Month: December 2018

Authored by Jeff Charles via LibertyNation.com,

It once seemed like a given that the majority of Americans felt pride in their country. Despite differing views on the role of government in American life, one sentiment the public appeared to have in common was a distinct love of country. Sure, there were individuals on the hard left who viewed the U.S. as an evil, imperialistic nation, but it felt like the majority of the populace believed that despite its flaws, America was still the greatest nation on the planet. A new study suggests that this has changed – and it is not hard to figure out why. Over the years, the far left has instituted a vicious smear campaign against the United States, and it appears those efforts have paid off.

The Foundation for Liberty and American Greatness (FLAG) recently published a reportanalyzing the level of patriotism among Americans. The researchers studied national pride among varying generations of United States citizens and found that the level of patriotism among Americans under the age of 38 dropped drastically. This group includes Generation Z and millennials, who the study indicates are “becoming unmoored from the institutions, knowledge, and spirit traditionally associated with American patriotism.”

Patriotism On The Decline

Here are some of the FLAG findings:

• About half of those surveyed believe that the United States is both racist and sexist.

• 46% of younger Americans do not believe that “America is the greatest country in the world.”

• 14% of millennials believe that “America was never a great country and it never will be.”

• 46% of younger Americans think “America is more racist than other countries.”

• 44% of younger Americans think former President Barack Obama had a “bigger impact” on the United States than George Washington.

The report also revealed a disturbing lack of knowledge when it comes to the constitution. It found that 84% of Americans do not know which specific rights are protected by the First Amendment.

To some, the results of the study are shocking. Nick Adams, the founder of FLAG, said:

“We suspected that we would find decreasing numbers of Americans well-versed in our nation’s most important principles and young people less patriotic than the generations that came before, but we were totally unprepared for what our national survey reveals: an epidemic of anti-Americanism. That half of millennials and Gen Z believe that the country in which they live is both ‘racist’ and ‘sexist’ shows that we have a major fraction of an entire generation that has been indoctrinated by teachers starting in grade school that America is what’s wrong with the world.”

Of course, when you look at how the progressive left has been gradually inserting their anti-American ideology into the culture like a political IV dripping poison into the nation’s bloodstream, it is not difficult to discern what has occurred in American society.

The Left Is Succeeding

The progressive left has retained control over the country’s most essential means of expressing ideas. In universities, leftist professors and administrators ensure that students are taught primarily progressive ideas while squelching the spread of any views opposing those beliefs.

Most of the nation’s newspapers and television news outlets are owned and run by progressives, who use these platforms to disseminate leftist ideology to the masses. Through skewed – and often deceptive – reportage, they seek to persuade the American public to adopt their views. They also use their influence to smear conservative politicians, organizations, and leaders.

To make matters worse, it is nearly impossible to go to a movie theater or turn on your favorite sitcom without being bombarded with a slew of progressive messages. The left’s hold on the entertainment industry has empowered them to further their agenda while preventing conservative views from getting into the mainstream.

FLAG’s report demonstrates that progressives have managed to convince young Americans to believe the worst about the United States; if those who continue to love the United States wish to see the paradigm shift back again, they must be willing to fight hard for it.

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After a weekend in which the Trump administration, to much fanfare, announced a breakthrough in the trade war with China according to which Beijing would purchase substantial amounts of US farm products and remove barriers to trade in exchange for the delay of new tariffs, Donald Trump left his top advisers scrambling on Monday to explain just what was in the trade deal he claimed he’d struck with China to reduce tariffs on U.S. cars exported to the country – an agreement that doesn’t exist on paper and hasn’t been confirmed in Beijing.

As we reported earlier, Trump announced the deal in a two-sentence Twitter post late Sunday. The White House provided no additional information, and in a briefing in Beijing a few hours later, a spokesman for the foreign ministry declined to comment on any changes to car tariffs. Asked about the agreement on Monday, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Trump’s top economic adviser, Larry Kudlow, coyly dialed back expectations and added qualifiers.

“I’ll call them ‘commitments’ at this point, which are – commitments are not necessarily a trade deal, but it’s stuff that they’re going to look at and presumably implement,” Kudlow told reporters during a briefing that followed TV interviews and informal briefings by him and Mnuchin earlier in the day.

