Month: July 2019

How 2 Women Used Sex, Activism, and Title IX To Scam a Harvard Professor Out of His House, Job, and Money

Stop what you’re doing and read this amazing story in The Cut about Bruce Hay, a Harvard Law School professor who is currently serving an indefinite suspension while the university investigates Title IX claims against him.

Title IX, the gender equality law oft-cited as a pretext to deprive accused students and professors of due process rights during sexual misconduct tribunals, is a minor villain in The Cut piece, which relates how two horrible women perpetrated a long con on Hay that eventually deprived him of his house and livelihood. He has spent $300,000 in legal fees keeping the pair, Maria-Pia Shuman and Mischa Haider, at bay.

Shuman approached Hay in a hardware store in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 2015. She claimed she was visiting from Paris, and staying with Haider, a trans woman working on a doctorate at Harvard. Hay was divorced, but living with his ex-wife and their children. Shuman claimed she was a lesbian—both her and Haider were outspoken feminists and social justice advocates—but found Hay stunningly attractive. They met for coffee, then for dinner, and finally had a sexual encounter.

Months later, Shuman claimed that she was pregnant with Hay’s child. He readily believed her, even though he didn’t think the sexual encounter had progressed far enough for this to be biologically possible. Hay wanted to be as involved with the baby as possible, but Shuman wanted him to leave his ex-wife, and his refusal to do so infuriated her. Nevertheless, he eventually met Haider, and the trio formed a relationship, of sorts:

Their bond appeared instantaneous. “We had similar political views,” he says. “[Haider] told me a lot about the trans world. I had known nothing about it.” Soon they were getting together almost daily, talking for hours, sometimes meeting at a coffee shop near Harvard called Darwin’s. Haider regularly texted and emailed Hay articles and statistics about trans women being brutalized and murdered by men.

A month after their first coffee, Haider texted Hay to say, “I am so happy we met, you’re wonderful and stimulating company, I understand why MP is crazy about you.” Behind his back, though, the women mocked Hay. In a text message to Haider that they provided, Shuman refers to him as “Fucking desperado.” By then, Hay rarely saw Shuman anymore. Still, they began discussing the possibility of Hay moving in with them. They would be a family, she said: Hay, Shuman, Haider, and their children, including the new baby.

In the weeks leading up to the January due date, Hay used his publishing connections to help Haider pursue her writing. They began collaborating on projects….Haider asked him to share a byline, but he usually served as more of an editor and agent, reaching out to magazine editors to help place their work, including an op-ed for Huffington Post on anti-discrimination bathroom bills and another for The Guardian on the need to block Judge Neil Gorsuch’s nomination to the Supreme Court. When Shuman was too pregnant to travel, Hay accompanied Haider to Phoenix to consult with a doctor about scheduling gender-affirmation surgery in the spring.

Finally, Hay’s ex-wife, Jennifer Zacks, became suspicious about how much time he spent crying on the phone with these two women, and Hay confessed everything. Zacks, who is much less oblivious than Hay, immediately suspected that he was being duped, but he refused to see it.

What followed was a series of outrages. Shuman and Haider tried to bully Hay into “disentangling” himself from Zacks by either selling their house or buying Zacks out of it. They wanted him spending money on their house, and repeatedly pushed him to take out a home equity loan. At the same time, they habitually accused Hay of abusing, even “torturing” them, and constantly threatened to tell the police he had raped them.

At all times, Shuman and Haider wielded their purported victimhood as a weapon. It was their self-defense, and it worked on Hay like a charm. Shuman claimed to have cancer, and when Zacks told Hay she thought this was a lie, he thunderously replied, “How dare you question these people who are suffering?” Later, Haider began reporting Hay to Harvard’s Title IX office, claiming, “I have been in an extremely abusive situation with a faculty member and it has been taking a tremendous toll on me. I’m sorry I have not reached out earlier but coming to this decision was difficult and painful. My functioning on many levels has gone to zero, my interest in anything has vanished, I’m transgender and it has taken a horrific toll on my transition.”

Shuman and Haider’s biggest victory came after they convinced Hay to give them his computer password. They then orchestrated a series of events that made it seem like he had decided to lease the home he shared with Zacks to Shuman and Haider. The women waited until Hay and Zacks were gone: When Hay returned, he discovered that his “beautiful Italianate home on a quiet corner of Mount Vernon Street had been emptied of his family’s furniture, cookware, toys, documents, books, Zacks’s mother’s and grandmother’s heirlooms — and everything replaced with the women’s furniture. When Shuman had gone MIA in Quebec, Hay believes, she wasn’t seeing a doctor. She’d been overseeing the complicated move, all $10,000 of which had been charged to Hay’s credit card.”

