoing trial. That can be excused as a silent but pointed message from the Democrats. Trump hardly covered himself with glory by not shaking hands with Pelosi. I also strongly disliked elements of his address which bordered on “check under your seat” moments, and the awarding of conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh with the Presidential Medal of Freedom inside the House gallery like a Mardi Gras bead toss. However, if Trump made the State of the Union look like Oprah, then Pelosi made it look like Jerry Springer.

Yeah. Buttigieg’s campaign manager is married to a woman who owns Shadow Inc. , which produced an app developed by among others Hillary’s campaign manager Robby Mook. And Bloomberg has his people inside the DNC. As does Biden, obviously. It smells like incest.

• Bloomberg Surrogates Have Seats on DNC Rules Committees (Sludge)

As the Democratic National Committee establishes procedures for the Democratic presidential nominating process, two members of DNC rules committees simultaneously work on the campaign of former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Having surrogates on the Democratic National Convention’s Rules Committee and the Standing Rules and Bylaws Committee could be a boon for Bloomberg if nominating rules are re-opened for amendment ahead of the July convention. Some DNC members who are concerned about the polling support of Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-Vt.) have discussed reversing rule changes limiting the power of superdelegates that were put in place after the 2016 election, according to a report from Politico. Those discussions have been sharply rebuked by DNC leadership.

The DNC passed intensely-negotiated rule changes in August 2018 that sought to reduce the influence of superdelegates—appointed at-large delegates whose ranks include influential party consultants—primarily by preventing them from casting votes on the first nomination ballot, as they did in 2016. If no candidate receives a majority on the first ballot at the upcoming convention, which will be voted on by 3,979 pledged delegates, then the 771 superdelegates—including some lobbyists for corporate clients—can vote on the second ballot, under the new rules. If the superdelegates were to vote as a block, they could add over 16% to a candidate, potentially pushing their favorite over the top.

Michael Nutter, the former Mayor of Philadelphia who is a member of the Standing Rules and Bylaws Committee, was selected by Bloomberg in December 2019 to serve as his campaign’s national political chair. “Nutter will advise the campaign on policy development and strategy, and serve as a national surrogate on behalf of the campaign, recruiting key voices to join the campaign and traveling to field offices and events, speaking to constituents and press about why Mike Bloomberg is uniquely qualified to unite and rebuild the country at a time when it is more divided than ever,” the Bloomberg campaign said in a December statement.

Nutter was nominated by former DNC Chair Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) in 2013 and he has served on the rules committee since 2017. Nutter co-hosted a kick-off fundraiser for former vice president Joe Biden in April 2019 after Bloomberg announced a month earlier that he would not run for president, but he quickly switched to Bloomberg’s camp after the former New York mayor reversed course and entered the race.

Who needs drug labs?

Please donate what you can.

Debt Rattle New Year’s Eve 2019

Dec 312019

December 31, 2019 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 10:30 am Finance Tagged with: bushfires, debt, Ghosn, NATO, opioids, Pelosi, pensions, short, Strzok, Tulsi, Turley 15 Responses »

Peter Beard Francis Bacon on his Roof at 80 Narrow Street, London 1972

• The Decade of Debt (R.)

• I, Who Vowed to Never Short Stocks Again, Just Shorted the Entire Market (WS)

• Pelosi’s Half Right Constitutional Claim Leaves The House All Wrong (Turley)

• Strzok Claims FBI, DOJ Violated His Free Speech, Privacy Rights (Hill)

• Tulsi: Impeachment Greatly Increased Likelihood Of Trump Reelection (Hill)

• Forecast 2020 — Whirlin’ and Swirlin’ (Kunstler)

• States Are Already Paying For Unfunded Pensions (Platt)

• Ex-Nissan Boss Ghosn Says Is In Lebanon, Fleeing Japan’s ‘Rigged’ Justice (R.)

• How Fentanyl Spread Across the US (Kolitz)

• UK MoD Proposed Russian Membership Of NATO In 1995 (G.)

• Images Of ‘Mayhem’ And ‘Armageddon’ As Bushfires Rage (G.)

Leave it to Reuters to turn this into a bland story. Oh, and just you watch the next decade.

• The Decade of Debt (R.)

Whatever nickname ultimately gets attached to the now-ending Twenty-tens, on Wall Street and across Corporate America it arguably should be tagged as the “Decade of Debt.” With interest rates locked in at rock-bottom levels courtesy of the Federal Reserve’s easy-money policy after the financial crisis, companies found it cheaper than ever to tap the corporate bond market to load up on cash. Bond issuance by American companies topped $1 trillion in each year of the decade that began on Jan. 1, 2010, and ends on Tuesday at midnight, an unmatched run, according to SIFMA, the securities industry trade group. In all, corporate bond debt outstanding rocketed more than 50% and will soon top $10 trillion, versus about $6 trillion at the end of the previous decade.

The largest U.S. companies – those in the S&P 500 Index – account for roughly 70% of that, nearly $7 trillion. What did they do with all that money? It’s a truism in corporate finance that cash needs to be either “earning or returning” – that is, being put to use growing the business or getting sent back to shareholders. As it happens, American companies did a lot more returning than earning with their cash during the ‘Tens. In the first year of the decade, companies spent roughly $60 billion more on dividends and buying back their own shares than on new facilities, equipment and technology. By last year that gap had mushroomed to more than $600 billion, and the gap in 2019 could be just as large, especially given the constraint on capital spending from the trade war.

Just too juicy.

• I, Who Vowed to Never Short Stocks Again, Just Shorted the Entire Market (WS)

In my decades of looking at the stock market, there has never been a better setup. Exuberance is pandemic and sky-high. And even after today’s dip, the S&P 500 is up nearly 29% for the year, and the Nasdaq 35%, despite lackluster growth in the global economy, where many of the S&P 500 companies are getting the majority of their revenues. Mega-weight in the indices, Apple, is a good example: shares soared 84% in the year, though its revenues ticked up only 2%. This is not a growth story. This is an exuberance story where nothing that happens in reality – such as lacking revenue growth – matters, as we’re now told by enthusiastic crowds everywhere.

Until just a couple of months ago, the touts were out there touting negative interest rates soon to come to the US and thus making stocks the only place to be. Those touts have now been run over by the reality. Now they’re touting QE4 by the Fed, or whatever. And people were looking for any reason to buy. The unanimity of it all was astounding. I’ve seen this before, but not in this magnitude. And there is this: As stocks were surging over the past few months, investors with large gains who wanted to sell didn’t sell before year-end in order to defer that income for tax considerations. So there was reduced selling pressure from that group that would have liked to sell, and that will sell after the new year starts.

So I shorted the stock market today, December 30 – me who is on record of saying repeatedly that I would never ever short anything ever again, after the debacle of November 1999 when I shorted the most obviously ridiculous Nasdaq high-fliers a few months too early. They collapsed to near-zero, but not before ripping off my face.

Turley’s on a roll.

• Pelosi’s Half Right Constitutional Claim Leaves The House All Wrong (Turley)

Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe has penned an editorial column in support of the refusal of Speaker Nancy Pelosi to submit House articles of impeachment to the Senate for trial. Tribe declares this strategy is not just constitutional but also commendable. That view may be half right on the Constitution. However, it leaves Pelosi all wrong on her unprecedented gaming of the system. The withholding of the articles is not only facially inappropriate. It shatters the fragile rationale for the rush to impeach. Tribe focuses on a point on which I agree entirely. We both have criticized the position of Harvard law professor Noah Feldman, who testified with me in the House Judiciary Committee hearings, that President Trump has not really been impeached.

Feldman insists that impeachment occurs only when the articles and a slate of House trial managers are submitted to the Senate for trial. However, there is no support for that interpretation in the text or history of the Constitution. Indeed, English impeachments by the House of Commons often were not taken up for trial in the House of Lords, yet all those individuals still were referenced as impeached. Now for our point of disagreement. The Constitution does not state that the House must submit the articles of impeachment to the Senate at any time, let alone in a specific period of time. Tribe insists this means that the “House rules unmistakably leave to the House itself” when to submit an impeachment for trial. There are, in fact, two equal houses of Congress.