That wasn’t the extent of the confusion. As part of the broader trade truce, the U.S. said it had agreed to hold off on raising tariffs Jan. 1 while negotiations took place. Bizarrely, Kudlow initially said that the Chinese had 90 days from Jan. 1 to come up with “structural changes” regarding intellectual property protections, forced technology transfer and other issues. The White House later corrected him to say that the 90 days actually began on Dec. 1, Saturday.

With both sides apparently having their own version of what actually transpired during the Saturday night dinner, the confusion was exacerbated by the absence of a joint statement from the U.S. and China following the dinner. Financial markets were left struggling to digest talks that the White House portrayed as a major victory for the president.

“That’s what happens when you don’t have the detailed negotiations going into the summit” and end up with the “broad swath of a 35,000-foot deal,” said Bonnie Glaser, a China expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “It’s risky. There’s certainly no guarantees that it will produce the outcomes that we want.”

But where things got truly bizarre, is that according to the SCMP, a social media post by the US embassy describing the trade agreement between the two nations was being partially censored on Monday, with the WeChat article visible but blocked from forwarding or sharing. The embassy WeChat posts about the outcome of the talks were in English and Chinese.

At the same time, separate posts on the death of former president George H.W. Bush were not similarly affected, and could be shared.

As noted above, the official statements made by China and the United States about what was agreed at the meeting in Argentina between presidents Xi Jinping and Donald Trump contained marked differences and omissions on both sides, which in the absence of a joint statement statement is to be expected. However, for China to censor the US version of events suggests that not only does China have a different take on what really happened on Saturday, but it also disagrees with the US take and – more importantly – wants to prevent the Chinese population from learning what Trump has been telling the US about what took place.

For example, the Chinese statement did not include mention of the 90-day deadline or a requirement that the nation begin buying more US farm, energy and other products.

The US embassy has repeatedly used its account on Tencent Holdings’ WeChat network and other social media to post statements and news critical of China, including about the detention of Muslims in China’s Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region. It was unclear if Beijing had ever gone so far as to censor official US communications, as it did today.

The US embassy declined to comment on a specific post, but a spokesman said the embassy faced regular and routine blocking of social media posts in China.

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Authored by John Vibes via The Mind Unleashed blog,

A study recently conducted by researchers at London Metropolitan University found that touchscreens used by customers at multiple McDonald’s locations were covered in fecal bacteria. Dr. Paul Matawele, one of the lead researchers in the study, explained that the spread of this bacteria could lead to serious infections.

“We were all surprised how much gut and faecal bacteria there was on the touchscreen machines. These cause the kind of infections that people pick up in hospitals. For instance Enterococcus faecalis is part of the flora of gastrointestinal tracts of healthy humans and other mammals. It is notorious in hospitals for causing hospital acquired infections,”Matawele said.

Researchers tested eight different McDonalds locations throughout the London and Birmingham area, and each location had its own collection of different viruses and bacteria, from listeria at one location to Staphylococcus at another.

“Seeing Staphylococcus on these machines is worrying because it is so contagious. It starts around people’s noses, if they touch their nose with their fingers and then transfer it to the touchscreen someone else will get it, and if they have an open cut which it gets into, then it can be dangerous. There is a lot of worries at the moment that staphylococcus is becoming resistant to antibiotics. However, it is still really dangerous in places like Africa where it can cause toxic shock,” Dr. Matawele said.

“Listeria is another rare bacterium we were shocked to find on touchscreen machines as again this can be very contagious and a problem for those with a weak immune system,”Matawele added.

Meanwhile, a vast majority of the samples tested positive for traces of the bacteria Proteus.

Dr. Matewele explains, “Proteus can be found in human and animal faeces. It is also widely distributed in soil. It can cause urinary tract infections and is also one of the hospital acquired infections where it may responsible for septicaemia. Klebsiella is also from the gut and mouth, they are associated with urinary tract infections, septicemia and diarrhoea. Some species can infect the respiratory tract resulting in pneumonia.”

Customers receive their food immediately after touching these screens, and they often wash their hands before ordering their food, instead of after. A spokesperson for McDonald’s said that the machines are cleaned regularly throughout the day.

The statement from McDonald’s said, “Our self-order screens are cleaned frequently throughout the day. All of our restaurants also provide facilities for customers to wash their hands before eating.”

However, Matewele said that the same bacteria could be found on the machines for several days. This study raises concerns about touchscreen technology in general, as they are becoming more common for public use in fast food restaurants and grocery stores.

