If this story sounds like it was ripped from the plot of “House of Cards,” well, we’ll concede that it has all of the necessary elements of a best-selling spy novel. In a story published in Monday’s WSJ, the paper recounts the story of Chinese businessman Guo Wengui, who has been holed up in an 18th-floor apartment at the Sherry-Netherland Hotel in New York City, where he has been living while his application for asylum moves through the US legal system.
Hardliners like Steve Bannon have taken up Guo’s cause – he claims to be one of China’s most-wanted dissidents – but a recent legal dispute raised questions about what, exactly, Guo is doing in the US.
Chinese businessman Guo Wengui
Here’s the problem: Guo contracted a well-known security firm to dig into a list of names whom Guo alleged were Chinese agents out to kill him. But the firm, Washington, DC-based Strategic Vision, soon developed a sneaking suspicion that Guo might be a Chinese spy using the firm’s services to root out US agents working counter-intelligence. SV sued Guo, and in the latest filings, submitted on Friday, the firm accused Guo of hiring investigators to put American personnel in safety.
Strategic Vision is owned by the widow of a once-powerful Senator, Malcolm Wallop, a now-deceased Republican from Wyoming.
Mr. Guo asked the company to investigate the financial history, social-media presence and travel details of a list of Chinese nationals he claimed were linked to top Chinese Communist Party officials, according to a court document filed by Strategic Vision. He wired the company $1 million to start the project, according to filings from both sides in the dispute.
Strategic Vision, based in Virginia, is owned by French Wallop, who was married to now-deceased Wyoming Sen. Malcolm Wallop, a Republican. The company said in Friday’s court filing that Mr. Guo’s representation that he wanted to destabilize the Chinese Communist Party was “in alignment with Strategic Vision’s worldview.”
SV soon discovered that the first 15 names on Guo’s list were “Records Protected” individuals, which suggests that they might have been intelligence assets working on behalf of the federal government.
Strategic Vision enlisted investigators who are former intelligence or law-enforcement personnel to perform the research, according to Friday’s filing. The filing said investigators determined the first 15 names provided by Mr. Guo had been designated by the U.S. as “Records Protected” individuals, for whom certain information wasn’t subject to disclosure. Such a designation is used in highly classified and access-restricted government databases, former intelligence officials said. The immigration status about such designees is often blocked in restricted government databases, and can suggest the person may be a foreigner who is assisting the U.S. government, experts said.
Strategic Vision said it concluded Mr. Guo was seeking information on Chinese nationals who may have been helping the U.S. government in national-security investigations or who were involved in other sensitive matters, according to the filing.
In the filing, SV determined that Guo “was not the dissident he claimed to be.”
“Guo never intended to use the fruits of Strategic Vision’s research against the Chinese Communist Party,” the court filing said. “That is because Guo was not the dissident he claimed to be. Instead, Guo Wengui was, and is, a dissident-hunter, propagandist, and agent in the service of the People’s Republic of China and the Chinese Communist Party.”
Mr. Guo’s lawyer, Mr. Podhaskie, denied the allegations. “Mr. Guo is the most-wanted dissident worldwide by the Chinese Communist Party and has been their most outspoken and vitriolic critic since his arrival in the United States,” he said in his statement.
Still, the Chinese government has purportedly frozen Guo’s assets and threatened his family. Guo is subsisting on a massive pile of cash he managed to smuggle out of China with him.
Since then, Chinese authorities have frozen his assets and threatened his family, according to Mr. Guo. Still, he settled at the Sherry-Netherland in 2015, paying $67.5 million for the apartment overlooking Central Park. He has continued to travel frequently and got a membership at Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Fla.
In 2017, after saying he had applied for U.S. asylum, Mr. Guo told the Journal he had set aside more than $150 million for legal fees to continue his fight against Beijing.
Mr. Podhaskie said in his statement that “certain of Mr. Guo’s assets in China valued at approximately USD$30 billion have been sold for pennies on the dollar” by Chinese Communist Party officials and that Mr. Guo “has never taken a penny out of China or Hong Kong since he began speaking out” against them.
But will the Trump Administration decide to use Guo as a bargaining chip in its trade talks with China? It’s not outside the realm of possibility.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/30Lqhpq Tyler Durden
The CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) wants to make it a whole lot easier to throw journalists in jail if they say or write the wrong things. According to Tech Dirty, the CIA is pushing for an expansion of a 37-year-old law that would deter journalists from covering national security issues or reporting on leaked documents (such as those Julian Assange posted to Wikileaks and is rotting in a jail cell for).