Faced with a House manipulating the system, the Senate can change its rules and simply give the House a date for trial then declare a default or summary acquittal if House managers do not come. It is the list of House trial managers that is necessary for Senate proceedings to commence. The “standing rules of procedure and practice in the Senate when sitting on impeachment trials” are triggered when the House gives notice that “managers are appointed.” The Senate is given notice of the impeachment in the congressional record shared by both houses. The articles are later “exhibited” by the managers at the trial. Waiting for the roster of managers is a courtesy shown by the Senate to the House in preparing its team of managers for the trial.

We have never experienced this type of bicameral discourtesy where the House uses articles of impeachment to barter over the details of the trial. Just as the Senate cannot dictate the handling of impeachment investigations, the House cannot dictate the trial rules.

Feels weak overall, given the contents of his mails to Lisa Page.

• Strzok Claims FBI, DOJ Violated His Free Speech, Privacy Rights (Hill)

Former FBI agent Peter Strzok, a onetime member of former special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe, is claiming the FBI and Justice Department violated his rights of free speech and privacy when firing him for uncovered texts that criticized President Trump. Strzok and his legal team made the claims in a court document filed Monday that pushes back on the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) motion to dismiss the lawsuit he filed in August over his ouster a year earlier. DOJ alleged in its motion to dismiss that Strzok’s role in high-profile investigations meant he was held to a higher standard when it came to speech.

But Strzok’s legal team disputed this in Monday’s filing, saying that the approximately 8,000 other employees in similar positions retain their privacy even when using government-issued devices. “The government’s argument would leave thousands of career federal government employees without protections from discipline over the content of their political speech,” the filing said. “Nearly every aspect of a modern workplace, and for that matter nearly every non-workplace aspect of employees’ lives, can be monitored,” it added. “The fact that a workplace conversation can be discovered does not render it unprotected.”

Strzok’s team also accuses the bureau and DOJ of only punishing those who condemn Trump, as “there is no evidence of an attempt to punish” those who verbally backed the president ahead of the 2016 election. The FBI declined to comment, saying the bureau does not comment on pending litigation. “It doesn’t matter who you are — someone, like Pete, who has devoted his whole life to protecting this country, or a Gold Star family, or a Purple Heart winner, or a lifelong Republican who spent 5 years as a POW in North Vietnam. If you dare to raise your voice against President Trump, he and his allies will try to destroy you,” Strzok attorney Aitan Goelman said in a statement to The Hill.

Trying to please the DNC. Not.

• Tulsi: Impeachment Greatly Increased Likelihood Of Trump Reelection (Hill)

Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) predicted Monday that it would be more difficult for House Democrats to remain in control of the House following passage of articles of impeachment against President Trump. In a video tweeted Monday evening, the 2020 candidate for president wrote that Trump’s chances of winning reelection had been “greatly increased” because of the House’s vote. “Unfortunately, the House impeachment of the president has greatly increased the likelihood Trump will remain the president for the next 5 years,” Gabbard says in the video. “We all know that Trump is not going to be found guilty by the U.S. Senate,” she added. The remarks are not the first Gabbard has made warning against Trump’s impeachment. She made similar comments just days ago in New Hampshire, arguing that Trump’s supporters would be emboldened by the House’s move heading in to 2020.

In 2020, we will have a new president in the White House. How many of you do NOT want that to be Donald Trump? I certainly don’t. Unfortunately, the House impeachment of the president has greatly increased the likelihood Trump will remain the president for the next 5 years … pic.twitter.com/FRRlbWHyo7

— Tulsi Gabbard (@TulsiGabbard) December 31, 2019

“..the Golden Golem of Greatness himself, rises in his pajamas and tweets that, at long, long last, he has finally got “woke,” changed his name to Donatella..”

• Forecast 2020 — Whirlin’ and Swirlin’ (Kunstler)

[..] a venerable institution such as The New York Times can turn from its mission of strictly pursuing news and be enlisted as the public relations service for rogue government agencies seeking to overthrow a president under false pretenses. The overall effect is of a march into a new totalitarianism, garnished with epic mendacity and malevolence. Since when in the USA was it okay for political “radicals” to team up with government surveillance jocks to persecute their political enemies? This naturally leads to the question: what drove the American thinking class insane?

I maintain that it comes from the massive anxiety generated by the long emergency we’ve entered — the free-floating fear that we’ve run out the clock on our current way of life, that the systems we depend on for our high standard of living have entered the failure zone; specifically, the fears over our energy supply, dwindling natural resources, broken resource supply lines, runaway debt, population overshoot, the collapsing middle-class, the closing of horizons and prospects for young people, the stolen autonomy of people crushed by out-of-scale organizations (government, WalMart, ConAgra), the corrosion of relations between men and women (and of family life especially), the frequent mass murders in schools, churches, and public places, the destruction of ecosystems and species, the uncertainty about climate change, and the pervasive, entropic ugliness of the suburban human habitat that drives so much social dysfunction.

You get it? There’s a lot to worry about, much of it quite existential. The more strenuously we fail to confront and engage with these problems, the crazier we get. Much of the “social justice” discontent arises from the obvious and grotesque income inequality of our time accompanied by the loss of meaningful work and the social roles that go with that. But quite a bit of extra tension comes from the shame and disappointment over the failure of the long civil rights campaign to correct the racial inequalities in American life — everything from attempts at school integration to affirmative action (by any name) to “multiculturalism” to the latest innovations in “diversity and inclusion.”

[..] By 2020 Wokesterism has shot its wad and the Wokesters are banished to a windowless room in the sub-basement of America’s soul where they can shout at the walls, point their fingers, grimace spittlingly, and issue anathemas that no one will listen to. And when they’re out of gas, they can kick back and read the only book in the room: Mercy, by Andrea Dworkin. And then, one fine spring morning, after everyone else has given up on it, Donald Trump, social media troll-of-trolls, the Golden Golem of Greatness himself, rises in his pajamas and tweets that, at long, long last, he has finally got “woke,” changed his name to Donatella, and declared his personal pronoun to be “you’all.”

“When a company defaults, there is a clear legal framework for who gets paid back first. This isn’t the case for states, however, as there is no such legal structure, nor much precedent.”

• States Are Already Paying For Unfunded Pensions (Platt)

Kicking pension problems into the future is popular with politicians, enabling them to make promises and let voters worry later about borrowing costs. But large, unfunded state pension liabilities are a costly problem—and the cost is already reflected in current bond prices, research by Chicago Booth PhD candidate Chuck Boyer suggests. “The public pension funding crisis is not merely about future insolvency,” he writes. “Future obligations are having an effect on debt spreads right now.” To many Americans, it may seem unimaginable that states would fail to fully pay pensions promised to teachers, firefighters, and other public-service workers.

It has been almost 90 years since the last state default: during the Great Depression, Arkansas owed over $160 million to debt payments, which was nearly half of the state’s annual revenue (and equivalent to roughly $3 billion in 2019 dollars). The debt was restructured and “debtholders were eventually made whole,” Boyer writes in recounting this history. However, pension obligations are mounting in many states, and officials are struggling to cut costs and raise taxes to pay what is owed. And he argues that the effects can be seen in the $3.8 trillion capital market for US municipal bonds, which includes bonds issued by 50,000 state and local governments. When a company defaults, there is a clear legal framework for who gets paid back first.

This isn’t the case for states, however, as there is no such legal structure, nor much precedent. The markets’ expectations, then, are built into bond prices. Bondholders, wary of how a default could play out, demand a premium. Using annual fiscal reports released by state governments, Boyer looked at the ratio of unfunded pension liabilities to GDP from 2002 to 2016 and estimates that every 1-standard-deviation increase is associated with a 27–32 basis-point increase in bond spreads over the Treasury rate, up to a fifth of the average total spread. Unfunded pensions cost US states more than $2 billion in lost bond-issuance proceeds in 2016, he calculates, adding that he considers that a conservative estimate.

But the penalty that a state would essentially pay in the form of higher spreads varies from state to state, providing some indication of how the market thinks a default could play out. States where pensioners have more legal protections and their unions have more bargaining power (and maybe higher public support) are paying higher borrowing costs. In these areas, debtholders see a higher risk of default—perhaps assuming states would take care of pensioners before bondholders, who are mostly high-net-worth and retail investors.

Walking away from a $9 million bond.

• Ex-Nissan Boss Ghosn Says Is In Lebanon, Fleeing Japan’s ‘Rigged’ Justice (R.)

