State Dept Spokesperson Nauert Reportedly Trump Top Pick For UN Ambassador

Following Dina Powell’s “not interested” response, CNN is reporting that President Trump’s current top pick to replace Nikki Haley as UN ambasador is State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert.

According to two sources familiar with his pick, CNN reports  that Trump could offer Nauert the post as soon as this week.

Notably, Nauert has been keeping a low profile this week after meeting with Trump on Monday. Two of her daily briefings have been conducted by her deputy.

Aside from former deputy national security adviser Dina Powell, who withdrew from consideration early in the process, Trump has eyed several people to replace Haley, including Ric Grennell, the US ambassador to Germany; Jamie McCourt, the US envoy in Paris; and Kelly Craft, the ambassador in Canada.

Trump has repeatedly told aides he wanted a woman to fill the role.

Nauert, who came to government from Fox News, served as State Department spokesman for both Rex Tillerson and Mike Pompeo but has enjoyed a closer relationship with Trump’s second secretary of state than she did Tillerson, who was privately skeptical of her close ties with the West Wing.

Her elevation to a top diplomatic role underscores the importance Trump has placed on having his top aides also serve as television surrogates. Nauert has briefed regularly from the State Department podium and had a long career in television news before that.

Still, as a diplomat she lacks experience.

 

 

 

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Martin Armstrong Warns Politicians Are Creating The Worst Economic Crash In History

Authored by Martin Armstrong via ArmstrongEconomics.com,

Politicians have totally and completely misunderstood the trends within the global economy and as a result, they are actually creating one of the worst economic debacles in history.

I have explained several times that the bulk of investment capital is tied up in two primary sectors – (1) government bonds and (2) real estate. Because of income taxes, real estate has offered a way to make money in capital gains without having to pay income taxes.

Money has looked to park in real estate around the world for many various different reasons as in Italy it was the escape from inheritance taxes as well as banks or in Vancouver to gain a foothold for residency fleeing Hong Kong. In Australia, there was the Super Annuation Fund which allowed people to use retirement funds for real estate.

People spend more when they believe that they have big profits in their home.

The recession of 2007-2010 was so bad, recording the worst of all declines since the Great Depression, all BECAUSE it undermined the real estate values. People then spent less because they viewed their home declined in value.

As taxes have been rising and the average home value collapsed, the velocity of money kept declining. Especially as real estate values declined and interest on savings accounts vanished hurting the elderly who saved money for retirement and discovered their savings were producing less income, the velocity of money just plummeted.

The velocity of money began to turn up finally in the USA ONLY when interest rates began to rise. The retired could suddenly begin to make something on the savings for once in a very long time. This is something the ECB still has not figured out in Europe as it has wiped out both the elderly savings along with pension funds.

Nonetheless, politicians have gone nuts imposing all sorts of regulations to outright making it a criminal act for a foreigner to buy property.

In New Zealand, the new government wanted to declare foreign investment just illegal and in Australia, they made it a criminal act for a foreigner to own property and not inform the government they were foreigners. Over in London, they imposed taxes on property which created a crash.

But, the USA targeted only New York and Miami requiring that title companies pierce corporate veils to discover who was really behind what.

They did not impose taxes only on foreigners nor did they outlaw foreign ownership of property. This is also why the high-end market recovered, just not the average home on the street.

What they are clueless about is this attack on the real estate market viewing foreign buyers as evil, is undermining real estate as a whole and that is what creates the worst economic decline in history.

This undermines the banking system that has used real estate as collateral for mortgages and it undermines consumer spending because people save more when their property declines.

The politicians are actually creating the worst possible scenario for the economy going forward.

Welcome to the new face of stupidity. They are so out there that it is like they are sitting on a branch of a tree and cutting the branch expecting the tree to fall. This is what they have done to real estate which makes even what Goldman Sachs did in 2007 child’s play.

Now add government borrowing which competes against the private sector and it only gets even more stupid.  Then we have brain-dead investors who actually think government debt is “quality” issued by idiots who have ZERO intentions of ever paying off their debt at any point in the future. Governments borrow year after year with no understanding what they are doing to the entire economy and how they are causing unemployment to rise with ever more taxes and more borrowing completing with the private sector on every level.