“Touchscreen technology is being used more and more in our daily lives but these results show people should not eat food straight after touching them, they are unhygienic and can spread disease. Someone can be very careful about their own hygiene throughout the day but it could all be undone by using a touchscreen machine once,” Matewele says.

While touchscreens present an obvious concern, it is likely that most surfaces in public places contain a variety of different germs, so it is always best to be cautious and hygienic.

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A North Dakota man pleaded guilty in federal court on Friday to stealing a forklift as part of a plan to “flip” President Trump’s limo and “kill the president,” according to US Assistant State’s Attorney Brandi Sasse Russell.

“The intent was to basically try to get to the limo, flip the limo and get to the president and he wanted to kill the president” on the day Trump was to speak at the Andeavor Mandan Refinery about tax reform, said Sasse Russell according to the Grand Forks Herald. 

Gregory Lee Leingang, 42, was charged in federal court with one count of attempting to enter or remain in a restricted building and on grounds while using a dangerous weapon, as well one count of attempting to damage government property. –Grand Forks Herald

Just before Trump’s 2 p.m. arrival on September 6, 2017, Leingang stole a forklift in the city of Mandan and entered the motorcade route, according to Sasse Russell. After the forklift became stuck in a gated area, Leingang fled but was later arrested by Mandan police, where he would later admit his plan to local detectives and a member of the United States Secret Service. 

“He was suffering a serious psychiatric crisis during this incident,” said Leingang’s public defender, Michelle Monteiro, during his court hearing.

Leingang told U.S. District Court Judge Daniel Hovland on Friday that he is diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and bipolar disorder, and he has been on and off medications since he was 12 years old. –Grand Forks Herald

Earlier in the day, Leingang set two fires at the state parole and probation office, as well as the Bismarck Municipal Ballpark maintenance shop. He pleaded guilty to setting the fires and was sentenced to 10 years in state prison. He was also sentenced to five years for stealing the forklift, and another five years for an unrelated burglary that he pleaded guilty to. His estimated release from state prison is 2038, while a federal sentencing hearing is scheduled for February. 

He is currently seeing a psychiatrist and therapist in prison and is reportedly doing well now according to his attorney. 

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Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

The fact that lies and cover stories are now the official norm only makes us love our servitude with greater devotion.

We can summarize the current era in one sentence: truth is what we hide, self-serving cover stories are what we sell. Jean-Claude Juncker’s famous quote captures the essence of the era: “When it becomes serious, you have to lie.”

And when does it become serious? When the hidden facts of the matter might be revealed to the general public. Given the regularity of vast troves of well-hidden data being made public by whistleblowers and white-hat hackers, it’s basically serious all the time now, and hence the official default everywhere is: truth is what we hide, self-serving cover stories are what we sell.

The self-serving cover stories always tout the nobility of the elite issuing the PR: we in the Federal Reserve saved civilization by saving the Too Big To Fail Banks (barf); we in the corporate media do investigative reporting without bias (barf); we in central government only lie to protect you from unpleasant realities–it’s for your own good (barf); we in the NSA, CIA and FBI only lie because it’s our job to lie, and so on.

Three recent essays speak to the degradation of data and factual records in favor of self-serving cover stories and corrosive political correctness.

Why we stopped trusting elites (The Guardian)

“It’s not just that isolated individuals are unmasked as corrupt or self-interested (something that is as old as politics), but that the establishment itself starts to appear deceitful and dubious. The distinctive scandals of the 21st century are a combination of some very basic and timeless moral failings (greed and dishonesty) with technologies of exposure that expose malpractice on an unprecedented scale, and with far more dramatic results.

Perhaps the most important feature of all these revelations was that they were definitely scandals, and not merely failures: they involved deliberate efforts to defraud or mislead. Several involved sustained cover-ups, delaying the moment of truth for as long as possible.

(The selective coverage) “generated a sense of a media class who were adept at exposing others, but equally expert at concealing the truth of their own behaviours.

Several of the defining scandals of the past decade have been on a scale so vast that they exceed any individual’s responsibility. The Edward Snowden revelations of 2013, the Panama Papers leak of 2015 and the HSBC files (revealing organised tax evasion) all involved the release of tens of thousands or even millions of documents. Paper-based bureaucracies never faced threats to their legitimacy on this scale.”

From the Late Founder and Editor Robert Parry of the Consortium for Independent Journalism (via John S.P.)