Suffice it to say, Shuman and Haider are con artists. The author of the piece, Kera Bolonik, presents evidence that Shuman has done the pregnancy scam before.

Zacks and Hay recovered the house. Hay has sued the women. The Title IX investigation is still pending, though according to Bolonik, “Hay has already run afoul of investigators for reaching out to journalists (namely me), which they view as an act of retaliation.” I have often criticized Title IX for its retaliation component, which calls to mind Catch-22: attempting to prove one’s innocence, or to object to the way universities are interpreting Title IX, can be seen as a form of retaliatory behavior that is forbidden under Title IX.

Much like the story I covered yesterday—the case of the transgender activist trying to persuade the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal to force a female-only Brazilian wax business to perform the service on her male genitalia—this is an example of some of the very worst people on the planet weaponizing the rules against unsuspecting victims. It would be a mistake to blame all of feminism, or trans activism, for the cruel and predatory behavior of a few bad people.

But this is far from the first horrific Title IX story I’ve encountered: in fact, more than a hundred people have sued universities for violating their rights because of Title IX, and won. While Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has made some important reforms, more must be done to tame this beast.

It should be noted that Harvard Law School’s faculty have been among the most vocal opponents of Title-IX-run-amok. Their stand seems even braver in hindsight, as Harvard’s administration recently declared all-out war on the principles of due process. In any case, Bolonik concludes Hay’s story with this:

Hay remains mystified about what the women really wanted from him.
Money appears to be a factor but not necessarily the only one — after all, theirs was a long, expensive, and punitive game with no guarantee of a big payoff. Hay says Shuman once told him they’d targeted him for signing an open letter in late 2014 calling for more due process in Harvard’s Title IX proceedings. (Shuman denies ever saying this.) “I don’t know if that’s the real reason or something she made up later,” says Hay. In May 2018, Hay received a barrage of text messages from an unknown number: “Find a way to connect if you want a chance to take the last exit before HELL … Take my word, you ain’t seen nothing yet. I promise. Oh and as to your quest for motives? Don’t bother. I just really hate the patriarchy, that’s it.”

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North Korea Detains Crew Of Russian Fishing Vessel – “Harsh” Interrogations Alleged

Russian officials confirmed Wednesday that 15 of its nationals as well as two South Koreans have been detained for the past week after their fishing vessel drifted into North Korean waters. 

The Russian embassy in the DPRK cited the country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs to say the vessel and crew were seized for “violating the rules of entry and stay in the territory of (North Korea).”

File photo: North Korean border patrol boat, via Maritime Bulletin 

Following their July 17 arrest by border guards, the crew has since been detained at a hotel in the city of Wonsan, with the ship, identified as a Russian fishery company owned vessel, has been impounded in the same city. 

According to Reuters:

South Korea’s Unification Ministry in charge of inter-Korean affairs said on Wednesday that the two South Korean sailors are safe and it has been striving to secure their freedom through consultations with their families, North Korea and Russia.

The ministry further said North Korea hasn’t responded to South Korea’s repeated calls for the repatriation of its two citizens, described as two men in their 50’s and 60’s.

Russian embassy officials have described the detained crew as “in good health” and are seeking to secure their release through “constant contact” with the government in Pyongyang.

Reports say the embassy is further seeking “clarification” on what happened following an official from the company that owns the seized vessel saying border guards handled the crew in “a very harsh manner”. 

As Al Jazeera reports, “The deputy director of Northeast, Sergei Sedler, said the vessel was fishing for crab and travelled from South Korea to the Sea of Japan when it was detained some 55 nautical miles (100 kilometres) from the North Korean border. “

The company official described to Russia’s Kommersant newspaper: “Twice a day they are questioning and searching them in a very harsh manner” — in reference to the crew. 

Though Moscow and Pyongyang currently enjoy positive trade and diplomatic relations, a 2016 incident which involved the opposition scenario – a North Korean vessel drifting into Russian waters – turned deadly.

That prior incident involved a packed North Korean commercial fishing vessel (reports at the time indicated 48 crew) allegedly “acting aggressively” and attempting to flee when boarded by Russian border patrol guards in the Sea of Japan. One Russian border patrol officer and nine North Korean fishermen were injured after the Russians opened fire as the crew resisted, with one North Korean later dying in the hospital. 

No doubt Pyongyang has this prior incident front and center in its mind as Russia seeks to negotiate the release of its 15 citizens currently being held after illegally entering North Korean waters. 