Assange’s arrest should outrage everyone across party lines and awaken the masses to what the government really is, and it’s anything but transparent and benevolent.
The government wants only to maintain its grip around the necks of the public to remain in control of everyone they have claimed ownership of. Sharing the truth about what the government does is a danger to the power-hungry elitists and they will make sure we all know it is not to be tolerated.
Thanks to a disillusioned CIA case officer’s actions in 1975, there are currently a few limits to what can or can’t be reported about covert operatives working overseas.
In 1975, Philip Agee published a memoir about his years with the CIA. Attached to his memoir — which detailed his growing discontentment with the CIA’s clandestine support of overseas dictators — was a list of 250 CIA agents or informants. In response to this disclosure, Congress passed the Intelligence Identities Protection Act (IIPA), which criminalized disclosing the identity of covert intelligence agents.
The IIPA did what it could to protect journalists by limiting the definition of “covert agent” to agents serving overseas and then only those who were currently working overseas when the disclosure occurred. It also required the government to show proof the person making the disclosure was “engaged in a pattern of activities intended to identify and expose” covert agents. The law was amended in 1999 to expand the coverage to include covert agents working overseas within five years of the disclosure. –Tech Dirty
The CIA wants all of these protections for journalists removed, including the word “overseas.” This would allow the CIA (and all other intelligence agencies) to designate whoever they want as “protected” by the IIPA in perpetuity, and jail those who report about things the government wants to keep from the prying eyes of the public.
Under the proposed law, any journalist who, say, revealed the names of “covert” CIA officers that had engaged in torture or ordered drone strikes on civilians would now be subject to prosecution — even if the newsworthy actions occurred years or decades prior or the officer in question has always been located in the United States.
In fact, the CIA explicitly referenced the revelations of the agency’s Bush-era torture program in its argument to Congress for IIPA expansion. The New York Times’s Charlie Savage obtained the CIA’s private memo in which it lobbied members of Congress. Under the memo’s “justification” section, the CIA wrote:
“Particularly with the lengths organizations such as WikiLeaks are willing to go to obtain and release sensitive national security information, as well as incidents related to past Agency programs, such as the RDI [Rendition, Detention, and Interrogation — a euphemism used to describe the CIA’s illegal torture program] investigation, the original congressional reasoning mentioned above for a narrow definition of ‘covert agent’ no longer remains valid.” –Gen Medium
Democrats, such as Adam Schiff, are helping make sure journalists rights are trampled and the public doesn’t get any information the government doesn’t want them to have. When you take a good look at his record, Schiff has always favored the secrecy of intelligence agencies over journalists’ rights.
No administration should have the power to prevent journalists from publishing illegal acts undertaken by the government. Ever. For any reason.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2JV1mcp Tyler Durden
— Adriano Mérola Marotta (@AdrianoMerola) July 22, 2019
Venezuelan information minister Jorge Rodrigues said an “electromagnetic attack caused the nationwide blackout” and power companies along with government officials, are in the process of restoring the nation’s power grid.
Back in March, the country experienced the most damaging rolling blackout in decades that brought the country, already devastated by an economic crisis, even closer to outright collapse.
“It terrifies me to think we are facing a national blackout again,” said Maria Luisa Rivero, a 45-year-old business owner from the city of Valencia, in the central state of Carabobo.
“The first thing I did was run to freeze my food so that it does not go bad like it did like the last time in March. It costs a lot to buy food just to lose it,” she said.
Wide spread blackout in Venezuela: States affected by the power failure: – Capital District, Anzoátegui, Aragua, Carabobo, Cojedes, Falcón, Guárico, Lara, Mérida, Miranda, Monagas, Táchira, Sucre, Vargas, Yaracuy, Zulia https://t.co/OAOOFyGl4g via @gabyarellanoVE#Venezuelapic.twitter.com/UkMxLKDUFJ
Netblocks, a civil society group observing internet traffic around the world, sent out several alerts via Twitter starting around 5:45 pm est. about widespread power loss across Venezuela that disrupted the country’s internet.
The group said even state television, a key source of government propaganda, was brought offline.
