After weeks of failing to calm down the Yellow Vest anti-government movement raging into its 9th week across France, French President Emmanuel Macron has resorted to the pen – releasing a 2,300 word open letter to the country which seeks to turn “anger into solutions.”
Macron says in the letter that he is open to ideas and suggestions but was clear that his government would not reverse previous reforms or key measures from his 2017 election campaign.
“No questions are banned,” reads the letter. “We won’t agree on everything, that’s normal, that’s democracy. But at least we’ll show that we are a people who are not afraid to speak, to exchange views and debate. And perhaps we’ll discover that we might even agree, despite our different persuasions, more often than we think.”
The letter, set for publication in French newspapers on Monday, is a new tactic for the Macron administration – marking the first time citizens have been invited to share their views on four central themes; taxation; how France is governed; ecological transition; and citizenship and democracy, reports The Guardian.
Macron’s missive asks a number of questions, including: what taxes should be reduced?; what spending cuts might be a priority?; is there too much administration?; how can the people be given a greater say in running the country?
Macron said the proposals collected during the debate would build a new “contract for the nation”, influence political policymaking and establish France’s stance on national, European and international issues.
“This is how I intend, with you, to transform anger into solutions,” he wrote.
Accepting that everyone wanted taxes that were “fairer and more efficient”, he warned against unrealistic expectations, adding there could be no drop in taxation without cuts in public spending. –The Guardian
The Macron administration has been under intense pressure since a November backlash over a climate change-linked fuel tax morphed into nine weeks of anti-government protests which have spread to nearly a dozen other countries. To try and calm the Yellow Vests down, Macron has dropped the fuel tax, raised minimum wage, and attempted to employ other economic measures amid a “state of social and economic emergency.”
Thus far, none of it has worked, as the gilets jaunes (yellow vests) continue to picket across the country – calling for lower taxes on food and essential goods, among other things.
In his 2,300 word letter, Macron writes that he will accept “no form of violence,” including “pressure and insults” against “elected representatives, media journalists, state institutions or public servants.”
“If everyone is being aggressive to everyone else, society falls apart,” writes Macron.
A wise decision is greeted by denunciations, obstructionism, imperial thinking, and more Russia-bashing…
President Trump was wrong in asserting that the United States destroyed the Islamic State’s territorial statehood in a large part of Syria – Russia and its allies accomplished that – but he is right in proposing to withdraw some 2,000 American forces from that tragically war-ravaged country. The small American contingent serves no positive combat or strategic purpose unless it is to thwart the Russian-led peace negotiations now underway or to serve as a beachhead for a US war against Iran. Still worse, its presence represents a constant risk that American military personnel could be killed by Russian forces also operating in that relatively small area, thereby turning the new Cold War into a very hot conflict, even if inadvertently. Whether or not Trump understood this danger, his decision, if actually implemented – it is being fiercely resisted in Washington – will make US-Russian relations, and thus the world, somewhat safer.
Nonetheless, Trump’s decision on Syria, coupled with his order to reduce US forces in Afghanistan by half, has been “condemned,” as The New York Times approvingly reported, “across the ideological spectrum,” by “the left and right.” Analyzing these condemnations, particularly in the opinion-shaping New York Times and Washington Post and on interminable (and substantially uninformed) MSNBC and CNN segments, again reveals the alarming thinking that is deeply embedded in the US bipartisan policy-media establishment.
First, no foreign-policy initiative undertaken by President Trump, however wise it may be in regard to US national interests, will be accepted by that establishment. Any prominent political figure who does so will promptly and falsely be branded, in the malign spirit of Russiagate, as “pro-Putin,” or, as was Senator Rand Paul, arguably the only foreign-policy statesman in the senate today, “an isolationist.” This is unprecedented in modern American history. Not even Richard Nixon was subject to such establishment constraints on his ability to conduct national-security policy during the Watergate scandals.
Second, not surprisingly, the condemnations of Trump’s decision are infused with escalating, but still unproven, Russiagate allegations of the president’s “collusion” with the Kremlin. Thus, equally predictably, theTimes finds a Moscow source to say, of the withdrawals, “Trump is God’s gift that keeps on giving” to Putin. (In fact, it is not clear that the Kremlin is eager to see the United States withdraw from either Syria or Afghanistan, as this would leave Russia alone with what it regards as common terrorist enemies.) Closer to home, there is the newly reelected Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, who, when asked about Trump’s policies and Russian President Putin, told MSNBC’s Joy Reid: “I think that the president’s relationship with thugs all over the world is appalling. Vladimir Putin, really? Really? I think it’s dangerous.” By this “leadership” reasoning, Trump should be the first US president since FDR to have no “relationship” whatsoever with a Kremlin leader. And to the extent that Pelosi speaks for the Democratic Party, it can no longer be considered a party of American national security.