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The Justice Department’s ‘Big Tech’ Antitrust Investigation Is Unnecessary Political Theater

The conservative-led media backlash against Google, Facebook, and other big technology firms has crossed the threshold from punditry to actual government action.

The Justice Department announced on Monday evening announced that it has launched an anti-trust investigation into those companies and others. Officially, the department wants to determine “whether and how market-leading online platforms have achieved market power and are engaging in practices that have reduced competition, stifled innovation, or otherwise harmed consumers,” the Justice Department said in a statement. The review will seek “to ensure Americans have access to free markets in which companies compete on the merits to provide services that users want.”

That all sounds pretty reasonable, but it’s probably right to view the Justice Department’s action with skepticism—for several reasons.

First, because it’s duplicative. The Federal Trade Commission, which shares antitrust enforcement authority with the Justice Department, has already launched a task force to investigate many of the same issues with America’s largest tech platforms. In February, the FTC said the new task force would “closely examine technology markets to ensure consumers benefit from free and fair competition.”

Tech firms are also under pressure from Congress, which has repeatedly hauled the CEOs of Facebook and other top tech firms into hearings to answer for their alleged role in helping Trump get elected or for supposedly stifling Trump supporters’ online speech—depending on which day of the week it is. It’s unclear what the Justice Department thinks it can add to the show.

Second, the lack of a clear rationale for the Justice Department’s investigation makes this look like a politically motivated operation. Earlier this month, President Donald Trump hosted a so-called “social media summit” at the White House—and used the occasion chiefly to complain about not having enough Twitter followers. During a lengthy speech, Trump also promised to explore “all regulatory and legislative solutions to protect free speech” online, though he also indicated that his definition of “free speech” does not include speech he deems “bad” or “dangerous.”

As Reason‘s Robby Soave wrote at the time, “it’s true that objectively false and disparaging speech can in some cases be deemed libelous. But speech that merely strikes Trump as ‘bad’ does not lose its First Amendment protection.”

The Justice Department is not clarifying whether its investigation will include platforms’ policing of online speech, but the timing and the seemingly open-ended nature of the review create the opportunity for the Justice Department’s antitrust enforcement powers to be used for obviously political purposes.

Finally, even if the investigation sticks to traditional anti-trust legal ground, there’s little indication that government action is necessary to “break up” or regulate tech firms. But that hasn’t stopped both Republicans and Democrats from cheerleading for the use of government force against Apple, Google, and Facebook.

“Antitrust enforcers must now be bold and fearless in stopping Big Tech’s misuse of its monopolistic power,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D–Conn.) said in a statement after the Justice Department’s announcement on Monday.

But does Big Tech have “monopolistic power”? Not at all. Those big firms are in constant competition with one another and with smaller competitors. Critics of Facebook, for example, like to point out that 70 percent of Americans who say they use social media have a Facebook account. But that proves exactly the opposite point. Facebook isn’t the only social media platform, just like Google isn’t the only search engine, and Amazon isn’t the only online marketplace. Merely being “big” is not enough to justify government action.

“The DOJ must resist the siren song of populism and only investigate actual evidence of consumer harm,” says Carl Szabo, vice president and general counsel for NetChoice, a nonprofit that advocates for free markets online. “These businesses cannot be considered monopolies when they compete against one another. Competition in tech is fierce.”

History bears that out. In 2007, there were fears that MySpace would never “lose its monopoly” over social media. In the late 90s and early 2000s, Yahoo! and GeoCities had a seemingly dominant grip on searching and web traffic. Remember Netscape? Gen Z readers may know a few of these companies by name, but no one under the age of 25 likely ever used the Netscape browser, built a GeoCities homepage, or friended Tom on Myspace. And that’s the point.

Facebook would join that list tomorrow if all its users deleted their accounts. The fact that it endures is not proof that it holds monopolistic power over Americans’ online activities, but—contra the Justice Department’s announcement on Monday—it is evidence that users see something of value in having a Facebook account.

Part of the problem is that government antitrust actions often misunderstand the dynamics of tech markets. In March, when the specter of antitrust action was first raised by Congress, venture capitalist Benedict Evans wrote a useful Twitter thread outlining the difference between how tech firms compete for a new market and an established one. Even when there is a “winner,” he noted, that outcome can be subject to change with new developments that make old technology irrelevant—think of how Apple’s iPhone displaced the BlackBerry, or how Google overtook Microsoft (a one-time target of government action because it was supposedly a monopoly).