When I was a young reporter, I was taught that there were almost always two sides to a story and often more. I was expected to seek out those alternative views, not dismiss them or pretend they didn’t exist. I also realized that finding the truth often required digging beneath the surface and not just picking up the convenient explanation sitting out in the open.

But the major Western news outlets began to see journalism differently. It became their strange duty to shut down questioning of the Official Story, even when the Official Story had major holes and made little sense, even when the evidence went in a different direction and serious analysts were disputing the groupthink.

Looking back over the past two decades, I wish I could say that the media trend that we detected in the mid-1990s had been reversed. But, if anything, it’s grown worse. The major Western news outlets now conflate the discrete difficulties from made-up “fake news” and baseless “conspiracy theories” with responsible dissenting analyses. All get thrown into the same pot and subjected to disdain and ridicule.

In academia, censorship and conformity have become the norm (Globe and Mail)

In truth, facts today are deemed controversial if they deviate from accepted narratives, and professors must self-censor out of fear of being condemned and losing their jobs.

Based on conversations I’ve had with colleagues still working in academia and from what I can tell about recent cases of censorship, the antagonism is primarily from left-leaning colleagues attacking other liberals.

These instances are indicative of a larger, worrisome trend – instead of debating contentious ideas, those in opposition to them throw words ending in “-phobic” around, shutting the conversation down and pretending they don’t exist.

For those who say ideas that denigrate members of society shouldn’t be entertained, silencing the debate doesn’t make hateful beliefs go away. In many cases, it isn’t controversial findings that pose a threat; the threat comes from the possibility that others will use these facts to justify discrimination. But it’s important that we distinguish between an idea and the researcher putting forth that idea, and the potential for bad behaviour.

With academics avoiding entire areas of research as a result, knowledge currently being produced is constrained, replaced by beliefs that are pleasant-sounding but biased, or downright nonsensical. The recent “grievance studies” investigation, led by academics Peter Boghossian, James Lindsay and Helen Pluckrose, laid bare how bad the problem has become. The trio managed to get seven fake papers (but oh-so politically correct and hence “good to go”–CHS) accepted in high-ranking humanities journals.

In a consumerist-based culture accustomed to 24/7 selling of one self-serving story or another, the fact that lies and cover stories are now the official norm only makes us love our servitude with greater devotion. I’ve noticed a new twist on self-serving propaganda: an alternative opinion isn’t debated, it’s debunked, as if questioning the official narrative is by definition a “conspiracy theory” that can be “debunked” by repeating the official self-serving cover story enough times.

Of related interest:

Global Crisis: the Convergence of Marx, Orwell and Kafka (July 25, 2012)

Are You Loving Your Servitude Yet? (July 25, 2012)

Orwell and Kafka Do America (March 24, 2015)

The Ghosts of 1968 (February 14, 2018)

*  *  *

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Before we examine the markings of a real estate top: San Francisco Bay Area home sellers are cutting their asking prices at alarming rates.

Here are two important real estate forecasts from Bank of American and The Wall Street Journal:

About two months after Bank of America rang the proverbial bell on the US real estate market, indicating existing home sales have peaked, reflecting declining affordability, greater price reductions and deteriorating housing sentiment. It now appears The Wall Street Journal has jumped on the bandwagon in calling the housing market top with a new piece that warns: “US Housing Boom Is Coming To An End, Starting In Dallas.”

With that being said, the unraveling of the housing bubble is spreading across the country. San Francisco Bay Area homes are slashing their asking prices at the highest rate in years, said the San Francisco Chronicle.

On a seasonal basis, September, October, and November have generally been big months for price reductions, as sellers try to close deals before the holidays and early Feburary. However, this year is different, the number and percentage of homes with a price reduction jumped to the highest level since 2012 in the Bay Area and 2011 statewide.

The jump in price cuts, which has spread across the entire county, is more evidence after years of rapid increases, prices are plateauing and risks of a strong seller’s market is developing into 2019.

“Price cuts are a leading indicator because they are reflected immediately,” said Patrick Carlisle, chief market strategist at Compass real estate brokerage.

Although Bay Area home prices are still inching higher on a yearly basis, home sales, median prices and days on the market are considered lagging indicators. This means the turning point in the market could take time but serves as a warning the next cycle could involve a downward momentum in prices.

According to data from Realtor.com, the number of Bay Area homes with a price cut in October nearly doubled, to 238 from 124 last October – a sign that sellers are starting to get desperate.