But, third, something larger than even anti-Trumpism plays a major role in condemnations of the president’s withdrawal decisions: imperial thinking about America’s rightful role in the world. Euphemisms abound, but, if not an entreaty to American empire, what else could the New York Times’ David Sanger mean when he writes of a “world order that the United States has led for the 79 years since World War II,” and complains that Trump is reducing “the global footprint needed to keep that order together”? Or when President Obama’s national-security adviser Susan Rice bemoans Trump’s failures in “preserving American global leadership,” which a Timeslead editorial insists is an “imperative”? Or when General James Mattis in his letter of resignation echoes President Bill Clinton’s secretary of state Madeline Albright—and Obama himself—in asserting that “the US remains the indispensable nation in the free world”? We cannot be surprised. Such “global” imperial thinking has informed US foreign-policy decision-making for decades—it’s taught in our schools of international relations—and particularly the many disastrous, anti-“order” wars it has produced.
Fourth, and characteristic of empires and imperial thinking, there is the valorization of generals. Perhaps the most widespread and revealing criticism of Trump’s withdrawal decisions is that he did not heed the advice of his generals, the undistinguished, uninspired Jim “Mad Dog” Mattis in particular. The pseudo-martyrdom and heroizing of Mattis, especially by the Democratic Party and its media, remind us that the party had earlier, in its Russiagate allegations, valorized US intelligence agencies, and, having taken control of the House, evidently intends to continue to do so. Anti-Trumpism is creating political cults of US intelligence and military institutions. What does this tell us about today’s Democratic Party? More profoundly, what does this tell us about an American Republic purportedly based on civilian rule?
Finally, and potentially tragically, Trump’s announcement of the Syrian withdrawal was the moment for a discussion of the long imperative US alliance with Russia against international terrorism, a Russia whose intelligence capabilities are unmatched in this regard. (Recall, for example, Moscow’s disregarded warnings about one of the brothers who set off bombs during the Boston Marathon.) Such an alliance has been on offer by Putin since 9/11. President George W. Bush completely disregarded it. Obama flirted with the offer but backed (or was pushed) away. Trump opened the door for such a discussion, as indeed he has since his presidential candidacy, but now again, at this most opportune moment, there has not been a hint of it in our political-media establishment. Instead, a national security imperative has been treated as “treacherous.”
In this context, there is Trump’s remarkable, but little-noted or forgotten, tweet of December 3 calling on the presidents of Russia and China to join him in “talking about a meaningful halt to what has become a major and uncontrollable Arms Race.”
I am certain that, at some time in the future, President Xi and I, together with President Putin of Russia, will start talking about a meaningful halt to what has become a major and uncontrollable Arms Race. The U.S. spent 716 Billion Dollars this year. Crazy!
If Trump acts on this essential overture, as we must hope he will, will it too be traduced as “treacherous” – also for the first time in American history? If so, it will again confirm my often-expressed thesis that powerful forces in America would prefer trying to impeach the president to avoiding a military catastrophe. And that those forces, not President Trump or Putin, are now the gravest threat to American national security.
Despite surprisingly strong 2018 results and 2019 estimates out of General Motors last week, it’s becoming clearer that a recession in the U.S. auto industry is already underway. All one has to do is look around: factories are closing, shifts are being truncated and thousands of layoffs have taken place.
Meanwhile, Detroit is showing increasingly more signs that it is in the midst of a recession as demand for sedans has collapsed. This collapse has been the result of most consumers moving to sport utility vehicles and pick-ups. In fact, the models that used to be the lifeblood of the car industry, sedans like the Honda Accord and Ford Fusion, only made up 30% of US sales in 2018.
Sedans are estimated to sink to 21.5% of the US market by the year 2025, according to research from LMC Automotive. That will leave car manufactures with extra factory capacity that will be capable of producing some 3 million more vehicles than buyers want. This type of overcapacity has resulted in losses and has catalyzed past recessions for the industry.
Jeff Schuster, senior vice president of forecasting at LMC Automotive, simply told Bloomberg: “You could classify this as a car recession.”
As a result, the mood at the upcoming North American International Auto Show in Detroit this week should be a key indicators. The car show is being moved to the summer next year in an attempt to try and re-establish its relevance, as car dealers who are attending this January won’t include once notable attendees as Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Audi. Why? Perhaps because Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas recently predicted that manufacturers will use the Auto Show as an opportunity to lower guidance.
Meanwhile, as we said last Friday when GM raised its guidance, we were skeptical about any material upside, and we remain skeptical.
“We’re not sure if Barra is only raising guidance now to (double) cut it later, or perhaps betting on a timely resolution to the trade war (or maybe both), but it’s tough to feel like there isn’t much more here than what meets the eye,” we noted on Friday. The total overcapacity by US auto makers is the equivalent of 10 extra plants, according to Bloomberg. This would account for at least 20,000 potential jobs being scrapped; this means that more cuts are on their way. Jeff Schuster continued: “GM has taken some actions, but they still have some well-underutilized plants. So we may not be done with this yet.”