“Tech anti-trust too often wants to insert a competitor to the winning monopolist, when it’s too late,” Evans wrote. “Meanwhile, the monopolist is made irrelevant by something that that comes from totally outside the entire conversation and owes nothing to any anti-trust interventions.”

It’s not the Justice Department or the FTC that will take down Facebook or Google. It’s something you haven’t heard about yet.

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The Justice Department’s ‘Big Tech’ Antitrust Investigation Is Unnecessary Political Theater

The conservative-led media backlash against Google, Facebook, and other big technology firms has crossed the threshold from punditry to actual government action.

The Justice Department announced on Monday evening announced that it has launched an anti-trust investigation into those companies and others. Officially, the department wants to determine “whether and how market-leading online platforms have achieved market power and are engaging in practices that have reduced competition, stifled innovation, or otherwise harmed consumers,” the Justice Department said in a statement. The review will seek “to ensure Americans have access to free markets in which companies compete on the merits to provide services that users want.”

That all sounds pretty reasonable, but it’s probably right to view the Justice Department’s action with skepticism—for several reasons.

First, because it’s duplicative. The Federal Trade Commission, which shares antitrust enforcement authority with the Justice Department, has already launched a task force to investigate many of the same issues with America’s largest tech platforms. In February, the FTC said the new task force would “closely examine technology markets to ensure consumers benefit from free and fair competition.”

Tech firms are also under pressure from Congress, which has repeatedly hauled the CEOs of Facebook and other top tech firms into hearings to answer for their alleged role in helping Trump get elected or for supposedly stifling Trump supporters’ online speech—depending on which day of the week it is. It’s unclear what the Justice Department thinks it can add to the show.

Second, the lack of a clear rationale for the Justice Department’s investigation makes this look like a politically motivated operation. Earlier this month, President Donald Trump hosted a so-called “social media summit” at the White House—and used the occasion chiefly to complain about not having enough Twitter followers. During a lengthy speech, Trump also promised to explore “all regulatory and legislative solutions to protect free speech” online, though he also indicated that his definition of “free speech” does not include speech he deems “bad” or “dangerous.”

As Reason‘s Robby Soave wrote at the time, “it’s true that objectively false and disparaging speech can in some cases be deemed libelous. But speech that merely strikes Trump as ‘bad’ does not lose its First Amendment protection.”

The Justice Department is not clarifying whether its investigation will include platforms’ policing of online speech, but the timing and the seemingly open-ended nature of the review create the opportunity for the Justice Department’s antitrust enforcement powers to be used for obviously political purposes.

Finally, even if the investigation sticks to traditional anti-trust legal ground, there’s little indication that government action is necessary to “break up” or regulate tech firms. But that hasn’t stopped both Republicans and Democrats from cheerleading for the use of government force against Apple, Google, and Facebook.

“Antitrust enforcers must now be bold and fearless in stopping Big Tech’s misuse of its monopolistic power,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D–Conn.) said in a statement after the Justice Department’s announcement on Monday.

But does Big Tech have “monopolistic power”? Not at all. Those big firms are in constant competition with one another and with smaller competitors. Critics of Facebook, for example, like to point out that 70 percent of Americans who say they use social media have a Facebook account. But that proves exactly the opposite point. Facebook isn’t the only social media platform, just like Google isn’t the only search engine, and Amazon isn’t the only online marketplace. Merely being “big” is not enough to justify government action.

“The DOJ must resist the siren song of populism and only investigate actual evidence of consumer harm,” says Carl Szabo, vice president and general counsel for NetChoice, a nonprofit that advocates for free markets online. “These businesses cannot be considered monopolies when they compete against one another. Competition in tech is fierce.”

History bears that out. In 2007, there were fears that MySpace would never “lose its monopoly” over social media. In the late 90s and early 2000s, Yahoo! and GeoCities had a seemingly dominant grip on searching and web traffic. Remember Netscape? Gen Z readers may know a few of these companies by name, but no one under the age of 25 likely ever used the Netscape browser, built a GeoCities homepage, or friended Tom on Myspace. And that’s the point.

Facebook would join that list tomorrow if all its users deleted their accounts. The fact that it endures is not proof that it holds monopolistic power over Americans’ online activities, but—contra the Justice Department’s announcement on Monday—it is evidence that users see something of value in having a Facebook account.