Ousted Nissan boss Carlos Ghosn confirmed he fled to Lebanon, saying he wouldn’t be “held hostage” by a “rigged” justice system and raising questions about how one of the world’s most-recognized executives escaped Japan months before his trial. Ghosn’s abrupt departure marks the latest dramatic twist in a year-old saga that has shaken the global auto industry, jeopardized the alliance of Nissan Motor Co Ltd and top shareholder Renault SA and cast a harsh light on Japan’s judicial system. “I am now in Lebanon and will no longer be held hostage by a rigged Japanese justice system where guilt is presumed, discrimination is rampant, and basic human rights are denied,” Ghosn, 65, said in a brief statement on Tuesday.

“I have not fled justice – I have escaped injustice and political persecution. I can now finally communicate freely with the media, and look forward to starting next week.” Most immediately, it was unclear how Ghosn, who holds French, Brazilian and Lebanese citizenship, was able to orchestrate his departure from Japan, given that he had been under strict surveillance by authorities while out on bail and had surrendered his passports. Japanese immigration authorities had no record of Ghosn leaving the country, Japanese public broadcaster NHK said. A person resembling Ghosn entered Beirut international airport under a different name after flying in aboard a private jet, NHK reported, citing an unidentified Lebanese security official.

His lawyers were still in possession of his three passports, one of his lawyers, Junichiro Hironaka, told reporters in comments broadcast live by NHK. Hironaka said the first he had heard of Ghosn’s departure was on the news this morning and that he was surprised. He also said it was “inexcusable behavior”. [..] Ghosn was arrested at a Tokyo airport shortly after his private jet touched down on Nov. 19, 2018. He faces four charges – which he denies – including hiding income and enriching himself through payments to dealerships in the Middle East. Nissan sacked him as chairman saying internal investigations revealed misconduct ranging from understating his salary while he was its chief executive, and transferring $5 million of Nissan funds to an account in which he had an interest.

Words fail. It’s not just bankers that don’t go to jail.

• How Fentanyl Spread Across the US (Kolitz)

Often lost in the early news reports was the fact that fentanyl alone wasn’t killing people; many different kinds of fentanyl were. Since its invention in 1959 by the Belgian chemist and doctor Paul Janssen, fentanyl has seen more than 1,400 analogues: twists on the original formula whose origins and effects vary widely. Carfentanil, for instance—100 times stronger than fentanyl—was until 2018 FDA-approved for use as an elephant tranquilizer. It is here that the opioid crisis intersects with (and amplifies) a newer scourge: NPS, or new psychoactive substances, molecularly tweaked stand-ins for traditional street drugs. The best-known of these is probably K2, or Spice, the ostensible marijuana substitute whose high bears little resemblance to the real thing and whose side effects include blood-clotting, kidney failure, and instant death.

But there are hundreds more, and likely thousands in development. Mini-pandemics have erupted across the country, as when, in the course of a single week last year, over 100 people in New Haven overdosed on what was later determined to be AB-FUBINACA, yet another synthetic cannabinoid. Ben Westhoff, in “Fentanyl, Inc.: How Rogue Chemists Are Creating the Deadliest Wave of the Opioid Epidemic”, charts this progression in harrowing detail. We are now dealing, he writes, with “the harshest drug challenge in our history.” His book is one of the first to address what the Centers for Disease Control has called the “third wave” of the opioid crisis: first OxyContin, then heroin, and now fentanyl and its analogues.

Earlier accounts of this crisis – Sam Quinones’s “Dreamland: The True Tale of America’s Opiate Epidemic” or Beth Macy’s “Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company That Addicted America” – had in Purdue Pharma the benefit, structural and dramatic, of a villain. More or less everyone can agree that pharmaceutical companies should refrain from wantonly pursuing profit at the expense of public health. Dopesick is rarely a pleasant read, but Macy’s account of Purdue’s first major court battle – which culminated in criminal convictions for three executives and $600 million in fines—provided at least some measure of catharsis.

I still wonder what made Yeltsin turn to Putin. Guilt, a rare moment of lucidity?

• UK MoD Proposed Russian Membership Of Nato In 1995 (G.)

Russia could have become an “associate member” of Nato 25 years ago if a Ministry of Defence proposal had gained support, according to confidential Downing Street files which also expose Boris Yeltsin’s drinking habits. The suggestion, aimed at reversing a century of east-west antagonism, is revealed in documents released on Tuesday by the National Archives at Kew. Presented by Malcolm Rifkind, then defence secretary, to a Chequers strategy summit, the plan was to dispel Kremlin suspicions of the alliance’s eastwards expansion. In 1995, Yeltsin was president and the cold war over. Relations were in flux as a Russia tried to come to terms with shrunken international borders.

Yeltsin was proving an unpredictable ally. Files show that he urged western leaders at a summit in Halifax, Canada to delay Nato enlargement until after Russia’s elections because “public discussion could provoke trouble”. But poor health and heavy drinking jeopardised his authority. The previous year he had notoriously failed to disembark from a plane during a stopover in Ireland amid rumours of alcoholism and a heart attack. In July 1995, the Moscow embassy cabled about Yeltsin going into hospital due to his “longstanding heart condition”. At Hyde Park, the Roosevelt home in New York, according to US diplomats, Yeltsin subsequently appeared “rolling, puffy and red”. He consumed “wine and beer greedily … and regretted the absence of cognac. One of his aides took a glass of champagne from him when the aide felt enough was enough and he was alcoholically cheerful at his press conference with Clinton.”

[..] In a 10-page submission, Rifkind argued that: “A possible solution would be to create a new category of associate member of Nato. Such a status could not involve article V guarantees [which declares an attack on one state is an attack on all members], membership of the IMS [Nato’s International Military Staff] or Russian vetoes and would not therefore change the essence of Nato. “It would, however, give Russia a formal status within Nato, allow it to attend, as of right, ministerial and other meetings and encourage a gradual convergence and harmonisation of policy, doctrine and practice.”

The photos have now all turned red. NOTE: the army still hasn’t been sent in, apparently. The people dying are volunteer firemen.

• Images Of ‘Mayhem’ And ‘Armageddon’ As Bushfires Rage (G.)

Thousands of people fled to the lake and ocean in Mallacoota, as bushfires hit the Gippsland town on Tuesday. The out-of-control fire reached the town in the morning and about 4,000 people fled to the coastline, with Country Fire Authority members working to protect them. The town had not been told to evacuate on Sunday when the rest of East Gippsland was, and authorities decided it was too dangerous to move them on Monday. People reported hearing gas bottles explode as the fire front reached the town, and the sound of sirens telling people to get in the water. By 1.30pm the fire had reached the water’s edge. A local man, Graham, told ABC Gippsland he could see fire in the centre of the town, and 20m high flames on the outskirts where he believed homes were alight.

10:30am update from Dad at the wharf in Mallacoota – “fire front not far away” #Mallacoota #bushfirecrisis pic.twitter.com/MvgeiZqujM

— bluesfestblues (@bluesfestblues) December 30, 2019

“We saw a big burst of very big flames in Shady Gully,” he said. “As I speak to you I’m looking across Coull’s Inlet and there are big flames … and they would be impacting houses. That’s not good at all.” People in Mallacoota posted in community social media groups estimates of about 20 houses lost, with the school, bowling club and golf club also hit. Hundreds more evacuees sheltered in the community centre. “There are a lot of people at the waterfront jetty, in the lake, on the sand spit between the lake and the ocean, and there are people on a sandbar, and some on boats,” Charles Livingstone told Guardian Australia from the community centre. He said there were at least 350 people in the community centre, many with children and pets. He, his wife and their 18-month-old baby were at the jetty on Monday night but moved to the community centre to avoid the heavy smoke.

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Debt Rattle December 20 2019

Dec 202019

December 20, 2019 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 10:50 am Finance Tagged with: Abenomics, Assange, Bill Barr, Brennan, Durham, Feldman, freight, Fukushima, impeachment, Scotland, Turley 5 Responses »

Dorothea Lange Butter bean vines across the porch, Negro quarter, Memphis, Tennessee 1938

• “Let Them Impeach And Be Damned” (Turley)

• House-Senate Impeachment Impasse Would Mean Trump Wasn’t Impeached At All (ZH)

• Durham Reportedly Seeking Ex-CIA Director Brennan’s Emails, Call Logs (ZH)

• US Freight Shipments Fall Below 2014 Level. Answers Emerge (WS)

• Japan Cabinet Approves Record $939 Billion Budget Spending Plan (R.)