Then society elects people with absolutely ZERO business experience who in turn appoint academics who have wonderful theories that have never proven to have worked even once! And people wonder why I say they will never listen to prevent a crisis so we have no choice but wait for the Crash & Burn.

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Mexican Supreme Court Issues Binding Ruling Against Pot Prohibition

Yesterday the Supreme Court of Mexico issued two more rulings against marijuana prohibition, which means courts throughout the country will now be bound by the conclusion that prosecuting people for consuming cannabis is unconstitutional.

According to a summary from the court, “The fundamental right to the free development of the personality allows persons of legal age to decide—without any interference—what kind of recreational activities they wish to carry out and protects all the actions necessary to materialize that choice.” While “it was clarified that this right is not absolute and that the consumption of certain substances could be regulated,” the court added, “the effects caused by marijuana do not justify an absolute prohibition on its consumption.”

The court reached a similar conclusion in three earlier cases, decided in 2015 and 2017. Under Mexican law, five Supreme Court rulings on the same issue set a binding precedent, so people charged with offenses related to their own cannabis consumption should now be able to get the cases dismissed. The decisions do not extend to commercial production and distribution, and they do not directly change the law. But the upshot is that Mexicans can no longer be punished for possessing, sharing, or growing marijuana for personal use.

“The ruling only applies to personal possession and private use, and cultivation in the home for such use,” Steve Rolles, a senior policy analyst at the Transform Drug Policy Foundation, told Marijuana Moment. “It also allows for sharing. So the situation will be somewhat similar perhaps to the give-and-grow schemes in Washington, D.C., and Vermont in that it doesn’t allow for commercial sales, though that seems likely to follow when lawmakers act to implement the ruling. Until the legislation is adopted, we will be in something of a gray area.” In a press release, Rolles observed that “legalisation of cannabis in Mexico means you can now travel the entire West Coast of North America, from the Arctic circle in Canada to the Mexican border with Guatemala, without leaving a legal cannabis jurisdiction.”

Reuters reports that “officials in the incoming government of President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador have indicated they could take steps to legalize marijuana quickly as part of a broader strategy to fight poverty and crime.” If that happens, the United States will be sandwiched between northern and southern neighbors that have repealed marijuana prohibition at the national level.

“This is extraordinary because it is taking place in one of the countries that has suffered the most from the war on drugs,” Hannah Hetzer, senior international policy manager at the Drug Policy Alliance, said in a press release. “With marijuana already legal in Canada, now both of the US’s neighbors will have legal marijuana, making the US federal government’s prohibition of marijuana even more untenable.”

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Trump: “When I Can, I Tell The Truth”

With the midterm vote less than a week away, President Trump sat down for a wide-ranging interview with ABC’s Jonathan Karl to discuss some of the more pressing issues affecting the vote. In remarks that, at times, sounded like Trump was deliberately trying to trigger Democrats and journalists who have opposed his administration at every turn.

Trump

Early in the interview, Trump insisted that, if Democrats win control of the House and try to investigate his finances, he would cooperate because he has nothing to hide. “I’m an open book”, he said. But in one of the interview’s most memorable lines, Trump said that he “tries to tell the truth” when he can, while pointing out that ABC sometimes reports things about the Trump administration that aren’t necessarily truthful – a claim that went unchallenged by Karl.

DONALD TRUMP: Well, I try. I do try. I think you try too. You say things about me that aren’t necessarily correct. I do try, and I always want to tell the truth. When I can, I tell the truth. And sometimes it turns out to be where something happens that’s different or there’s a change, but I always like to be truthful.

Trump’s statement, which will elicited howls of indignation from journalists on twitter, comes on the heels of a Washington Post fact checker report alleging that Trump made more than 5,000 false or misleading claims during the first 601 days of his presidency. And the misleading statements have continued to this day, according to WaPo: “Since then, as Trump has ratcheted up his rhetoric in advance of the midterm elections, he has continued to mislead voters and invent facts.”

He, for instance, said a middle-class tax cut would be passed by Nov. 1, even though Congress wasn’t in session and had no plans to reconvene before the elections.

He has repeatedly asserted that Republicans are more committed than Democrats to protecting people with preexisting health conditions, despite numerous past actions contrary to that claim.

And he has asserted that the United States is the only country to grant automatic citizenship to children born on its territory, despite the fact that more than 30 other nations have a similar “birthright citizenship” policies.