Part of the problem is that government antitrust actions often misunderstand the dynamics of tech markets. In March, when the specter of antitrust action was first raised by Congress, venture capitalist Benedict Evans wrote a useful Twitter thread outlining the difference between how tech firms compete for a new market and an established one. Even when there is a “winner,” he noted, that outcome can be subject to change with new developments that make old technology irrelevant—think of how Apple’s iPhone displaced the BlackBerry, or how Google overtook Microsoft (a one-time target of government action because it was supposedly a monopoly).

“Tech anti-trust too often wants to insert a competitor to the winning monopolist, when it’s too late,” Evans wrote. “Meanwhile, the monopolist is made irrelevant by something that that comes from totally outside the entire conversation and owes nothing to any anti-trust interventions.”

It’s not the Justice Department or the FTC that will take down Facebook or Google. It’s something you haven’t heard about yet.

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Rickards Warns: Robo-Trading Will End In Disaster

Authored by James Rickards via The Daily Reckoning blog,

Today, stock markets and other markets such as bonds and currencies can best be described as “automated automation.”

Here’s what I mean…

There are two stages in stock investing.

The first is coming up with a preferred allocation among stocks, cash, bonds, etc. This stage also includes deciding how much to put in index products or exchange-traded funds (ETFs, which are a kind of mini-index) and how much active management to use.

The second stage involves the actual buy and sell decisions — when to get out, when to get in and when to go to the sidelines with safe-haven assets such as Treasury notes or gold.

What investors may not realize is the extent to which both of these decisions are now left entirely to computers. I’m not talking about automated trade matching where I’m a buyer and you’re a seller and a computer matches our orders and executes the trade. That kind of trading has been around since the 1990s.

I’m talking about computers making the portfolio allocation and buy/sell decisions in the first place, based on algorithms, with no human involvement at all. This is now the norm.

Eighty percent of stock trading is now automated in the form of either index funds (60%) or quantitative models (20%). This means that “active investing,” where you pick the allocation and the timing, is down to 20% of the market. Although even active investors receive automated execution.

In all, the amount of human “market making” in the traditional sense is down to about 5% of total trading. This trend is the result of two intellectual fallacies.

The first is the idea that “You can’t beat the market.” This drives investors to index funds that match the market. The truth is you can beat the market with good models, but it’s not easy.

The second fallacy is that the future will resemble the past over a long horizon, so “traditional” allocations of, say, 60% stocks, 30% bonds and 10% cash (with fewer stocks as you get older) will serve you well.

But Wall Street doesn’t tell you that a 50% or greater stock market crash — as happened in 1929, 2000 and 2008 — just before your retirement date will wipe you out.

But this is an even greater threat that’s rarely considered…

In a bull market, this type of passive investing amplifies the upside as indexers pile into hot stocks like, for example, Google and Apple have been.

But a small sell-off can turn into a stampede as passive investors head for the exits all at once without regard to the fundamentals of a particular stock.

Index funds would stampede out of stocks. Passive investors would look for active investors to “step up” and buy. The problem is there wouldn’t be any active investors left, or at least not enough to make a difference. There would be no active investors left to risk capital by trying to catch a falling knife.

Stocks will go straight down with no bid. The market crash will be like a runaway train with no brakes.

It comes back to complexity, and the market is an example of a complex system.

One formal property of complex systems is that the size of the worst event that can happen is an exponential function of the system scale. This means that when a complex system’s scale is doubled, the systemic risk does not double; it may increase by a factor of 10 or more.

This kind of sudden, unexpected crash that seems to emerge from nowhere is entirely consistent with the predictions of complexity theory. Increasing market scale correlates with exponentially larger market collapses.

Welcome to the world of automated investing. It will end in disaster.

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2MbITev Tyler Durden

Trump Says Mueller Report Found No Evidence of Obstruction of Justice. Robert Mueller Tells Congress Otherwise.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed that the report from former Special Counsel Robert Mueller into Russian election interference found no obstruction of justice on Trump’s part. That’s news to former Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

In a flurry of early morning tweets, the president laid into Mueller and his investigative team of “18 angry Democrats” for running a witch hunt that nevertheless found no collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government and no obstruction of justice by Trump personally.

“NO COLLUSION. NO OBSTRUCTION!” tweeted Trump.

The president is largely correct on the first point. Mueller’s investigation did not find evidence of a criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and the Russian government.

However, in his much-anticipated testimony before the House Judiciary Committee this morning, Mueller implicitly contradicted the latter half of the president’s tweet.

At the outset of today’s hearing, Justice Committee Chairman Rep. Jerry Nadler (D–N.Y.) read aloud a quote from Mueller’s report in which he said:

“If we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the president clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state. Based on the facts and the applicable legal standards however, we are unable to reach that judgment.”