Traditionally when this kind of problem has arisen, automakers have taken sedans and stuffed them into rental lots and commercial fleets. Now, that tactic is only serving to add to the current capacity crisis. Fleet channels are already stuffed: these sales helped inflate the market over the last few years, even though individual retail sales peaked three years ago.
Mark Wakefield, head of the automotive practice at distressed turnaround consultant AlixPartners stated: “The car recession and the retail recession have already arrived in the sense that retail sales peaked in 2015 and have gone down ever since. Cars have just been crushed.”
And again, crossover SUVs are getting the blame. Some of the issue is attributed to the fact that SUVs now get almost as good of fuel mileage as sedans. The Chevy Equinox, for instance, only gets one mile less per gallon than the Chevy Malibu, a popular sedan.
But outside of Detroit, executives at companies like Toyota are sticking out with sedans. Jim Lentz of Toyota North America said: “We are not going to get out of that business [making sedans]. We still see an opportunity there.”
Interestingly, the wide adoption of sedans was a result of the last automotive recession. When gas prices were much higher and the industry last had to go through layoffs and plant closings, many of the Detroit factories changed from making SUVs to making sedans, using gas mileage as a selling point. But now, with fuel costs no longer a prohibitive factor, that cycle has turned once again.
With Q4 earnings season officially kicking off this week when the big money center banks report Q4 results, concerns about the economy and the Fed will take a back seat to what companies say about the current state of the economy, and not so much their numbers for the just concluded quarter but how they see the economic environment ahead.
And, as we discussed last week, so far it’s not shaping up to be a pretty 2019 because the recent various warnings, guidance cuts and layoff announcements to date have been nothing short of dismal. Here is a quick summary of what we have observed in just the last week:
Apple cut revenue guidance (for the first time in 16 years)
State Street announced it will cut 15% of its senior management
AQR announced it will cut dozens of jobs
United Technologies ended sale of Chubb fire-safety as bids were too low.
It is in this context that, as Goldman’s David Kostin writes, “the outlook for earnings has taken center stage for equity investors” because weak guidance from several notable companies such as Apple and Macy’s “have heightened the focus on S&P 500 earnings growth.” Indeed, whereas earnings was one of the clear bright spots for US equities throughout much of 2018, some investors are now questioning whether after hitting a peak late last year as the Trump tax cuts are now officially rolling off the year-over-year calendar, profits can continue to grow in 2019. One can see Q4 EPS growth with and without the benefit of taxes in the following chart from Credit Suisse.
First, some background on what Wall Street expects: for 4Q 2018. consensus forecasts 12% EPS growth. According to Goldman, if realized, S&P 500 EPS growth will have equaled 22% in 2018, the fastest annual pace of growth since 2010. Consensus also expects 52 bp of margin expansion (to 10.8%) in the fourth quarter, which is a boost from the 14% reduction in federal statutory corporate tax rates.
Let’s not forget the massive stock buybacks in 2018: in Q4, stock repurchases will add nearly 2% in EPS growth.
And while consensus also forecasts 6% sales growth in 4Q, Goldman expects fewer sales beats than the historical average (36%) given the close relationship between top-line beats and changes in the trade-weighted US dollar. The dollar has become a modest headwind to companies (+4% year/year) and could weigh on sales results.
Drilling down on specific sectors, Energy (+64%) and Financials (+20%) are expected to post the strongest EPS growth in 4Q according to Goldman, while consensus forecasts EPS will decline in two sectors: Utilities and Consumer Staples:
Results in Consumer Staples are still distorted by the reclassification of CVS following its merger with AET. After accounting for this reshuffling, EPS growth in the sector would equal +4%. Margins are expected to grow in every sector except for Communication Services.
So far so good; the problem is company guidance about 2019 where as noted above, the mood is far more somber, and Kostin’s latest weekend piece certainly reflects that.
As the Goldman strategist writes, looking forward into 2019, Goldman’s baseline estimate is for 6% S&P 500 EPS growth (to $173), which however assumes average annual real US GDP growth of 2.6%, real World GDP growth of 3.8%, Brent oil prices of $77 per barrel, and a slightly weaker trade-weighted USD (-1.3%). It also expects S&P 500 profit margins will be roughly flat through 2020, given rising wages and other inputs costs. This means that positive sales growth, roughly in line with nominal GDP growth, will drive nearly all earnings growth; this also suggest that absent top-line increases, or the continuation of a strong US economy, profits will decline.
Indeed, this is where the potential problem emerges because as Kostin admits, recent weakness in the macro landscape could drive up to $5 of potential downside to Goldman 2019 EPS estimate (to $168), for the following reasons:
Our economics team now forecasts average annual real GDP growth of 2.4% for the US (-20 bp vs. baseline) and 3.5% for the world (-30 bp vs. baseline). These slower growth estimates would lower our S&P 500 EPS by roughly $2. The other major development has been the 25% decline in Brent oil prices since the start of 4Q. The futures market implies Brent oil will average $58 per barrel in 2019, $19 below our baseline. The decline in oil prices could lower our 2019 EPS estimate by as much as $2 as the hit to Energy earnings is partially offset by the benefit to consumers and corporate profit margins. Lower bond yields, lower inflation, and a slightly stronger dollar could represent modest downside to our baseline estimate ($1 in total).