And, in what sounded to us like an expert troll, Trump disputed media reports about the size of the migrant caravans heading toward the US’s southern border, asserting that “I’m pretty good at estimating crowd sizes.” This claim followed a question about Trump’s decision to send 15,000 troops to the border in anticipation of the caravans’ arrival, to which Trump said that, if we can’t have a proper border wall, then we should at least have “a wall of people.”

DONALD TRUMP: It’s very important. We have to have a wall of people –- very highly trained people, terrific, dedicated patriots. That’s what they are. You have caravans coming up that look a lot larger than it’s reported actually. I’m pretty good at estimating crowd size. And I’ll tell you they look a lot bigger than people would think. So we’ll find out. They had a very rough one just formed in El Salvador if you can believe it. And it was very nasty, you saw what took place. And you look at what’s coming up through Honduras through Mexico. And Mexico is helping us. But these are rough people in those crowds. And Mexico suffered a lot of damage in the last skirmish.

While on the subject of the caravan, ABC’s Karl asked Trump why he’s so keen to beef up border security when the crowds of people are mostly impoverished migrants who pose little, if any threat, to Americans. To this, Trump insisted that the crowd included “dangerous” members of MS-13 and once again characterized it as “an invasion.” Trump also insisted that “national security covers a lot of territory” when his interviewer tried to insist that the border troops wouldn’t be able to arrest migrants crossing the border.

Toward the end of the interview, Trump denied ABC’s claim that he wanted to get rid of the requirement that health insurers must cover preexisting conditions, saying instead that he wanted to replace it with something better. Democrats have been having a hard time, Trump said earlier in the interview, because “they haven’t been winning” before claiming that he would try his best to work with them if they did take back Congress.

DONALD TRUMP: “I want to replace pre-existing conditions and I’ve always been there. What the Democrats are going to do is destroy our entire health care and you’re not going to have any health care. You would destroy the country. You are not going to have health care,” he said. “The Democrats are going to literally — you’ll have to pay three times the taxes and they’ll destroy health care as we know it in this country. You won’t have pre-existing conditions. You wont have anything.”

He ended the interview again criticizing Paul Ryan for standing up for birthright citizenship. “The Supreme Court should take care of that” Trump said, referring to any legal obstacles to throwing out the privilege.

Of course, President Trump isn’t the first politician to justify being less than truthful at times when the public welfare is at stake. Jean Claude Juncker, the president of the European Commission, said back in 2014 that sometimes compromises are necessary to achieve political results – and sometimes, to accomplish this, these actions must be hidden from public scrutiny (like, for example, when you’re pushing for the creation of the eurozone), according to the Telegraph.

“When it becomes serious, you have to lie,” he said.

Watch select clips from the interview below:

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“Not For Them To Know” – Project Veritas Catches Andrew Gillum Campaign Staffer In Racist Slur

Authored by Mike Brest via The Daily Caller,

Florida Democratic gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum is the latest to be stung by a Project Veritas undercover video. A video released on Thursday shows a campaign staffer they identify as Omar Smith using a racial slur and saying the candidate makes promises he knows he can’t keep.

“It’s a cracker state,” Smith stated.

“Get it? Ask anybody outside of here. You go Port St. Lucie, Orlando … man them crackers ain’t gonna let us do that sh*t dawg. Boy, you crazy?”

He went on, saying, “Gillum is a progressive. He is a part of the crazy, crazy, crazies.”

Then the undercover reporter asked how Gillum plans to pay for many of his campaign promises, Smith said he couldn’t.

“That’s not for them to know … That’s not for [the voters] to know. Remember our saying, modern-day fairy tales start with ‘once I am elected.’”

Gillum is in a very tight race against Republican Rep. Ron DeSantis. According to an Ipsos Public Affairs poll released on Tuesday, Gillum is up six points.

President Donald Trump has waded into this race calling Gillum “a thief,” because the Tallahassee mayor has reportedly been under investigation by the FBI.

Project Veritas has also recently released videos on midterm election candidates Phil Bredesen and Sen. Claire McCaskill. The Daily Caller was unable to independently verify the video.