“Does that say there was no obstruction?” asked Nadler, to which Mueller bluntly answered, “No.”

In answer to a follow-up question from Nadler, Mueller again confirmed that his report did not totally exonerate Trump.

Indeed, Mueller’s report found a number of acts on Trump’s part that were “capable of exerting undue influence” over the investigation, including an ultimately ignored order given to White House Counsel Don McGahn to fire Mueller.

As Mueller stressed in his testimony, he is limited in how much he can affirmatively say about Trump’s possible obstruction of justice.

“At the outset, we determined that when it came to the president’s culpability, we needed to go forward after taking into account the [Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel] opinion that a sitting president can’t be indicted,” Mueller said.

Mueller’s finding that Trump had not been found innocent of obstruction of justice was seized on by Republicans on the committee, who said this was a violation of the principle that one is innocent until proven guilty.

“You wrote 100 pages about decisions that weren’t reached, and about crimes that weren’t charged,” said Rep. John Ratcliffe (R–Texas) to Mueller. “Donald Trump is not above the law, but he damn sure shouldn’t be below the law.”

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Trump Says Mueller Report Found No Evidence of Obstruction of Justice. Robert Mueller Tells Congress Otherwise.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed that the report from former Special Counsel Robert Mueller into Russian election interference found no obstruction of justice on Trump’s part. That’s news to former Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

In a flurry of early morning tweets, the president laid into Mueller and his investigative team of “18 angry Democrats” for running a witch hunt that nevertheless found no collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government and no obstruction of justice by Trump personally.

“NO COLLUSION. NO OBSTRUCTION!” tweeted Trump.

The president is largely correct on the first point. Mueller’s investigation did not find evidence of a criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and the Russian government.

However, in his much-anticipated testimony before the House Judiciary Committee this morning, Mueller implicitly contradicted the latter half of the president’s tweet.

At the outset of today’s hearing, Justice Committee Chairman Rep. Jerry Nadler (D–N.Y.) read aloud a quote from Mueller’s report in which he said:

“If we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the president clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state. Based on the facts and the applicable legal standards however, we are unable to reach that judgment.”

“Does that say there was no obstruction?” asked Nadler, to which Mueller bluntly answered, “No.”

In answer to a follow-up question from Nadler, Mueller again confirmed that his report did not totally exonerate Trump.

Indeed, Mueller’s report found a number of acts on Trump’s part that were “capable of exerting undue influence” over the investigation, including an ultimately ignored order given to White House Counsel Don McGahn to fire Mueller.

As Mueller stressed in his testimony, he is limited in how much he can affirmatively say about Trump’s possible obstruction of justice.

“At the outset, we determined that when it came to the president’s culpability, we needed to go forward after taking into account the [Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel] opinion that a sitting president can’t be indicted,” Mueller said.

Mueller’s finding that Trump had not been found innocent of obstruction of justice was seized on by Republicans on the committee, who said this was a violation of the principle that one is innocent until proven guilty.

“You wrote 100 pages about decisions that weren’t reached, and about crimes that weren’t charged,” said Rep. John Ratcliffe (R–Texas) to Mueller. “Donald Trump is not above the law, but he damn sure shouldn’t be below the law.”

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ECB Rate Cut Odds Jump After “Dismal” PMIs

Stock bulls got some unexpected “good” news this morning following the latest dismal manufacturing survey data out of the Eurozone. As we noted earlier, Eurozone manufacturing PMI was the worst in six years, with the German Mfg component printing the worst number in seven years, caused by “an accelerated drop in export orders—the most marked in over a decade” per Markit, while French data saw both Services and Manu numbers miss consensus as well.

Why is this good news for stocks? Because as Nomura’s Charlie McElligott writes this morning, the case for imminent ECB “easing” – which may be announced as soon as tomorrow – grows, with a 10bps cut probability rising as much as 51% for tomorrow according to EONIAs…

… with two full cuts priced-in, and causing a “volatility pause” in Bund futures trading, with lower Bund yields tumbling back to just shy of all time lows at -0.39%…

… and feeding into an initial EURUSD dip to 1.1127, just shy of two year lows.

Meanwhile, stocks were happy with the DAX rising to session highs, and just shy of 1 year highs, on this escalating likelihood of an imminent ECB policy rate cut/enhanced easing package, according to McElligott (for a full “menu” of what the ECB may announce tomorrow, see this post).