This downside scenario EPS estimate of $168 implies just 3% growth vs. the 22% growth in 2018, an 85% drop in profit growth y/y, although here too there is a footnote with Goldman cautioning that the recent volatility of oil prices underscores the uncertainty around 2019 estimates this early in the year. Some additional considerations regarding the price of crude, via Goldman:
lower oil prices is one of the primary sources of downside risk to earnings at the moment. But Energy accounts for a much smaller share of S&P 500 EPS today than in the past. In 2014, before the subsequent 75% drop in Brent oil prices, Energy accounted for 12% of S&P 500 EPS. Today that share stands at just 5%, limiting the downside to aggregate earnings from lower oil prices.
It’s not just Goldman that is turning cautious on 2019 earnings: consensus itself has seen a significant rerating lower, with Wall Street estimates for 2019 S&P 500 EPS trimmed by 4% ($8) from the peak in August. Consensus bottom-up estimates for 2019 S&P 500 EPS reached a peak of $179 in August 2018 but currently stand at $171 (+6% growth). The majority of revisions this year have come through lower margin estimates, as sales growth is still expected to be strong (+7%). Consensus bottom-up forecasts now imply a 20 bp margin contraction in 2019.
To be sure, none of this should come as a surprise to the market, as equity prices have tracked negative earnings revisions tick for tick, with the drop in the S&P Y/Y corresponding to the EPS revisions sentiment, defined as the number of positive EPS revisions less the number of negative EPS as a share of total revisions, and which has also slipped into negative territory. As shown in the chart below, the path of S&P 500 returns has generally tracked this revision sentiment (Exhibit 3).
This, in a nutshell, is why after the December turmoil and January Fed relent, the next big “litmus test” for the near-term path of the market will come from earnings season: should more negative surprises a la Apple emerge, expect EPS revisions to take another sharp leg lower, and drag stocks with them, especially after AAPL’s guidance set in motion further negative revisions, with sentiment declining from –14% to –23% in the past week.
On the other hand, with no nascent signs of slowing negative revisions, the strength of 4Q results and management commentary around the outlook for 2019 will take on heightened importance for whether earnings estimates (and returns) stabilize in the near term.
The Wall Street Journal published an Iran bombshell Sunday morning, confirming the White House had the Pentagon prepare “military options” to strike Iran last year. The sudden request, seen as an unprecedented Iraq-style “shock and awe” attack on Iran, caught the Pentagon off guard, to the point that “State Dept. and Pentagon officials were rattled by the request” which officials further told the WSJ was “mind-boggling” and “cavalier” in terms of how brazen it was.
The request for military options came in early September after the United States accused Iran-backed militias in Iraq of firing three mortars at the US Embassy and diplomatic compound in Baghdad, and at a time that riots and political instability were spreading throughout some major cities in Iraq, especially in the south. It was also an opportunity for noted Iran hawk and national security advisor John Bolton to push for “far-reaching military options to strike Iran”— a regime change project he’s pushed in public many years prior to taking his White House post last April.
Prior to entering the Trump White House, John Bolton was a frequent keynote speaker at Iranian opposition MEK-sponsored events.
The request, which hasn’t been previously reported, came after militants fired three mortars into Baghdad’s sprawling diplomatic quarter, home to the U.S. Embassy, on a warm night in early September. The shells—launched by a group aligned with Iran—landed in an open lot and harmed no one.
But they triggered unusual alarm in Washington, where Mr. Trump’s national security team led by John Bolton conducted a series of meetings to discuss a forceful American response, including what many saw as the unusual request for options to strike Iran.
Though it’s unclear if the strike options ended up on President Trump’s desk following the formal request from the National Security Council, or if they were ever seriously considered by the White House, “It definitely rattled people,” one former senior U.S. administration official described. “People were shocked. It was mind-boggling how cavalier they were about hitting Iran,” the source said.
The WSJ report confirms through admin officials that Bolton has, alongside Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, stuck by his prior public stance of seeking regime change in Tehran, even though Bolton has also acknowledged regime change in Tehran is not part of the president’s agenda.
In talks with other administration officials, Mr. Bolton has made it clear that he personally supports regime change in Iran, a position he aggressively championed before joining the Trump administration, according to people familiar with the discussions.
As a think-tank scholar and Fox News commentator, Mr. Bolton repeatedly urged the U.S. to attack Iran, including in a 2015 New York Times op-ed titled, “To stop Iran’s bomb, bomb Iran.”
…Mr. Bolton has said that his job is to implement the president’s agenda, which doesn’t include regime change in Tehran. The State Department declined to comment
Notably the plans for “military options” requested of the Pentagon included strategies for striking Syria as well.