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New Yorkers: See Jesse Walker Speak at the Met Fifth Avenue Friday Night

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City is currently hosting an exhibition called Everything Is Connected: Art and Conspiracy, and I’ll be speaking at the Met Fifth Avenue tomorrow night as part of the program. The organizers asked me to be there because I wrote a book in 2013 called The United States of Paranoia; I’ll be sharing the stage with Jack Bratich, author of 2008’s Conspiracy Panics.

My talk will be a history-rich look at the intersection between conspiracy stories created as works of fiction and conspiracy stories that people actually believe in, and what happens when a story crosses over from the first category to the second. I don’t know what Bratich plans to say, but I was impressed the last time I saw him speak and so I expect to enjoy his remarks tomorrow too.

The event starts at 6:30, and it’s free. For more details, go here.

(On a related note: I have a cameo in this podcast on the Ong’s Hat hoax/game/art project/conspiracy theory.)

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Ex-Goldman Banker To Plead Guilty To 1MDB Criminal Charges, Forfeit $44 Million

Last we checked in with former Goldman Sachs SE Asia chairman Tim Leissner, the banker was nearing the nadir of a dramatic fall from grace that resulted in him being terminated from the bank, as it sought to distance itself from a series of shady bond underwritings organized by Leissner. The bank, as has been widely reported in the media, was deeply involved with the Malaysian government’s efforts to seed the 1MDB development fund, which, as we now know thanks to the DOJ, was used by former Malaysian President Najib Razak as his own personal slush fund, with most of the money going to purchase luxury yachts, paints – and some of the money was even used to help finance the Hollywood blockbuster “The Wolf of Wall Street”. In total, Razak and his cronies are believed to have stolen nearly $700 million.

Leissner

Back in July, it was believed that Leissner was planning to cooperate with federal authorities, raising the possibility that he could help expose some of the endemically corrupt practices happening behind the scenes at the Vampire Squid. Since WSJ exposed the fraud back in 2015 after 1MDB missed bond payments, the scandal has riveted the financial press and drawn intense scrutiny from the DOJ, with AG Jeff Sessions calling it “kleptocracy at its worst.”

And now it appears Leissner has done just that. As the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday morning, the former banker is expected to plead guilty to conspiracy to launder money and violate the FCPA. As part of the settlement, he has agreed to a $44 million fine for his role in the scandal – a guilty plea that, we imagine, will lead to his eventual cooperation.

But while Leissner’s situation is hardly ideal, his former deputy has it even worse. Roger Ng, the former deputy director of Goldman’s SE Asia practice, is expected to be indicted by the DOJ, alongside Jho Low, the Malaysian financier whose exploits have been widely chronicled in the Western media. Low allegedly masterminded the 1MDB fraud. Last week, Razak and his former Treasury secretary were charged with criminal breach of trust, months after Razak was imprisoned shortly after losing his reelection race to a rival who had promised to prosecute him.

As the DOJ prepares its announcement, attention will now turn to what, exactly, Leissner told investigators and whether his former employer could be held liable.

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Kudlow: Trump Hasn’t Called Powell To Discuss His Actions “Yet”

With Trump getting increasingly more vocal, and critical about the Fed’s rate hikes in recent weeks, on Wednesday morning the president’s top economic advisor and former CNBC anchor Larry Kudlow, speaking at the Washington Post State of Small Business conference said that President Trump has not made the phone call “yet” to Fed Chair Powell to complain about rising rates.

Kudlow also said that Trump hasn’t been seeking to replace Powell, adding that Trump is not disrupting the Fed’s independence and that the Fed and Trump share a similar goal of “non-inflationary growth.”

Speaking at the same conference, Kudlow said that Trump’s meeting with China President Xi Jinping later this month would be formal and might include a meal; the hope is that the leaders might break the “logjam” between the countries although “nothing is set in stone on China tariffs.”

Kudlow also said that Trump will “aggressively” pursue his agenda against China if no deal reached on intellectual property theft, cybersecurity and tariffs on commodities, among other issues. Curiously, Kudlow’s preview of the speech came just moments before Trump tweeted that he had a “long and very good conversation with President Xi Jinping of China” during which the “emphasis was on Trade” with Trump adding that “those discussions are moving along nicely.”

Trump’s tweet sparked a sharp reversal in the market, with the Dow now up over 200 points, after turning briefly red after today’s disappointing manufacturing ISM survey.

Kudlow said that Trump has no plans to change “large” entitlement programs, and warned that “if Democrats take the House in midterm elections and seek higher taxes, Trump would veto such increases.”