Putting the latest data, and market reaction in context, the Nomura strategist repeats that his best-case “Dovish Surprise” scenario for global risk-assets at tomorrow’s ECB meeting would be a

  1. 10bps cut with
  2. announced tiering of deposits (+++ EU Banks), something which is critical as otherwise EU banks face dramatic losses as explained last night
  3. enhanced fwd guidance,
  4. resumption of QE in Sep

Yet while McElligott concedes that “that is a lot to deliver on short notice” at this point the manufacturing slowdown in the Eurozone  – especially in Germany and France – and speculation of an imminent recession so real now “that it risks dragging Services with it, which could trigger an actual recession.” As such, the Nomura strategist is confident that the market will “see through” any ECB disappointment tomorrow as purely “delaying the inevitable” and continue pricing-in an aggressive easing package.

Of course, this being McElligott, he quickly looks at the quant factor that are behind the latest move in European stocks and finds that EuroStoxx dynamics “under the hood” once again highlight the Growth Scare/Duration Bid story, “with “Cyclicals” as the three worst performing sectors (Energy, Financials, Materials) while the best performing sectors on the session are the Duration-sensitive “Slow-flation Risk Barbell Longs” of 1) Defensives / Min Vol / Bond Proxies (Utilities, REITS) and 2) Secular Growers (Technology, Comm Services and Cons Disc).” Which is to be expected considering the resumption of the plunge in yields.

However, as Nomura observes, there is one potential offset to the aforementioned dynamic in US equities today that could “soften the blow” for “Value” factor market-neutral: namely the pressure exerted on tech/growth stock, i.e., the prominent “Growth Longs” (also known as “Value Shorts,” because they’re expensive) which are likely to be under with regard to this US DoJ antitrust probe into the Tech giants, although it now appears that the early weakness in the Nasdaq has fizzled and instead the market is more focused on Boeing and CAT which have dragged the Dow lower.

One final point from McElligott: “Gold continues to hold very firm in light of the evidence pointing to likely escalation of “beggar thy neighbor” global FX depreciation wars, $1426.50 last—as we continue seeing macro fund interest in upside expressions across GDX/GLD.”

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2Y45oZV Tyler Durden

WTI Extends Gains On Big Crude Draw, Production Slump

Oil prices held on to gains overnight after the huge API-reported crude draw (but large ghasoline build) and more confidence in a possible US-China trade deal.

A confirmation of the API report in official government figures scheduled to be released Wednesday would “help us confirm an oil-price bottom,” said Phil Flynn, senior market analyst at Price Futures Group Inc., in a note to clients.

“If we hold the recent lows and build off of it, it is very possible that crude oil has set a low that won’t be tested for the rest of this year.”

Bloomberg Intelligence’s Senior Energy Analyst Vince Piazza warns:

“Energy investors seem to be paying attention to the wrong things. Escalating tensions in the Persian Gulf are supporting benchmarks, though the modest price boost relative to the risk of bottlenecks is surprising. Weaker petroleum demand should be the larger long-term concern, along with trade issues and resilient U.S. production. Modest aftereffects of storm system Barry still skew industry data.”

API

  • Crude -10.961mm

  • Cushing -448k

  • Gasoline +4.436mm – biggest build since Jan

  • Distillates +1.42mm

DOE

  • Crude -10.835mm

  • Cushing -429k

  • Gasoline -226k

  • Distillates +613k

Confirming API’s data, DOE reported a massive 10.8mm barrel inventory draw last week (and only marginal product inventory shifts). This is the 6th weekly crude draw in a row

US Crude production crashed down 700k last week but largely due to Gulf stoppages due to storm Barry…

 

WTI pushed up to the high of the day – above API print levels – ahead of the official DOE data, then spiked above yesterday’s highs after the data confirmed API’s big draw.

However, as Bloomberg notes, there are still signs of deteriorating global economic conditions. Prompt front-month Brent futures — the international benchmark for crude — traded at a discount to the second month for the first time since March.

The price structure, known as contango, typically indicates supplies are exceeding demand.

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2YrvyF6 Tyler Durden

The Epstein Case Is A Rare Opportunity To Focus “On The Depraved Nature Of America’s Elite”

Authored by Michael Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,

Perhaps, at long last, a serial rapist and pedophile may be brought to justice, more than a dozen years after he was first charged with crimes that have brutalized countless girls and women. But what won’t change is this: the cesspool of elites, many of them in New York, who allowed Jeffrey Epstein to flourish with impunity.