In the months following September, just prior to Trump’s announced US troops pullout of Syria, the State Department and Pentagon began articulating the US mission in Syria as to “counter Iran” now that ISIS forces had been largely defeated.
Perhaps knowing that Trump was leaning toward an eventual full Syria exit, Iran hawks within his own administration were possibly going “rogue”— as Bolton himself has recently been accused of.
The strike plans were reportedly so wide-ranging that they encompassed targeting pro-Iranian elements in Iraq as well, according to the WSJ:
Alongside the requests in regards to Iran, the National Security Council asked the Pentagon to provide the White House with options to respond with strikes in Iraq and Syria as well, according to people familiar with the talks.
In one meeting, Ms. Ricardel described the attacks in Iraq as “an act of war” and said the U.S. had to respond decisively, according to one person familiar with the meeting.
Following the Sept. 6 mortar attack on the embassy by unknown militants, but which US officials described as Iran-backed groups, the White House issued an official statement on Sept. 11 that appeared to warn of a possible military action: “The United States will hold the regime in Tehran accountable for any attack that results in injury to our personnel or damage to United States government facilities,” the White House said.
In a follow-up interview about the incident weeks later, Pompeo expressed willingness to target Iran for terrorist actions its proxy groups conduct in neighboring Iraq: “Iran will be held accountable for those incidents,” he said in a Sept. 21 CNN interview. “Even militarily?” questioned CNN’s anchor during the interview. “They’re going to be held accountable,” Mr. Pompeo replied, and followed with, “If they’re responsible for the arming and training of these militias, we’re going to go to the source.”
And as recently as this month, administration officials led by Pompeo have accused Iran of using its space satellite launch program to shield a developing nuclear ballistic missile program.
On Jan. 3rd the Secretary of State threatened Iran via a Twitter statement over plans to fire off Space Launch Vehicles that possessed, as Pompeo claimed, “virtually the same technology as ICBMs” in a “defiant” launch that will “advance its missile program.” He added, “We won’t stand by while the regime threatens international security.”
The WSJ described the embassy mortar attack incident as eliciting little coverage in international and US media. Given this, and that it took place in Iraq, yet was still enough for the NSC under Bolton to draw up major military strike plans on Iran, it seems clear that the hawks in the administration are ready to launch the next big regime change war on the smallest provocation.
Might Iran be proven to be behind a more direct attack on American assets abroad (as opposed to accusations against alleged proxies), could the “strike options” fast be put into effect?
Illinois residents are fleeing the state in record numbers. The most recent U.S. Census numbers showed Illinois netted a loss of 114,000 residents to other states in 2018. That means Illinois lost 114,000 more residents than it gained from other states.
Only New York, (-180,000) and California (-156,000) lost more residents on a net basis. New Jersey (-50,000) and Louisiana (-28,000) rounded out the top five largest losers of residents to other states.
How does Illinois rank under an apples-to-apples comparison based on population? Illinois is still the nation’s third-biggest loser.
No matter how you cut the numbers, Illinois is an outlier when it comes to losing people.
Illinois lost nine residents per 1,000 in population in 2018, third only to Alaska (-14.6) and New York (-9.2). Hawaii and Rhode Island rounded out the nation’s five-worst losers of residents to outmigration.
In contrast, 22 states netted resident gains from other states. The biggest winner in the nation was Nevada, which added 15 residents for every 1,000 it had in population in 2018. Idaho, Arizona, South Carolina and Colorado rounded out the nation’s best performers.
Illinois’ neighbors
Illinois’ neighbors fared far better than Illinois, dispelling the notion that Illinois’ outmigration is simply a Rust Belt problem. None of Illinois’ neighbors were on the list of the 20-worst performing states for outmigration.
Iowa lost only one person for every 1,000 in population, while Missouri and Wisconsin had even smaller losses. And both Kentucky and Indiana actually squeaked out small net gains.
Illinois’ losses are chronic
Illinois’ 2018 out migration problem is not a one-off event. The state has consistently lost tens of thousands of people for years.
In total, Illinois has lost a net of 1.5 million people to other states since 2000.
And when compared to other states over time, it becomes obvious that Illinois’ problem is chronic. Illinois has consistently ranked as one of the nation’s biggest losers of residents each year since 2001. Its average rank as a loser of residents over time is nearly 4th in the nation, where 1st is worst.
Meanwhile, Illinois’ neighbors have consistently ranked near the middle of the pack.
Illinois politicians can continue to ignore the massive mess they’ve created – from the country’s worst pension crisis to the nation’s highest property taxes to the lowest credit rating of any state. But as long as politicians fail to fix things, residents will continue to leave. And with them goes the tax base.
You don’t have to wonder what the wake up call is going to be. If it’s not the exodus of Illinoisans, it’s going to be insolvency. Illinois’ tax base simply won’t support all the debt that’s been built up.