Finally, Trump’s advisor said he would oppose any deal that would raise the federal minimum wage. “My view is no. My view is a federal minimum wage is a terrible idea, and will damage, in particular, small businesses,” he said when asked about the prospect at the Washington Post conference.

Kudlow said he opposed the federal minimum wage because state and local economies were so varied, and a one-size-fits all approach would not work, but he also said that he opposed minimum wages at the state and local level.  He argued that the best way to help ordinary workers was to cut corporate taxes. Workers wages have remained largely stagnant in recent years, though monthly wage data spiked in the last quarter according to new government data.

Democrats have pushed for increasing the federal minimum wage to as much as $15 an hour, over double its current rate of $7.25.

Watch the Kudlow interview below

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Florida Mayor Accused of Requesting Sex in Exchange for Speed Bumps

David Stewart’s tenure as mayor of Lantana, Florida, has hit a speed bump.

In 2015, Catherine Padilla asked the city government to install safety speed bumps after cars in her neighborhood hit a poodle, a cat, and a young girl. Padilla claims Stewart said he’d make sure the speed bumps were installed—if she had sex with him.

According to an ethics panel, there’s “probable cause” to think she’s telling the truth.

Padilla says that after having lunch with the mayor one day, he drove her to a local motel and said he wanted to “occupy” a room together, The Palm Beach Post reports.

“He pulled into this motel and got out of his van and I just kept motioning no, no I’m not interested,” Padilla told WPTV in February.

She has also said that before the Lantana Town Council voted on the speed bumps, the mayor told her he’d make sure they were approved if she slept with him. Once more, she refused.

The council approved the speed bumps anyway, but Padilla says that Stewart threatened to have them removed.

In January of this year, Padilla filed a complaint about Stewart with the Florida Commission on Ethics. Stewart, who’s been mayor of Lantana since 2000, has denied the allegations. “In the 18 years I’ve been mayor there has never been a quid pro quo or anything asked for or given in favor of me voting in a special or certain direction,” he told WPTV in February.

Stewart says he didn’t go to lunch with Padilla or drive her to a motel. But a local pastor, Michael DeBehnke, told the commission he saw the two at lunch together.

On October 24, the commission announced in a press release there was “probable cause” to believe Stewart acted inappropriately:

The Commission found probable cause to believe that Lantana Mayor DAVID STEWART misused his position to attempt to obtain a sexual benefit for himself. Probable cause also was found to believe he solicited sex from a constituent based on an understanding his vote, official action, or judgment would be influenced.

Stewart subsequently told the Palm Beach Post it would be “inappropriate to comment at this time.”

Commission spokesperson Kerrie Stillman tells the Post that Stewart can either settle the case or go before an administrative law judge. If he chooses the second option and is found guilty, he could be fined, suspended, or kicked out of office.

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Stocks Jump After Trump Says He Spoke To President Xi “On Trade”, Discussions “Moving Along Nicely”

Moments after stocks stumbled after the latest disappointing, and rather stagflationary Manufacturing ISM print, the S&P spiked higher following a Trump tweet in which the president said he just had a “very good” conversation with Chinese’ president Xi, in which the emphasis was on trade and added that “discussions are moving along nicely.”

The optimistic tweet reversed much of the early morning pessimism, which had nearly brought the Dow to the unchanged line, and sent the Dow Jones to session highs, up as much as 150 points, as sentiment once again shifts on trade, this time with markets now expecting a favorable outcome from the G-20 meeting between the two presidents.

The Chinese Yuan also spiked to session highs following Trump’s tweet:

Ironically, the news comes at the very same time that AG Jeff Sessions is said to announce a new initiative in response to China’s economic espionage, according to a U.S. official. The Initiative will be led by agency’s National Security Division Head John Demers and will increase the use of DOJ tools to counter China’s activities.

According to Bloomberg, Sessions is ordering the FBI and NSD to step up enforcement, and DOJ will select five U.S. attorneys to be part of the initiative. The announcement will be coupled with unsealing today of a criminal case by the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of California that involves a Chinese co. that stole trade secrets from a U.S. company.

However, as shown above, stocks are ignoring the DOJ news and focusing solely on Trump’s tweet as the market’s bipolar nature once again emerges to the surface.

 

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