The San Francisco Chronicle notes that in Santa Clara County, the number of price cuts exploded to 818 last month, more than six times 2017’s figure.

“Clearly, there is a market shift,” said Rich Bennett, a Zephyr agent in San Francisco.

Home sales in the region declined 4% from the same time last year, with more buyers sitting on the sidelines in Santa Clara, Alameda, and Contra Costa counties, according to CoreLogic.

The median sale price in October for existing homes grew 6.9% over the previous year to $860,750. Industry observers say price growth is solid, but it is the slowest rate of growth in more than a year.

CoreLogic analyst Andrew LePage said price growth has moderated as buyers are watching prices fall from record high levels. 

“There’s been a psychological shift in the market,” he said.

“It can only go up, up and away for so long.”

The Bay Area housing market is showing signs of a top. Next comes downward momentum in prices, which could occur as early as Spring 2019, that is when the real panic could set in.

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Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,

They are transforming the Internet into the greatest tool of surveillance that humanity has ever seen, and if we stay on the road that we are currently on it is only a matter of time until our society becomes a hellish dystopian nightmare. 

I wish that this was an exaggeration, but it isn’t.  Over the past couple of decades, the Internet has completely changed the way that we all communicate with one another.  At one time, all forms of mass communication were tightly controlled by the elite, but the Internet suddenly allowed us to communicate with one another on a massive scale without having to go through their gatekeepers.  This radically altered the landscape, and at first the elite were unsure of how to respond to this growing threat.  There was no way that they could roll back time to an era before the Internet was invented, and so they have decided to use it for their own insidious purposes instead.

Today, the Internet has become the centerpiece of their “Big Brother surveillance grid”, and they are gathering information on all of us on a scale that has never been seen before in all of human history.  But of course it was never going to stop there.  Over the past couple of years we have started to watch the elite use all of this information to punish those that are doing or saying things that they do not like.

Perhaps the most extreme example of this phenomenon is what is going on in China.  The following comes from BuzzFeed…

Chinese journalist Liu Hu always knew he’d have trouble with the authorities; he had been exposing corruption and wrongdoing for years. He was used to being hassled with regular fines and forced apologies imposed by his authoritarian government. He nevertheless persisted in truth-telling.

One day in 2017, Hu logged onto a travel site, but couldn’t book a flight because the site said he was “not qualified.” Soon he discovered he was blocked from buying property, using the high-speed train network, or getting a loan. And there was nothing he could do about it. His rights to essential goods and services were now circumscribed through an algorithm designed to discriminate against the 7.5 million people on China’s “Dishonest Persons Subject to Enforcement” list.

In China they call it a “social credit score”, but in reality it is nightmarish authoritarianism at its worst.

They are monitoring all that their citizens do and think – their political opinions, their shopping patterns, their travel history, their Internet behavior, etc. – and if they upset “the Beast system” then they could ultimately lose access to everything.

Put yourself in their shoes for a moment.

Just imagine a world in which you will no longer be able to buy, sell, open a bank account, get a loan, use public transportation or get a job.

Chinese authorities are even putting up surveillance cameras in the schools so that they can constantly monitor students…

Here, the surveillance cameras took the data on individual facial expressions and used that information to create a running “score” on each student and class. If a score reached a predetermined point, the system triggered an alert. Teachers were expected to take action: to talk to a student perceived to be disengaged, for example, or overly moody.

You would think that the Chinese would rebel against such a system, but most are already too fearful to say anything about it.

And some are actually embracing the new system…

In Beijing and throughout China, closed-circuit cameras and other surveillance devices are so ubiquitous that they’ve become part of the landscape. If facial recognition helps with public safety, some say, that’s a good thing.

“Perhaps people would behave themselves more,” said Xia Chuzi, a 19-year-old student interviewed in Beijing.

But we would never allow such a thing to happen here in the United States, right?

Wrong.

While not yet as advanced as what the Chinese have done, our own version of “the Beast system” is expanding with each passing day.

If you use the Internet, the technocratic elite know virtually everything about you.  And as we have seen so frequently in recent months, they also have the power to “deplatform” those that they do not like…

Independent Media readers are well aware of the multitude of ways big tech and social media platforms have been censoring conservatives, from demonetizing video channels, to blocking, banning and shadow banning conservatives, to limiting the reach of promotions and by “tweaking” algorithms so that search results push Independent Media sites so far down that they can rarely be found.