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Want to know why everybody’s leaving Illinois? Read the below:
A Friday report in the New York Times revealing that the FBI supercharged its Trump-Russia collusion investigation after President Trump fired FBI director James Comey appears to have backfired – especially when one reviews internal FBI communications from the time period in question.
The Daily Caller‘s Chuck Ross has made a brilliant observation, noting Peter Strzok – then the FBI’s deputy chief of counterintelligence, admitted to his FBI lawyer mistress, Lisa Page, that there was no merit to the investigation.
Nine days after Comey was fired and the DOJ “sought to determine whether Mr. Trump was knowingly working for Russia,” Strzok texted Page on May 18, 2017: “You and I both know the odds are nothing. If I thought it was likely I’d be there no question. I hesitate in part because of my gut sense and concern there’s no big there there.”
It is unclear from The Times report what information was used as a predicate to open the investigation. The article suggests that the FBI had long considered the move and that Comey’s firing and Trump’s subsequent comments marked a tipping point.
…
A source close to Strzok told The Daily Caller News Foundation on Jan. 26, 2018, shortly after the text was released, that the message reflected Strzok’s concern that the FBI would not find evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. –Daily Caller
The Times’ explanation for the FBI’s rationale that Trump may have been a Russian asset consists of Trump’s call for Moscow to release Hillary Clinton’s emails an election debate, and allegations contained within the unverified Steele Dossier. The Times was also quick to note that Trump may have “unwittingly fallen under Moscow’s influence,” to temper the accusation that he was an agent of a foreign power. In short, weak sauce.
It’s no wonder Strzok was hesitant to join Mueller’s team.
Interestingly, another series of Strzok-Page texts refers to “coordinating investigation” after Strzok apparently met with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who both recommended Comey’s firing, then authorized the special counsel probe.
Some interesting Strzok-Page texts from after Comey was fired. Strzok seems to have met 1-on-1 w/ Rosenstein. They discussed “coordinating investigation.” https://t.co/YRorqpz97gpic.twitter.com/FYgTk1YjcW
As Ross notes in The Daily Caller, there were other text messages that between Strzok and Page which raise suspicion over whether the FBI was working on a “gotcha” against Trump.
“And we need to open the case we’ve been waiting on now while Andy is acting,” Strzok texted Page the day Comey was fired, referring to then-deputy FBI director Andrew McCabe.
Meanwhile, Page – who served as McCabe’s deputy, provided some additional color on the text messages during her July 2018 congressional testimony, suggesting that the “case we’ve been waiting on” text referred to an investigation separate of the obstruction probe we already knew about.
“Well, other than obstruction, what could it have been?” one lawmaker asked Page in her interview, details of which were published by The Epoch Times on Friday.
“I can’t answer that, sir. I’m sorry,” she replied.
“If I was able to explain in more depth why the Director firing precipitated this text, I would,” she continued while declining to say if the text message referred to an obstruction of justice investigation or something more. –Daily Caller
That said, Page admitted that Comey’s firing prompted the text exchange.
“So the firing of Jim Comey was the precipitating event as opposed to the occupant of the Director’s office?” asked one lawmaker.
“Yes, that’s correct,” replied Page.
Meanwhile, The Times went to great lengths to imply that the FBI was justified in their ratcheted-up collusion investigation – failing to mention who started the probe, who led it, and more importantly – waiting until the 9th paragraph to mention the fact that it turned up nothing.
“No evidence has emerged publicly that Mr. Trump was secretly in contact with or took direction from Russian government officials. An F.B.I. spokeswoman and a spokesman for the special counsel’s office both declined to comment.”
No mention in story who launched probe: McCabe—fired and under grand jury investigation, nor mention of counterintelligence official leading it: Peter Strzok—corrupt and politically motivated agent who advocated using FBI to unseat Trump.. Huge omissions. https://t.co/5rSUMBgUSX
As the government shutdown continues, it’s worth underscoring that the precipitating factor—President Donald Trump’s insistence that any new spending bill include somewhere around $5 billion for the construction of a border wall, barrier, or fence—is built upon a foundation of sand. The president insists that “there is a growing humanitarian and security crisis at our southern border,” but the evidence of that is scant.
Over the past several years, including two during which the Republican Party controlled the White House and Congress and could have appropriated funds to build the wall that Candidate Trump promised in speech after speech (usually claiming Mexico would pay the bill), there has been no mad rush or spike in people, especially terrorists, or drugs flowing north from Mexico that justify talk of crisis, especially one that can only be addressed by building physical barriers in the middle of nowhere.
Indeed, the number of illegal immigrants in the country is at a 10-year low and the number of people caught trying to enter the country illegally between checkpoints on the Southern border is one-fourth of what it was in 2000 (see chart). Compared to decades past, the majority of most people entering the country do so legally and then overstay tourist, student, or work visas. In 2016, the Department of Homeland Security said 170,000 people entered the country illegally outside of border checkpoints while 628,000 people who entered the country legally overstayed visas. Whether traveling alone or as a family, asylum seekers from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador offer themselves to authorities in order to start the application process and, even though are overwhelmingly likely to be denied asylum (more on that in a moment), voluntarily show up for court dates between 83 percent and 99 percent of the time, according to government data.