• Fukushima Daiichi No.1 Reactor To Be Covered (NHK)

• Sturgeon Demands Independence Referendum Powers Be Devolved (G.)

• Boris Johnson’s Brexit Bill ‘Tears Up’ Protections For Child Refugees (Ind.)

• Assange CANNOT Be Extradited Because Of Treaty Between US-UK: Legal Team (RT)

One of the few good things to emerge from the impeachment tragedy: Jonathan Turley’s clear voice.

• “Let Them Impeach And Be Damned” (Turley)

“Let them impeach and be damned.” Those words could have easily come from Donald Trump, as the House moves this week to impeach him. They were, however, the words of another president who not only shares some striking similarities to Trump but who went through an impeachment with chilling parallels to the current proceedings. The impeachment of Trump is not just history repeating itself but repeating itself with a vengeance.

The closest of the three prior presidential impeachment cases to the House effort today is the 1868 impeachment of Andrew Johnson. This is certainly not a comparison that Democrats should relish. The Johnson case has long been widely regarded as the very prototype of an abusive impeachment. As in the case of Trump, calls to impeach Johnson began almost as soon as he took office. A southerner who ascended to power after the Civil War as a result of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, Johnson was called the “accidental president” and his legitimacy was never accepted by critics. Representative John Farnsworth of Illinois called Johnson an “ungrateful, despicable, besotted, traitorous man.”

Johnson opposed much of the reconstruction plan Lincoln had for the defeated south and was criticized for fueling racial divisions. He was widely viewed as an alcoholic and racist liar who opposed full citizenship for freed slaves. Ridiculed for not being able to spell, Johnson responded, “It is a damn poor mind that can only think of one way to spell a word.” Sound familiar? The “Radical Republicans” in Congress started to lay a trap a year before impeachment. They were aware that Johnson wanted their ally, War Secretary Edwin Stanton, out of his cabinet, so they then decided to pass an unconstitutional law that made his firing a crime.

To leave no doubt of their intentions, they even defined such a firing as a “high misdemeanor.” It was a trap door crime created for the purposes of impeachment. Undeterred, Johnson fired Stanton anyway. His foes then set upon any member of Congress or commentator who dared question the basis for the impeachment. His leading opponent, Representative Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania demanded of them, “What good did your moderation do you? If you do not kill the beast, it will kill you.”

Feldman also makes a solid argument, instead of the opinionated statements he made in the House.

• House-Senate Impeachment Impasse Would Mean Trump Wasn’t Impeached At All (ZH)

While Nancy Pelosi threatens to withhold articles of impeachment passed Wednesday night by the House, Harvard Law Professor Noah Feldman says that President Trump isn’t technically impeached until the House actually transmits the articles to the Senate. Feldman, who testified in front of the House Judiciary Committee’s impeachment proceedings earlier this month, argues in a Bloomberg Op-Ed that the framers’ definition of impeachment “assumed that impeachment was a process, not just a House vote,” and that “Strictly speaking, “impeachment” occurred – and occurs — when the articles of impeachment are presented to the Senate for trial. And at that point, the Senate is obliged by the Constitution to hold a trial.”

“If the House does not communicate its impeachment to the Senate, it hasn’t actually impeached the president. If the articles are not transmitted, Trump could legitimately say that he wasn’t truly impeached at all. That’s because “impeachment” under the Constitution means the House sending its approved articles of to the Senate, with House managers standing up in the Senate and saying the president is impeached. As for the headlines we saw after the House vote saying, “TRUMP IMPEACHED,” those are a media shorthand, not a technically correct legal statement. So far, the House has voted to impeach (future tense) Trump. He isn’t impeached (past tense) until the articles go to the Senate and the House members deliver the message.” -Noah Feldman

Pelosi, meanwhile, won’t transmit the articles until the Senate holds what she considers a “fair” trial. Roughly modeled after England’s impeachment procedures, the framers in Article I of the constitution gave the House “the sole power of impeachment,” while giving the Senate “the sole power to try all impeachments.” [..] In closing, Feldman says “if the House never sends the articles, then Trump could say with strong justification that he was never actually impeached,” adding “And that’s probably not the message Congressional Democrats are hoping to send.”

Where is he on Clapper?

• Durham Reportedly Seeking Ex-CIA Director Brennan’s Emails, Call Logs (ZH)

Attorney General William Barr told “The Story with Martha MacCallum” that by the time Trump was inaugurated in January 2017, it had become clear that allegations raised by the FBI against a former Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos were largely baseless, and that pursuing George Papadopoulos’ “had very little probative value.” Additionally, Barr admitted, in a very candid (for him) moment, that federal prosecutor John Durham (who is scrutinizing the Russia investigation) “isn’t just looking at the FBI, he’s looking at other agencies, departments, and private actors,” but that “the other agencies are cooperating very well.”

Which is all the more intriguing as, at the same time as his interview aired, The New York Times dropped a bombshell, reporting that, according to three people briefed on the inquiry, Durham’s investigation has begun examining the role of the former C.I.A. director John O. Brennan in how the intelligence community assessed Russia’s 2016 election interference. Specifically, Durham has requested Brennan’s emails, call logs, and other documents from the C.I.A. (and judging by Barr’s statement that “other agencies are cooperating very well,” we suspect Durham will get what he wants. Additionally, NYT reports that Durham is also examining whether Mr. Brennan privately contradicted his public comments, including May 2017 testimony to Congress, about both the dossier and about any debate among the intelligence agencies over their conclusions on Russia’s interference.

Of course, NYT is quick to ‘warn’ readers that Durham’s decision to probe Brennan’s actions deeper will “add to accusations that Mr. Trump is using the Justice Department to go after his perceived enemies.” But we ask, just as with Ukraine and the Bidens, is it only ‘not allowed’ to root out corruption if the corrupt is a representative of ‘the other’? We will let AG Barr respond to that implied problem: “The president bore the burden of probably one of the greatest conspiracy theories – baseless conspiracy theories – in American political history.” [..] We suspect that if Durham cracks Brennan, he will take everyone else down with him. Maybe Nancy will hand the impeachment articles over at that moment… as a distraction from the real threat to America’s democracy, constitution, and common man.

If you’re into climate issues, this should make you rejoice.

• US Freight Shipments Fall Below 2014 Level. Answers Emerge (WS)

Freight shipment volume in the US by truck, rail, air, and barge of consumer and industrial goods but not bulk commodities declined 3.3% in November from a year ago, the 12th month in a row of year-over-year declines, according to the Cass Freight Index for Shipments. This follows a huge boom in shipments through much of 2018, but by November last year, that boom was already fizzling, and by December last year, shipments declined on a year-over-year basis for the first time since the last freight recession. Note the infamous boom-and-bust cycles of the business:

The Cass Freight Index tracks shipment volume of consumer goods, industrial products such as construction materials, equipment and components being shipped to or by manufacturers, supplies and equipment for oil & gas drilling, and many other things. But it does not track bulk commodities, such as grains. Cass derives the data from actual freight invoices paid on behalf of its clients ($28 billion in 2018). The boom levels last year had been stimulated by pandemic efforts all around to front-run the tariffs by loading up on merchandise. But November’s drop in shipment volume didn’t just put the index below November last year, but also below 2017 levels and 2014 levels and nudged it closer to the lows of the 2015 and 2016 freight recession. In the stacked chart below – note the seasonality of the business – the red line represents the index for 2019. The top black line represents 2018, the purple line 2017, and the yellow line 2014:

The Oil-and-Gas-Bust Factor. For more granularity, we’ll look at durable goods shipments – which include anything from washing machines (knock on wood in term of “durable”) to industrial equipment. Durable goods shipments in November fell 1.5% year-over-year. But within that group, shipments of machinery and equipment for agriculture, construction, and mining, which is dominated by equipment for shale oil-and-gas drilling, plunged 13.6% year-over-year. During the peak of the Oil Bust in late 2015 and early 2016, shipments of equipment to these sectors plunged by as much as 37% year-over-year, much worse than the plunge during the Financial Crisis when they’d bottomed out at -29%. This is how important the oil-and-gas sector has become to US industry.

Take a spoonful of Abenomics, add several pounds of sugar.

• Japan Cabinet Approves Record $939 Billion Budget Spending Plan (R.)