For decades, important, influential, “serious” people attended Epstein’s dinner parties, rode his private jet, and furthered the fiction that he was some kind of genius hedge-fund billionaire. How do we explain why they looked the other way, or flattered Epstein, even as they must have noticed he was often in the company of a young harem? Easy: They got something in exchange from him, whether it was a free ride on that airborne “Lolita Express,” some other form of monetary largesse, entrée into the extravagant celebrity soirées he hosted at his townhouse, or, possibly and harrowingly, a pound or two of female flesh.

– From the New York Magazine article: Who Was Jeffrey Epstein Calling? 

An honest assessment of the current state of American politics and society in general leaves little room for optimism regarding the public’s ability to accurately diagnose, much less tackle, our fundamental issues at a root level. A primary reason for this state of affairs boils down to the ease with which the American public is divided against itself and conquered.

Though there are certain issues pretty much everyone can agree on, we simply aren’t focusing our collective energy on them or creating the mass movements necessary to address them. Things such as systemic bipartisan corruption, the institutionalization of a two-tier justice system in which the wealthy and powerful are above the law, a broken economy that requires both parents to work and still barely make ends meet, and a military-industrial complex consumed with profits and imperial aggression not national defense. These are just a few of the many issues that should easily unite us against an entrenched power structure, but it is not happening. At least not yet.

We currently find ourselves at a unique inflection point in American history. Though I agree with Charles Hugh Smith’s assessment that “Our Ruling Elites Have No Idea How Much We Want to See Them All in Prison Jumpsuits,” we have yet to reach the point where the general public is prepared to do something about it. I think there are several reasons for this, but the primary obstacle relates to how easily the citizenry is divided and conquered. The mass media, largely owned and controlled by billionaires and their corporations, is highly incentivized to keep the public divided against itself on trivial issues, or at best, on real problems that are merely symptoms of bipartisan elitist plunder.

The key thing, from a plutocrat’s point of view, is to make sure the public never takes a step back and sees the root of society’s problems. It isn’t Trump or Obama, and it isn’t the Republican or Democratic parties either. These individuals and political gangs are just useful vehicles for elitist plunder. They help herd the rabble into comfortable little tribal boxes that results in made for tv squabbling, while the true forces of power carry on with the business of societal pillaging behind the scenes.

You’re encouraged to attach your identity to team Republican or team Democrat, but never unite as one voice against a bipartisan crew of depraved, corrupt and unaccountable power players molding society from the top. While the average person living paycheck to paycheck fashions themselves part of some biblical fight of good vs. evil by supporting team red or blue, the manipulative and powerful at the top remain beyond such plebeian theater (though they certainly encourage it). These folks know only one team — team green. And their team keeps winning, by the way.

When scanning the news most days, I see a constant amplification of wedge issues by mass media, blue-check pundits and even many in the so-called alternative media. I see people increasingly being encouraged to demonize and dehumanize their fellow citizens. Anyone who voted for Trump is automatically a Nazi, likewise, anyone who supports Sanders is an anti-American communist. The reality is neither of these things is even remotely true, so why are people so quick to say them?

Why is most of the anger in this country being directed at fellow powerless Americans versus upward at the power structure which nurtured and continues to defend the current depraved status quo? I don’t see any upside to actively encouraging one side of the political discussion to dehumanize the other side, and I suggest we consciously cease engaging in such behavior. Absolutely nothing good can come from it. 

Which is partly why I’ve been so consumed by the Jeffrey Epstein case. For once, it allows us to focus our energy on the depraved nature of the so-called American “elite,” rather than pick fights with each other. How many random Trump or Sanders supporters do you know who systematically molest children and then pass them off to their wealthy and powerful friends for purposes of blackmail?

The Epstein case shines a gigantic spotlight on just how twisted and sociopathic the highest echelons of U.S. society have become. This is exactly what happens when you fail to put wealthy and powerful super predators behind bars. They get more brazen, they get more demented and, ultimately, they destroy the very fabric that holds society together. We are in fact ruled by monsters.

Unfortunately, by being short-sighted, by fighting amongst ourselves, and by taking the easy route of punching down versus punching up, we allow such cretins to continue to rape and pillage what remains of our civilization.

If we can truly get to the bottom of exactly what Epstein was up to, I suspect it has the potential to focus the general public (beyond a few seconds) on the true nature of what’s really going on and what makes the world tick. Revelations of such a nature could provide the proverbial tipping point that’s so desperately needed, but this is also why the odds of us actually getting the whole story is quite low. There’s simply too much at stake for those calling the shots.

*  *  *

Side note: I’ve been consistently updating my Epstein twitter thread as I learn new information. I suggest checking back in from time to time.

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via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2M6Zujk Tyler Durden