As Cato’s Alex Nowratesh has documented, the terrorist risk posed by people crossing the Southern border is vanishingly small. Between 1975 and 2017, 20 foreign-born terrorists who entered the country either illegally or as asylees. “[Eleven] terrorists who entered as asylum seekers murdered 9 people in terrorist attacks…. Of those 9 terrorists who entered illegally, only 3 did so along the border with Mexico.” The perpetrators were ethnic Albanians from Macedonia who were brought here as children. To the extent that drugs, especially heroin and fentanyl, flow north, they overwhelmingly enter the country by being smuggled through legal checkpoints. Building walls or fences isn’t going to stop that. Nor will lying about the number of terrorists supposedly caught at the border, as White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders did recently (she claimed, against all evidence, that the government had caught 4,000 “known or suspected terrorists” on the Southern border in 2017; in fact, six immigrants were snagged).
And yet respectable leading Republicans (no, not you, Rep. Steve King) such as Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas) insist, like the president, that we are suddenly so deep in crisis nothing short of a wall can fix it. Not long ago, both were Tea Party darlings whose emphasis was on reducing the size, scope, and spending of government across the board. Though both voted for a short-term spending bill in December that didn’t include wall funding, they now agree that the government should not reopen until Trump gets his money. In 2010, I remember hearing Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants, give a speech at a Club for Growth event that raised the hair on the back of my neck. He explicitly spoke not just to the wealthy grandees in the dinner hall that night but to the mostly Latino wait staff who lined the back of the room. America, he said, was a land of opportunity that has prospered materially and morally to the extent that we have been open to people coming here to work hard and pursue happiness. The future of his Republican Party, I remember him saying, depended on reaching out to newcomer immigrants and making it clear that they, like his parents, were welcome participants in the American experiment.
Early on in his Senate career, Rubio was a member of the so-called Gang of Eight, a group of senators who crafted comprehensive immigration reform that included a path to legalization for currently illegal immigrants, streamlined and expanded visas programs for both high-skill and low-skill workers, and various security measures, including increased requirements for employers to verify worker status. The Gang of Eight plan was recognized as a moderate plan and passed the Senate overwhelmingly in 2013 by a vote of 68 to 32. The Republican House, led by Speaker John Boehner, refused to vote on the measure and it died, taking with it Rubio’s commitment to immigration reform. Since that defeat—and massive abuse from increasingly nativist Republican voters, commentators, and elected officials—Rubio switched directions and fallen in line with restrictionists. He reversed his position on “dreamers,” young immigrants brought here illegally as children by their parents, and has rejected a path to legal status for them. And he is currently joining in the Trump administration’s demand for a wall as a precondition for reopening the government.
The new caravan forming in Honduras is proof that what is happening at the border is a crisis. Primarily a humanitarian one. Our porous border is luring more families with children to undertake a dangerous journey. Placing children in danger & overwhelming our asylum system.
It’s nice to see that some humanity remains in Rubio—he says the current “crisis” is “primarily a humanitarian one”—but he is wrong to imply that something has changed in our border policies or large-scale immigration flows.
In fact, about 50 percent of all asylum claims between 2011 through 2016 were denied. The denial rates are far, far higher than average for people from countries that are causing so much anxiety now. Over that time period, 90 percent of asylum claims for applicants from Mexico were denied and similarly long odds were faced by Salvadorans (83 percent denied), Hondurans (80 percent), and Guatemalans (77 percent). To the extent that the number of people, particularly families, applying for asylum has increased, that’s primarily driven by events in home countries, not changes in our immigration policies. Since 2016, no one inside or outside of the United States is under the impression that we are rolling out the red carpet for the world’s wretched refuse. Indeed, President Trump has tightened up asylum rules so that those presenting themselves at the border are less likely to be approved. If the recent deaths of migrant children have highlighted problems with Customs and Border Protection (CBP), those problems date back to well before Donald Trump took office. And they constitute not a crisis to be solved by a border wall or the declaration of a national emergency but better oversight and use of either existing or increased resources.
For his part, Ted Cruz has reintroduced his “El Chapo Act,” which
would reserve any amounts forfeited to the U.S. Government as a result of the criminal prosecution of “El Chapo” (formally named Joaquin Archivaldo Guzman Lorea) and other drug lords for border security assets and the completion of the wall along the U.S.-Mexico border…
Currently the U.S. Government is seeking the criminal forfeiture of more than $14 billion in drug proceeds and illicit profits from El Chapo, the former leader of the Sinaloa drug cartel who was extradited to the U.S. to face criminal prosecution for numerous alleged drug-related crimes, including conspiracy to commit murder and money laundering.