Japan’s government has approved a record budget spending plan worth $939 billion for the coming fiscal year, the Ministry of Finance said on Friday, as it struggles to curb spending and manage the industrial world’s heaviest public debt burden. The 102.7 trillion yen ($939 billion) general-account budget for the year beginning April 1 marks a 1.2% rise from the current year, boosted by record outlays for welfare and the military and other spending aimed at boosting the economy. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has prioritized growth over fiscal reform under his “Abenomics” reflationary policy of monetary stimulus and flexible spending, and planned spending has increased for eight straight years.

Part of the planned spending will help finance a $122 billion fiscal package put together this month by Abe’s cabinet to shore up growth beyond the 2020 Tokyo Olympics after hits from the U.S.-China trade war and an Oct. 1 sales tax hike to 10%. [..] Japan’s public debt is more than double the size of its $5 trillion economy, by far the highest among advanced economies. Bond yields have been suppressed by Bank of Japan money printing under a policy that caps 10-year JGB yields around 0%, allowing the government to rely on cheap borrowing. Perhaps mindful of fiscal discipline, Japan aims to cut new bond issuance for a 10th straight year – to 32.6 trillion yen from 32.7 trillion yen this year, helped in part by additional revenues from the sales tax hike.

Scary people.

• Fukushima Daiichi No.1 Reactor To Be Covered (NHK)

The operator of the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant says it will install a giant cover over one of the reactors that underwent a nuclear meltdown as part of its dismantling process. Tokyo Electric Power Company announced the decision on Thursday regarding the No.1 reactor building, which was affected by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami. The covering will measure 65 meters high, 65 meters long and 50 meters wide. Its ceiling will have cranes that can be used to remove debris. The reactor’s fuel storage pool still holds 392 nuclear fuel units. As part of their removal process, TEPCO is clearing scattered debris from the building.

TEPCO says that by installing the cover, it aims to lower the risks of radioactive dust spreading outside during the debris removal process. It added that the device will also prevent rainwater from getting into the reactor building, thereby helping to reduce the volume of newly contaminated water. TEPCO says it cannot tell when the device will be completed, as it is still in the process of making a detailed construction plan.

Self-determination in 2020. Scotland has to ask the country they want to separate from if that’s okay.

• Sturgeon Demands Independence Referendum Powers Be Devolved (G.)

Nicola Sturgeon has called for the Scottish parliament to be given permanent powers to hold subsequent referendums on independence from the UK. Describing the SNP’s success in last week’s general election as an “unarguable mandate by any normal standard of democracy”, Scotland’s first minister confirmed on Thursday morning that she had formally written to Boris Johnson to request the powers to legally stage another referendum under section 30 of the 1998 Scotland Act. Alongside this, the SNP leader published a 38-page document that also sets out draft amendments to the statute, which would devolve the right to hold votes on leaving the UK to Holyrood.

Insisting that she was not advocating for a third independence referendum – “not least because I think when Scotland gets the chance to vote again, it will vote for independence” – she refused to rule one out for ever, underlining that no first minister could bind the hands of their successors over the right to self-determination. Entitled Scotland’s Right to Choose, the publication argues that there has been a “material change of circumstance” since the independence referendum of 2014, based on “the prospect of Scotland leaving the EU against its will and what EU exit has revealed about Scotland’s position within the UK”.

Launching the document at an event at her official residence of Bute House in Edinburgh, Sturgeon said she “fully expected to get a flat no” from Westminster initially. “I’m going to stand my ground. I fully expect today we will get the flat no of Westminster opposition, but that will not be the end of the matter and Boris Johnson should not be under any illusion that it is.”

No surprise.

• Boris Johnson’s Brexit Bill ‘Tears Up’ Protections For Child Refugees (Ind.)

Boris Johnson’s Brexit plans “tear up” a government pledge to protect child refugees in Europe seeking to reunite with family in the UK, campaigners have said. The Prime Minister’s new withdrawal agreement bill, which sets out plans for the UK’s exit from the EU, has scrapped a previous commitment to negotiate a new deal for child refugees after Brexit. The explanatory notes of the bill observe that the obligation to negotiate an agreement that “an unaccompanied child who has made a claim for international protection in a member state can come to the UK to join a relative” has been dropped. That obligation, which was pushed for and celebrated by Lord Alf Dubs and the wider Labour Party as well as refugee charities, has been replaced with a requirement only to make a statement to parliament.

Reacting to this, Shadow Brexit secretary Keir Starmer said: “During the last Parliament, Labour’s Alf Dubs led the campaign to protect child refugees post-Brexit. The Tories now want to tear up those protections. “As we leave the EU we cannot abandon our values of human rights and internationalism. Labour must continue to stand up for the most vulnerable people in the world.” Lord Alf Dubs told The Independent it was a “retrograde step” that could leave hundreds of children with relatives in the UK stranded alone in Europe. “It’s deeply depressing and deeply disappointing. We’re talking about children and young people who had some hope of a decent life with their relatives,” he said.

Today Assange is set to be moved to the courtroom to face the Spanish judge via videolink.

• Assange CANNOT Be Extradited Because Of Treaty Between US-UK: Legal Team (RT)

Lawyers for journalist and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange will argue that a treaty between the US and UK explicitly bans extradition for political offenses when his hearing begins in early 2020. Assange faces 18 counts in the US including conspiracy to hack government computers and violating espionage laws with a possible penalty of decades in prison. His full extradition hearing is scheduled to begin on February 24, 2020 and his defense team have made clear their intention to fight his extradition using any and all means at their disposal. “We say that there is in the treaty a ban on being extradited for a political offense and these offenses as framed and in substance are political offenses,” Assange’s lawyer Edward Fitzgerald told London’s Westminster Magistrates’ Court.

Assange’s defense lawyers will also submit medical evidence, public comments made by US officials and details from the Chelsea Manning case to fight the WikiLeaks founder’s extradition to the US and are also expected to call up to 21 witnesses to testify. Manning is currently in prison for contempt of court after she refused to testify before a federal grand jury seeking to level additional charges against WikiLeaks and Julian Assange. Assange appeared via video link but the whistleblower is due to make an in-person appearance in court tomorrow to answer questions from a Spanish judge in relation to “revelations about bugging of conversations with his lawyers” during his prolonged seven-year exile at the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where he sought asylum to avoid extradition to Sweden for allegations of rape which have subsequently been dropped.

Medical observers from #Doctors4Assange were denied access to Thursday’s case management hearing for #JulianAssange, despite members of the public offering to give up seats for them.

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Debt Rattle December 6 2019

Dec 062019

December 6, 2019 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 10:16 am Finance Tagged with: Assange, BBC, BPA, Fed, impeachment, Iran, Macron, Mueller, Pelosi, sanctions, Turkey, Turley, Ukraine, vetting 5 Responses »

Arthur Rothstein President Roosevelt tours drought area, near Bismarck, North Dakota Aug 1936

• Mueller Report’s Resurgence Gives Democrats New Dilemma On Impeachment (CNN)

• Democrats Offering Passion Over Proof In Trump Impeachment (Turley)

• Pelosi Pursues Articles Of Impeachment Against Trump (R.)

• Ukraine Fires Prosecutor Investigating Burisma And Hunter Biden (CDMedia)

• Fed Goes Hog-Wild with T-Bills, But Repos Drop and MBS Shrink by $22 Bn (WS)

• Filmmakers Sue To Shield Visitors To US From Social Media Vetting (IC)

• French Strike Against Macron Reforms Enters Day Two (R.)

• UK’s Labour Accuses BBC Of Bias In Election Coverage (R.)

• Andrew Neil Tells Johnson “It’s Not Too Late” For Election Interview (BBC)

• Leak Confirms Turkey’s “Gold-For-Gas” Scheme To Evade US Sanctions On Iran (ZH)

• BPA Chemical Levels In Humans Drastically Underestimated (G.)

There’s a concerted effort to bring back Mueller into the impeachment narrative. I’m not entirely sure why the Dems would want that. A little video with the article suggests Trump would have lied to Mueller -in writing- about contacts with WikiLeaks. You know, Julian Assange, the man who can’t defend himself. The same reason why Mueller could leave him in the report. Along with the 13 Russians. Pelosi can swing from Ukraine back to RussiaRussia. She already did, actually.

So will they bring back Mueller’s bumbling testimony as well? Be careful what you wish for.