And restricting buying and selling is starting to happen too.  In fact, we have seen numerous online payment platforms ban individuals and organizations that hold “extreme views” recently.

Over time, the information that the elite have about all of us will continue to grow, as will their desire to punish those that think or act “offensively”.  But in the process of creating a “utopia”, they will actually be creating an authoritarian nightmare.  The following comes from Ethan Huff…

Social media is arguably the greatest accomplishment thus far of the “deep state” in establishing a new world order. For one, it allows the various ministries of propaganda around the world to project their official narratives without impediment using authoritarian censorship tactics. It also creates a virtual echo chamber of leftism that, once all the conservatives are finally removed from all the tech platforms, will create the online liberal “utopia” that the social engineers are striving to achieve.

We live at a time when political correctness has become institutionalized.

One wrong opinion, and you can lose a social media account that you spent years building up.  And one wrong statement can cost you a career that you spent years training for.

Ultimately, we are heading down the exact same path that China has gone.  Their “social credit score” system is being hailed as the next great thing all over the world, and those that hate freedom of speech can’t wait to fully implement such a system in the western world.

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A former consul and first secretary at the Ecuadorian embassy in London has put the final nail in the coffin of credibility for The Guardian, refuting the paper’s fantastical and wholly unsupported claim that former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort visited WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in 2013, 2015 and the spring of 2016 – a charge vehemently denied by all parties involved. 

Fidel Narváez – who worked at Ecuador’s London embassy from 2010 – 2018 has told The Canary that The Guardian‘s claim is entirely false. The Canary has also reviewed a copy of correspondence between the Guardian and Narváez in which he makes a formal complaint accusing the paper of fabricating an earlier story about a Kremlin plot to smuggle Assange to Russia. 

Both WikiLeaks and Manafort have said they plan to sue The Guardian over the publication, with Manafort slamming the report as “totally false and deliberately libellous.” 

Narváez – initially consul and then first secretary at the embassy, told the Canary that to his knowledge, Manafort never visited the embassy while he was employed there. What’s more, his account supports points made by The Intercept‘s Glenn Greenwald about visitation rights at the embassy. 

It is impossible for any visitor to enter the embassy without going through very strict protocols and leaving a clear record: obtaining written approval from the ambassador, registering with security personnel, and leaving a copy of ID. The embassy is the most surveilled on Earth; not only are there cameras positioned on neighbouring buildings recording every visitor, but inside the building every movement is recorded with CCTV cameras, 24/7. In fact, security personnel have always spied on Julian and his visitors. It is simply not possible that Manafort visited the embassy.

The Guardian responded to Narváez’s comments, stating: 

“This story relied on a number of sources. We put these allegations to both Paul Manafort and Julian Assange’s representatives prior to publication. Neither responded to deny the visits taking place. We have since updated the story to reflect their denials.”

This answer is counter to a statement made by Manafort following the story’s publication, in which he said “We are considering all legal options against the Guardian who proceeded with this story even after being notified by my representatives that it was false.” 

Furthermore, Manafort’s passport stamps also refute the Guardian‘s reporting, after the Washington Times reported that Manafort’s three passports reveal just two visits to England in 2010 and 2012, which support his categorical denial of the “totally false and deliberately libelous” report in The Guardian, which said that Manafort visited Assange in the Ecuadorian Embassy – ostensibly to coordinate on the WikiLeaks release of Hillary Clinton’s emails. 

WikiLeaks, meanwhile, bet The Guardian “a million dollars and its editor’s head that Manafort never met Assange.” 

This is going to be one of the most infamous news disasters since Stern published the “Hitler Diaries”.

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) November 27, 2018

No word on whether they’ve taken the organization up on its offer. 

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Via Al-Monitor.com,

Intel: How bigoted ‘backsliding’ in Saudi textbooks belies MBS’ reformist credentials

The US Commission on International Religious Freedom criticized Saudi Arabia’s “backsliding” on religious tolerance in a new report on middle and high school textbooks today, further undermining the embattled kingdom’s reformist credentials.

The independent federal government commission contracted a study of 22 textbooks focusing mostly on religious studies published by the Saudi government for the 2017-2018 academic year. It notably found that the books “caution students to avoid friendship with members of other religions […] encourage both violent and non-violent jihad against non-believers [and] espouse the death penalty for women who have an affair, and for gay men.”

“This review revealed an apparent reversal in the previous trend toward tolerance in Saudi textbooks,” the commission concludes.