Cruz has released a video, complete with animated graphics, to explain how this all would work.
Whatever else you can say about Cruz’s video, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) is emphatic that virtually all heroin and fentanyl enters the country through legal checkpoints. In its most recent Drug Threat Assessment, the agency says,
A small percentage of all heroin seized by [Customs & Border Patrol] along the land border was between Ports of Entry (POEs)…. The majority of the flow is through [privately owned vehicles] entering the United States at legal ports of entry, followed by tractor-trailers, where the heroin is co-mingled with legal goods.
Donald Trump’s insistence that there is a crisis on the border between the United States and Mexico has won over more than Rubio and Cruz. Rep. Mark Meadows (R-Tenn.), the leader of the so-called Freedom Caucus in the House of Representatives, has gone on the record calling for extraordinary measures, including the use of asset forfeiture and a national emergency to build the president’s wall:
Democrats continue to refuse to negotiate in good faith or appropriate any money for border barriers. If they won’t compromise, POTUS should use asset forfeiture money or other discretionary fees to start construction. If not, he should declare a national emergency. It’s time.
The Freedom Caucus was founded in 2015 and its mission statement reads in part:
The House Freedom Caucus gives a voice to countless Americans who feel that Washington does not represent them. We support open, accountable and limited government, the Constitution and the rule of law, and policies that promote the liberty, safety and prosperity of all Americans.
There is evidence that Trump’s insistence both on a border crisis and the need for a wall is slowly wearing down opposition, especially given the uncomfortable fact that leading Democrats such as Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (N.Y.) have voted for barriers in recent memory and they continue to speak the language of increasing “border security.” Although Trump continues to have historically low approval ratings, support for a wall has actually risen slightly over the past six months or so. Call it the art of the deal or whatever you want, but the guy wears people out until they give him what he wants.
This is the peculiar genius of Donald Trump, and it’s not trivial. More so than any other politician on the scene, he is able to set the terms of the national conversation. He may well “lose” the shutdown in the sense that he and the Republicans may suffer losses in 2020 or beyond. But there’s every reason to believe that by the end of 2019, some sort of groundbreaking will have begun on a wall (or fence, or whatever) designed to address a crisis that doesn’t exist.
The government shutdown is just providing more evidence that the government itself is unnecessary. Private companies in the Yellowstone area are voluntarily paying to keep the park clean without federal funding.
According to Reason, nearly three weeks into the government shutdown, some of America’s national parks are starting to get a bit rank. Access to the parks (which are supposedly “owned” by the people who think they are the government) is free since there are no employees to collect the typical $35-per-vehicle entrance fee. But that comes with the trade-off of there being no employees to empty trash bins or clean toilets either.
Meanwhile, without being forced by the government, private companies are voluntarily paying to keep Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming clean. National Public Radioreports, local businesses are chipping in to make sure the bathrooms get cleaned, the roads get plowed, and the tourists keep coming. Even in the middle of winter, the park gets an estimated 20,000 visitors per month—and those hardy folks want to rent snowmobiles, hire tour guides, and take sightseeing trips. The private-sector businesses that thrive on those tourist dollars have a pretty strong incentive to make sure Yellowstone remains accessible – much more incentive than the government has.
This is what voluntary interaction looks like. Not one single person is forcing these companies to pay for snow plowing, however, because it is in their best interests, they have decided to foot the bill. Xanterra Parks and Resorts, which runs the only hotels inside Yellowstone that remain open during the winter, is leading the effort to cover the $7,500 daily tab for keeping the roads plowed and the snowmobile trails groomed during the shutdown, NPR further reports. Thirteen other private businesses that offer tours of the park are also chipping in $300 a day to help cover that expense.
There’s also probably a useful lesson here about what the privatization of national parks would look like. Rather than the corporatized dystopia of environmentalist nightmares, removing the government from the equation would allow businesses that have a vested interest in maintaining and protecting America’s natural splendor to do exactly that – and would prevent the parks from being caught up in the unrelated drama of whatever nonsense is happening in Washington, D.C. –Reason
In all, it seems like a pretty straightforward lesson about how private businesses will respond to changing market conditions and incentives. Keeping the park accessible means those businesses can continue to profit off tourists, government shutdown or not. The market has responded and as government becomes more obsolete and people begin to realize they can live their lives without a master dictating their every move and stealing their money, there will be more and more stories such as this that come to light.
As the government shutdown continues, it’s worth underscoring that the precipitating factor—President Donald Trump’s insistence that any new spending bill include somewhere around $5 billion for the construction of a border wall, barrier, or fence—is built upon a foundation of sand. The president insists that “there is a growing humanitarian and security crisis at our southern border,” but the evidence of that is scant.
And yet respectable leading Republicans (
There is evidence that Trump’s insistence both on a border crisis and the need for a wall is slowly wearing down opposition, especially given the uncomfortable fact that leading Democrats such as Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (N.Y.) have voted for barriers 