• Mueller Report’s Resurgence Gives Democrats New Dilemma On Impeachment (CNN)

Democrats are debating a risky step that may immeasurably bolster their impeachment case but could multiply the political price for ramming it home. Including elements of former special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia report suggesting President Donald Trump was guilty of obstruction would help arguments he did exactly the same in the Ukraine investigation. But reviving the controversy over the special counsel’s probe could blur the much clearer current abuse of power case and play into Trump’s claims that both Washington intrigues are all part of the same “hoax.” Such an accusation would not be based in fact, but it would surely increase the exposure of swing state Democratic House members already facing an existential vote over impeachment. [..]

Democrats provoked fresh speculation that they were moving towards admitting some Mueller evidence by scheduling a Judiciary Committee hearing for Monday with staffers from two committees: Intelligence, which investigated the Ukraine scandal, and Judiciary, which dealt with allegations of obstruction in the Mueller report. This followed comments by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, a New York Democrat, that could be taken as a hint that Democrats were examining the Mueller option. “President Trump welcomed foreign interference in the 2016 election. He demanded it for the 2020 election,” Nadler said in his committee’s opening impeachment hearing on Wednesday. “In both cases, he got caught. And in both cases, he did everything in his power to prevent the American people from learning the truth about his conduct.”

But in a situation as emotionally and politically fraught as an impeachment, confronting each action can provoke a politically damaging counter-reaction. Democrats who wanted to initiate impeachment proceedings against Trump after the release of the Mueller report failed to convince a critical mass of their own leadership that the case was sufficiently clear to the American people. That was one reason why Pelosi held out so long against rising pressure in her own caucus for an effort to oust the President, amid fears of a political backlash. In the CNN town hall, the speaker suggested that the Ukraine case was far more black and white. “It wasn’t so clear to the public,” Pelosi said, referring to Mueller’s findings.

“The Ukraine (situation) has removed all doubt, it was self-evident that the President undermined our national security, jeopardized the integrity of our election as he violated the oath of office.” The President and his supporters, perpetrating a massive disinformation campaign to create uncertainty and ambiguity about the Ukraine case, has been trying to brand it as an extension of the Mueller saga. Folding in the special counsel’s evidence could help do his work for him. For instance, in the first televised House Intelligence Committee hearing last month, the panel’s top Republican, Rep. Devin Nunes, told witnesses: “the main performance — the Russia hoax — has ended, and you’ve been cast in the low-rent Ukrainian sequel.”

Turley of course is the one expert who disagreed with the three others.

• Democrats Offering Passion Over Proof In Trump Impeachment (Turley)

The most dangerous place for an academic is often between the House and the impeachment of an American president. I knew that going into the first hearing of the House Judiciary Committee on the impeachment of Donald Trump. After all, Alexander Hamilton that impeachment would often occur in an environment of “agitated passions.” Yet I remained a tad naive in hoping that an academic discussion on the history and standards of it might offer a brief hiatus from hateful rhetoric on both sides. In my testimony Wednesday, I lamented that, as in the impeachment of President Clinton from 1998 to 1999, there is an intense “rancor and rage” and “stifling intolerance” that blinds people to opposing views.

My call for greater civility and dialogue may have been the least successful argument I made to the committee. Before I finished my testimony, my home and office were inundated with threatening messages and demands that I be fired from George Washington University for arguing that, while a case for impeachment can be made, it has not been made on this record. Some of the most heated attacks came from Democratic members of the House Judiciary Committee. [..] As I stated Wednesday, I believe the Clinton case is relevant today and my position remains the same. I do not believe a crime has been proven over the Ukraine controversy, though I said such crimes might be proven with a more thorough investigation. Instead, Democrats have argued that they do not actually have to prove the elements of crimes such as bribery and extortion to use those in drafting articles of impeachment.

In the Clinton impeachment, the crime was clearly established and widely recognized. As I said 21 years ago, a president can still be impeached for abuse of power without a crime, and that includes Trump. But that makes it more important to complete and strengthen the record of such an offense, as well as other possible offenses. I remain concerned that we are lowering impeachment standards to fit a paucity of evidence and an abundance of anger. Trump will not be our last president. What we leave in the wake of this scandal will shape our democracy for generations to come. These “agitated passions” will not be a substitute for proof in an impeachment. We currently have too much of the former and too little of the latter.

More Mueller.

• Pelosi Pursues Articles Of Impeachment Against Trump (R.)

Warning that U.S. democracy is at stake, House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi directed a congressional committee on Thursday to draft articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump, a historic step setting up a fight over whether to oust him from office. In a dramatic televised statement, Pelosi accused the Republican president of abusing his power and alluded to Britain’s King George III, the monarch against whom the American colonies rebelled in forming the United States in 1776, saying that in the United States, “the people are the king.” “Our democracy is what is at stake. The president leaves us no choice but to act because he is trying to corrupt, once again, the election for his own benefit. The president has engaged in abuse of power, undermining our national security and jeopardizing the integrity of our elections,” said Pelosi, the top Democrat in Congress.

At the heart of the Democratic-led House’s impeachment inquiry is Trump’s request that Ukraine launch an investigation targeting Joe Biden. The former vice president is a top contender for the Democratic nomination to face Trump in the 2020 presidential election. “Sadly, but with confidence and humility, with allegiance to our founders and our heart full of love for America, today I am asking our chairman to proceed with articles of impeachment,” Pelosi said. She had opened the investigation in September. She was referring to Jerrold Nadler, whose House Judiciary Committee has the responsibility of drawing up the formal charges that would later be voted on by the full House. Two people knowledgeable about the process said the panel could draft and recommend the articles of impeachment to the House as early as Dec. 12.

[..] Judiciary Democrats said the report by former Special Counsel Robert Mueller documenting Russian interference in the 2016 election could be part of testimony they hear on Monday from a committee lawyer, who is presenting evidence along with a Democratic lawyer from the House Intelligence Committee. Republican committee lawyers are also expected to testify. Including material from Mueller’s report in an article of impeachment would demonstrate a pattern of behavior involving foreign interference in U.S. elections, House Judiciary Democrat Pramila Jayapal said.

Talk about a swamp. Giuliani is talking to Ukraine people. Not sure where that fits in.

• Ukraine Fires Prosecutor Investigating Burisma And Hunter Biden (CDMedia)

Ukraine has fired the prosecutor investigating cases involving Hunter Biden and Burisma and has transferred responsibility to the Soros-controlled ‘National Anti-Corruption Bureau’ (NABU) for disposal. This is the same NABU led by Artem Sytnyk who was caught on tape bragging about helping the Clinton campaign in its effort to discredit Donald Trump during the 2016 election. Konstantin Kulik was fired from the General Prosecutor’s Office on November 22 due to corruption charges against him. Sources for CD Media describe the firing as being political in nature, as a way to ‘tidy up’ any loose ends regarding Biden and Burisma, to keep the information from the public eye during the ‘impeachment’ campaign in the United States.

They describe Victor Trepak (New Deputy General Prosecutor), Deputy Prosecutor General Vitaly Kasko, and Sytnyk as being under the control of the George Soros/Deep State infrastructure in-country. Trepak was involved in the infamous ‘black ledger’ in the Manafort affair, which is now considered to be fake. The State Bureau of Investigation may be headed by Deputy Prosecutor General Viktor Trepak it was reported by “Ukrainian Truth” with reference to sources, reported Ukrainian news outlet GordonUA.com. “Soros and the Democrats appointed their agents of influence to the General Prosecutor’s Office (Kasko and Trepak). They put Sytnyk in NABU and Kholodnitsky in SAP (Special Prosecutor) in order to destroy the evidence of corruption of the Democrats in Ukraine and to continue the process of the country’s rape with impunity. They are corruption. If they put Trepak, the author of the ‘black ledger’, as the head of the State Bureau of Investigation, then the process of covering up their crimes will be completed,” declared a confidential intelligence source in Ukraine.

In an interview with the Ukrainian news outlet Babel, Kasko discusses the development of Kulik’s firing. According to him, the National Bureau of Investigation will deal with almost all of the cases that Kulik conducted: “All the cases that Kulik was involved in are currently being inventory. In 99 percent of cases, NABU will deal with them. This is a good body to put an end to and clarify what actually happened in these matters. “

End the Fed.