“They reflect core Wahhabi doctrines and not other trends of Islamic scholarship that are more accepting.”

Why it matters: The report comes as Saudi Arabia’s reputation is already reeling in the United States and around the world following the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. It is especially damaging to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and the multimillion-dollar public relations campaign touting him as a progressive reformer championing a vision of a modern Saudi Arabia by 2030. The Anti-Defamation League, which combats attacks against the Jewish people, released a similar report last week that found that “intolerant language of all kinds still abounds in Saudi Arabia’s government-published textbooks for schoolchildren. The incitement is particularly egregious at the high school level.”

The Salafis strike back: While the US commission does not provide a definitive conclusion for the reasons behind the alleged backsliding, speculation is rife that horse-trading between the royal family and traditional clerics over reforms such as lifting the ban on women driving may have played a role.

“What’s most troubling here is that we’re seeing some backtracking in the education system where they had made progress, which we had verified over the years, in terms of cleaning up some of the worst passages in the textbooks,” said Dwight Bashir, the commission’s director of research and policy.

“In the midst of other forward-leaning reforms in the past couple of years, to see some backsliding in an area that is tightly monitored … by the religious establishment, there might be an element there of some trading.”

The Saudi Embassy in Washington did not respond to a request for comment.

What’s next: The report will now be shared with members of Congress as well as the White House and State Department to figure out how to respond. Lawmakers of both parties have been increasingly vocal about pushing back against President Donald Trump’s desire to move past the Khashoggi affair, with no fewer than three Republican senators – Joni Ernst of Iowa, Mike Lee of Utah and Ben Sasse of Nebraska – urging a tougher response on this Sunday’s political shows. 

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While the S&P is struggling to eek out some modest gains for the year in the last month of the year, for hedge funds 2018 has not only been a scratch, but also one the worst years since the financial crisis, as the following chart shows.

And as the latest anecdotal evidence of just how bad it is for even iconic names in the hedge fund space, Bloomberg reports that Dmitry Balyasny’s multi-strat hedge fund is cutting at least 125 people – roughly one-fifth of the total – as losses and client redemptions have resulted in losses of $4 billion in assets.

According to Bloomberg, the firm eliminated 13 stock teams, accounting for about 40 investment professionals, and plans to reduce the balance of employees from the back office before the end of the year. Among the PMs leaving the firm are Arancha Cano, Jay Rao, Chris Chan, Rob Dishner, Feng Pan and Dan Orr.

While mass layoffs of this size are a rarity in the hedge fund industry, this time there is a good reason: the Chicago-based multi-manager, multi-strategy hedge fund, started 2018 with $11.3 billion in assets, and is now down to just $7.3 billion, its AUM shrinking by a whopping 35%.

What is more troubling is that the bulk of the asset shrinkage is not due to actual losses but redemptions: the firm’s Atlas Global fund fell 3.9% in November, bringing year-to-date losses to 5.3% while a leveraged version dropped 5.7% in the month, and is down 7.9% for the year. This means that the balance of declining assets is due to billions in redemptions.

A silo-based fund, prior to the job cuts Balyasni had roughly 80 internal teams, or about 272 investment professionals, running strategies ranging from credit and global macro to quantitative systematic and equity trading. Most of the losses have come from equities this year.

Balyasny told investors that he expects to be able to improve performance with less money under management; to achieve that the firm said it has hired several investment professionals who will start next year. Of course, if and when that “rightsizing” fails, Balyasny can always convert to a family office which is what so many of its peers have done in recent years, unable to generate alpha and disappointing investors, leaving just “friends and family” money to manage.

And in even more bad news for the industry, David Einhorn’s Greenlight Capital, suffered another decline in what may be its worst year on record, falling 3.5% in November, and extending this year’s losses to almost 28% in the first 11 months of 2018.

Einhorn, like many of his peers, has been struggling to rebound since 2015, when his main fund lost more than 20%. Green Brick
Partners Inc., among Greenlight’s largest U.S. holdings at the end of the third quarter, saw a double-digit decline in November amid a slide for homebuilders. At the same time, AerCap Holdings, Brighthouse Financial and General Motors – one of its largest positions as of Sept. 30 – all posted gains, but were unable to offset the losses on the short book which famously contains both Tesla (which climbed 3.9 percent in November) as well as a bubble basket of companies such as Amazon, which rebounded 5.8% in November.

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