• Fed Goes Hog-Wild with T-Bills, But Repos Drop and MBS Shrink by $22 Bn (WS)

The total amount of repurchase agreements (“repos”) on the Fed’s balance sheet as of December 4, released today, declined to $209 billion, from $215 billion a month ago. These repos included: • $70 billion in overnight repos, issued on Wednesday morning that unwound today; all prior overnight repos had already unwound. • $88 billion in multi-day repos with maturities of up to two weeks; • $50 billion in 42-day repos; of which $25 billion were issued on November 25 and $25 billion on December 2. They will unwind early next year. Before the repo market blew out in mid-September, the repos on the Fed’s balance sheet were zero. This chart shows the weekly balances of repos on the Fed’s balance sheet as of each Wednesday:

In these “repo operations,” the Fed buys Treasury securities, mortgage-backed securities issued by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and government “Agency” securities, under an agreement whereby the counter parties have to repurchase those securities on a set date at a set (higher) price. The interest rate is determined by the difference between the price the Fed buys the securities at, and the pre-set higher price it sells the securities back to the original counter party. [..] The Fed has stated many times that it wants to get rid of its holdings of MBS. And it’s progressing with the plan. In November, the Fed shed $22 billion in MBS, exceeding the self-imposed cap of $20 billion per month for the seventh month in a row. Over the past seven months, it has shed $160 billion in MBS, or about $22.8 billion a month on average. Its holdings are now down to $1.42 trillion, below where they had first been in November 2013:

Big Brother appears inevitable.

• Filmmakers Sue To Shield Visitors To US From Social Media Vetting (IC)

A filmmaker working on a documentary that’s critical of U.S. policies. A writer who operates a pseudonymous Twitter account to evade an authoritarian regime in their home country. An activist who uses Facebook to organize protests at the U.S.-Mexico border. These are the kinds of people who might not want U.S. immigration agents poring over their social media profiles before deciding whether they should be allowed into the country. Yet that’s exactly what the State Department now requires as part of the Trump administration’s “extreme vetting” of millions of visa applicants. As of May, people who need a visa to enter the U.S. have to disclose any social media handles they’ve used over the past five years on 20 platforms, from Instagram and Twitter to YouTube and Weibo (the Chinese microblogging service).

If they don’t, their visas could be denied. Two U.S.-based documentary film organizations filed suit on Thursday in federal court in Washington, D.C. to challenge the policy, arguing that it will have a chilling effect on the filmmakers they work with. Along with the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University and the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School, the International Documentary Association and Doc Society are suing the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security because their international members are “concerned that their political views will be used against them during the visa process.” “They self-censor to avoid being associated with controversial ideas or sensitive topics,” the complaint states. The nonprofit groups surveyed over 100 international filmmakers and found that “a significant majority said it would chill their speech online.”

“We’re going to protest for a week at least, and at the end of that week it’s the government that’s going to back down…”

• French Strike Against Macron Reforms Enters Day Two (R.)

France faced a second day of travel chaos, shuttered schools and understaffed hospitals on Friday as unions said they would be no let-up in a strike against Emmanuel Macron’s pension reforms until the president backed down. Much of France ground to a halt on Thursday as transport workers went on strike – joined by teachers, doctors, police, firemen and civil servants – while smoke and tear gas swirled through the streets of Paris as some protests turned violent, leading to dozens of arrests. On Friday there were heavy cancellations of rush-hour trains into Paris and 10 out of 16 metro lines were closed while others ran limited services.

Traffic jams totaling more than 350 kilometers clogged the main roads in and around the capital, according to traffic app Styadin, as many commuters took to their cars. Rail workers extended their strike through Friday, while unions at the Paris bus and metro operator RATP said their walkout would continue until Monday. “We’re going to protest for a week at least, and at the end of that week it’s the government that’s going to back down,” said 50-year-old Paris transport employee Patrick Dos Santos. The strike pits Macron, a 41-year-old former investment banker who took office in 2017 on a promise to open up France’s highly regulated economy, against powerful unions who say he is set on dismantling worker protections.

With 6 days left, what’s the use?

• UK’s Labour Accuses BBC Of Bias In Election Coverage (R.)

Labour’s co-campaign coordinator Andrew Gwynne said they had recorded numerous examples where his party’s leadership had received “more negative treatment, harsher scrutiny and slanted editorial comment” than Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservatives. “That bias has been reflected in the framing, content and balance of BBC reporting during the campaign,” Gwynne wrote in a letter to the BBC’s Director General Tony Hall. “If the Conservatives are allowed to ‘play’ or manipulate the BBC, and this behavior goes unchecked, then the corporation will have effectively been complicit in giving the Conservative Party an unfair electoral advantage.”

The broadcaster, which is funded by a tax on all television-watching households and regularly faces accusations of bias from across the political spectrum, is bound by strict rules to ensure impartiality. “The BBC will continue to make its own independent editorial decisions, and is committed to reporting the election campaign fairly, impartially and without fear or favor,” a BBC spokesman said. Labour, trailing the Conservatives by about 10 points in opinion polls before the Dec. 12 vote, are particularly unhappy that Johnson has not agreed to be interviewed by veteran journalist Andrew Neil, who has already subjected the other major party leaders to tough questioning.

Labour said they had agreed to the Neil interview on the understanding that Johnson had also signed up. “Instead, the BBC allowed the Conservative leader to pick and choose a platform through which he believed he could present himself more favorably and without the same degree of accountability,” Gwynne said. On Thursday, having just interviewed the head of the Brexit Party Nigel Farage on BBC TV at prime-time, Neil issued an on-air challenge to Johnson to appear before him. He also detailed a series of questions he would ask, focusing on whether Johnson could be trusted over campaign promises.

Ready for prime time TV. If Boris is MIA, just broadcast this.

• Andrew Neil Tells Johnson “It’s Not Too Late” For Election Interview (BBC)

The BBC’s Andrew Neil says he wants to quiz Boris Johnson about whether he can be trusted. The Conservative leader is – so far – the only main party leader not to submit to an election grilling on BBC One.

Great story. Who has the movie rights?

• Leak Confirms Turkey’s “Gold-For-Gas” Scheme To Evade US Sanctions On Iran (ZH)

We first started noticing major ‘odd’ exports of gold from Turkey to Iran in May 2012. Turkey’s trade balance fluctuated wildly as gold stocks flowed out of the country in bursts. “Turkey’s going to continue it,” the Turkish economy minister said. “If those casting aspersions on the gold trade are searching for immorality, they should take a look in the mirror.” Then, in 2014, we discussed Turkey’s “200 tons of secret gold” trade with Iran detailing how a complex network that spanned Turkey, China, Dubai and Iran was used to skirt US sanctions on energy exports from Iran. The operation featured an Iranian-born businessman who liked fast horses, faster cars and the fastest planes.

His unique skill: Getting gold into sanctions-encircled Iran. Enough gold that for a time he became the government’s key instrument in improving Turkey’s irksome economic imbalance. At the time, the plot revealed what one observer called, “one of the most complex illicit finance schemes [prosecutors] have seen.” In 2017, the man at the center of the scheme, Reza Zarrab, was arrested (and briefly disappeared) and was tied to Turkey’s president. “Zarrab is thought to have been close to the Erdogan family and, indeed, he was given Turkish citizenship, alongside Iranian. This is a real stress point.”

Zarrab pleaded guilty in October 2017 and turned against Mehmet Hakan Atila – a director at Turkey’s Halkbank – who was convicted on Jan. 3, 2018, and after serving a total 32 months behind bars was returned to Turkey and has since become the head of the Istanbul stock exchange. And since then “one of the biggest money-laundering schemes ever” has disappeared from the headlines… until now. Thanks to a massive leak of more than a million documents from a British offshore shell company provider, think Panama Papers 2.0, we now learn exactly how Iran’s national oil company and its subsidiaries hopscotch the globe, with the help of intermediaries, in search of tax havens that help it try to wriggle free from the grip of crippling U.S.-led sanctions.

We’ll end humanity yet.

• BPA Chemical Levels In Humans Drastically Underestimated (G.)

Humans are probably being exposed to far more of a widely used dangerous chemical – found in plastics, canned goods and receipt paper – than previously understood, according to a new study. The analysis, in the peer-reviewed scientific journal the Lancet, uses a new method for evaluating exposure to BPA, or bisphenol-A. BPA disrupts hormones critical to many body functions and is linked with obesity and other diseases. Pregnant women who are exposed to it are more likely to have children who have problems with growth, behavior and fertility, as well as a higher cancer risk. Many companies have phased out using BPAs, marketing new products with similar replacement bisphenols as safer without sufficient evidence for their claims, experts say.

The new research examined levels of BPA in urine but also counted the metabolites of BPA. Metabolites are formed when the body breaks down and eliminates a chemical. Using the new method, the scientists analyzed the urine of 29 pregnant women in their second trimester and found their BPA exposure levels to be an average of 44 times higher than what was measured with the traditional method. Patricia Hunt, a co-author of the study who is a molecular biosciences professor at Washington State University, said she was “horrified” by the high levels her group found in the pregnant women.

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The Value of Legal Experts

Dec 052019

December 5, 2019 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 7:40 pm Finance, Primers Tagged with: assumptions, Biden, evidence, interpretations, Karlan, Kerry, Nadler, opinions, Pelosi, Schiff, Trump, Turley, Ukraine, Zelensky 11 Responses »

Pablo Picasso Couple on a bench 1943

No no no, I want to do something else, but they won’t let me. There are just too many assumptions, opinions, interpretations and hearsay that linger on in what I see, and I can’t let that just go now that we’ve come so far. Nancy Pelosi just now:

The California congresswoman told Thursday morning’s news conference: “The facts are uncontested. The president abused his power for his own political benefit at the expense of our national security , by withholding military aid and a crucial Oval Office meeting in exchange for an announcement for an investigation into his political rival.”

No, “the facts are NOT uncontested”. The one Constitutional judge the Dems allowed yesterday that they did not pick, Jonathan Turley, made that abundantly clear. Why “allow” him to speak at all if you’re going to drown him out anyway? Turley also made it very clear that he voted for Obama and Clinton, not the GOP that invited him. He simply doesn’t approve of the process that’s taking place. But he did “contest” the “facts”.

Meanwhile, Jerry Nadler, tag teaming from Adam Schiff as head of the Judiciary Committee said:

The committee chairman, Jerry Nadler, said that Trump was the first president to engage in conduct that met all three criteria for impeachment contemplated by the framers of the constitution: abuse of power, betrayal of national security, and interference in the conduct of elections. “Never before has a president engaged in a course of conduct that included all the acts that most concerned the framers,” Nadler said. Nadler was echoed by witnesses including Gerhardt. “If Congress fails to impeach here, then the impeachment process has lost all meaning, and, along with that, our constitution’s carefully crafted safeguards against the establishment of a king on American soil,” Gerhardt said.

Okidoki, let’s take a look. “Abuse of Power”. That’s a very broad stroke, it could mean anything really. What they mean is Trump asked Zelensky to look into – Hillary-linked- Crowdstrike and Joe Biden. And their interpretation of that is that this constitutes asking a foreign government to look into not a past, but a future election. Thing is, where’s the proof? I’ve seen the tape, read the relevant part of the transcript, and it’s not there. One may think or feel it is, but that’s not the same thing.

“Betrayal of National Security”. What they mean here is Trump delaying military aid to Ukraine. But there is no evidence he did that to get Zelensky to start probing Biden. That’s just a story. Moreover, Obama withheld “lethal aid” to Ukraine for a very long time. Where were the Dems shrieking about national security back then? Trump was the one to reverse that policy. It’s upside down world.

“Interference in the conduct of elections”. Really? After Crowdstrike and Fusion GPS and Christopher Steele, you sure you want to make this point?

More from yesterdays’ “Law experts”:

Prof Feldman testified that the “evidence clearly constitutes” an impeachable offence because Mr Trump’s interactions with Ukraine show him “corruptly using the powers of the presidency for personal political gain”.

Eh, no, they don’t. That’s opinion, not fact. Trump, again, asked Zelensky to look into Crowdstrike and Burisma, because the White House had a hard time figuring out what went on with both. Impeachable? Personal political gain? Both are very much up in the air. Nothing that “clearly constitutes” anything.

Mr Trump has attacked the “safeguards against establishing a monarchy in this country”, Prof Gerhardt stated. “The president’s serious misconduct, including bribery, soliciting a personal favour from a foreign leader in exchange for his exercise of power, and obstructing justice and Congress are worse than the misconduct of any prior president, including what previous presidents who faced impeachment have done or been accused of doing,” he said in his opening remarks. “If what we’re talking about here is not impeachable, nothing is impeachable,” he added.

Gerhardt introduces, and I betcha he didn’t think of this himself, if only because Pelosi used the same meme today, the idea that Trump wants to be a monarch. They do this because the Framers in 1776 had such worries vis a vis the British crown. In 2019, though, it’s a ridiculous notion. But they use it because Trump may one day want to crown himself. No kidding.

Prof Turley, who was chosen as a witness by Republicans, said he disagreed with Mr Trump’s conduct but “this is not how an American president should be impeached”. He also warned that Democrats are setting a dangerous precedent. “I get it. You are mad. The President is mad. My Democratic friends are mad. My Republican friends are mad….” he said. “We are all mad and where has it taken us? Will a slipshod impeachment make us less mad or will it only give an invitation for the madness to follow in every future administration?”

[..] Jonathan Turley, picked by the Republicans, acknowledged that the president’s actions were far from “perfect,” but lamented the anger in American politics and warned that action in this case would dangerously lower the bar for impeachable conduct for future presidents.

There’s your contest to what Pelosi said is “uncontested”. The sole voice of reason, outnumbered 3 to 1, by design. Designed so that Pelosi can claim something is “uncontested”. And there’s still more Pelosi, and lo and behold, it involved Putin:

Pelosi Says Impeachment Inquiry Is About Russia, Not Ukraine

Asked by a reporter whether there was an “aha” moment when she decided to back impeachment, Nancy Pelosi said the decision has been slowly building for more than two years — since the start of the Russia investigation. This is a noteworthy comment because some Republicans have argued the inquiry is moving far too quickly, an opinion echoed yesterday by a legal witness called by the House minority yesterday. “This isn’t about Ukraine; this is about Russia, who benefitted from the withholding of that military assistance,” Pelosi said. She then added her oft-repeated line about the investigation, “All roads lead to Putin.”

I was going to get into the insane RussiaRussia rant by Democrat donor “law expert” Pamela Karlan, but let it go, it’s plenty obvious by now who these people are.

Thanks to Pamela Karlan for so aptly capturing Democratic elites’ delusional, Reaganite, jingoistic Cold Warrior mindset in your claim that we need to arm Ukraine “so they fight the Russians there and we don’t have to fight them here” & we remain “that shining city on the hill.” pic.twitter.com/C78aNThnUk

— Aaron Maté (@aaronjmate) December 4, 2019

Matt Taibbi: “We laughed at this logic when George W. Bush used it to justify his Mideast wars: “We will fight them over there so we do not have to face them in the United States of America.”

Michael Tracey: “This woman was ostensibly called to testify about the legal and Constitutional questions around impeachment and instead ends up going on a bizarre Cold Warrior rant implying that Russia plans to invade the United States”

Just one last thing, the final nail in Joe Biden’s coffin, who I never thought Trump was worried about in the least, but that’s the Ukraine story don’t you know, is John Kerry now endorses him. Please John, don’t, you’re going to kill me! There’s not enough people who like ketchup that much! Let alone Hillary!

“I’m not endorsing Joe because I’ve known him a long time. I’m endorsing him because I know him so well,” Kerry told the Washington Post. “The world is broken. Our politics are broken. The country faces extraordinary challenges. “And I believe very deeply that Joe Biden’s character, his ability to persevere, his decency and the experiences that he brings to the table are critical to the moment. The world has to be put back together, the world that Donald Trump has smashed apart.”

Kerry specifically cited Trump’s performance this week at the Nato summit in London as a reason why the country needed Biden. “The petulance and smallness and ridicule that he invited is very dangerous for all of us,” Kerry said. “And that just underscores the urgency of people recognizing the assets that Joe Biden brings to the table.”

There’s so much more I could write here about the “experts” paraded in front of a TV audience yesterday -and last week-, and about all the things they said that were not legal facts but their personal opinions, but I’m not trying to write a book here, just an essay, and I should be able to trust people’s intelligence on this, right? And I can be skeptical of anything and everything without being painted into a corner, right? Turley is not alone?!

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