Netblocks tweeted a photo of internet outage broken down by region:
The latest disruption comes a little more than four months after widespread blackouts crippled the country for about one week in March.
As of Monday evening, most of Venezuela’s 23 states have no internet connectivity.
In the previous blackout, we documented how cryptocurrency transaction volumes plummeted throughout the region. Some residents were prepared for the chaos, they set up local transaction networks via powerful WiFi repeaters powered by generators.
NetBlocks diffscans, which tracks the entire IP address space of a country in real-time, indicates the latest internet outages occured during the same time of the power cuts, labels the incident impact as severe for most of the states.
“Internet outages caused by electricity grid disruptions have a distinct network pattern used by NetBlocks to determine and attribute the root cause of an outage, a process known as attribution which follows detection and classification stages,” NetBlocks said in a blog post.
Widespread power outages and no internet connectivity have occurred just before Juan Guaidó, the self-proclaimed interim president of Venezuela, is expected to launch nationwide anti-Maduro protests on Tuesday.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2JIjXcG Tyler Durden
In recent weeks we have seen numerous probing attempts and provocations in and around the Strait of Hormuz — whether false flags or actual events — intended to raise the profile of the US’s unilateral withdrawal from the JCPOA, and renewed US sanctions versus Iran. Iran is pushing the issue with the United States, and is apparently offering a sacrificial pawn on the board (or perhaps knight!) by seizing two British oil tankers alleged to be operating illegally in the Strait of Hormuz.
While it is too soon to predict how the United States and its allies Israel and Saudi Arabia (both sworn enemies of Iran) will react, let’s explore the reasons why any US reactionary response will be largely symbolic, even if that involves a token strike versus Iran.
Global alliances have shifted
Turkey has defacto announced its withdrawal from NATO, by its purchase of S-400 missiles. That purchase and collaboration with Russia guarantees its departure from NATO, even if Turkey has not publicly announced such a withdrawal. Furthermore, while Turkey’s military bases host US aircraft and operations, Turkey says it will not allow its bases to be used in any attack on Iran, by the US.
Iraq, an ally of Iran, has likewise stated that it will not allow its territory to be used as a base for attacking Iran.
Next, Imran Khan’s Pakistan has moved away from its alliance with the US to court China. China is Pakistan’s largest trading partner, and China has guaranteed security to Pakistan for Kashmir. Thus, no bases in Pakistan will be provided to the United States for any attack on Iran.
China and Russia have warned Washington too that it must not attack Iran. Iran has guarantees from Russia, China, Pakistan, Turkey, and even Japan and India that its economic future is secure… despite US sanctions.
So, only Saudia remains as a host for US aggression versus Iran. But Saudia has much to lose by hosting US aggression, especially with Russia pushing OPEC+. And even the largely defunct Arab League opposes US aggression versus Iran, from any Saudi base.
Iran will fight back
Next, consider the military force that Iran has at its disposal. From advanced Grad rockets to the Kornet, expect an announcement soon that S-400’s and other advanced armaments will be provided to Iran to ensure its right to defend itself. That, in conjunction with an already formidable array of defensive weapons to secure Iran’s borders and sea lanes will guarantee a formidable defense.
The United States cannot afford another new war
While the Federal Reserve may print the USD at will, a new war – especially a major war versus Iran – will weaken the US economically, despite the gamed casino numbers we see daily from Wall Street.
If the US were to attack Iran, be sure that the oil market will be mightily affected, causing oil prices to surge exponentially. Gold too will surge. Indeed, such an oil and gold price effect may be the prick needed to deflate the multi-quadrillion inflated USD bubble of public debt and derivative speculation that can burst again… just as it burst in 2008-2009. But this time when the financial collapse occurs, and as Donald Trump has warned, the new collapse will render the financial collapse of 2008-2009 to be a picnic.
The US is not capable of defeating Iran in a conventional war
This time, there is no “coalition of the willing” to posture and pretend that the US has many and varied allies engaged in some just cause to rid the world of evil, as it proclaimed in 1994 versus North Korea, and in 2003 versus Iraq. Apparently, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Palau and Solomon Islands have no real grievance versus Iran right now.
But the possibility exists that France, the UK and Germany will consider Iran enough of a threat around the Strait of Hormuz to impose additional sanctions on the country, and increase Naval military patrols to accompany tankers through the Strait. The increased patrols will increase tensions in the region, but should not result in war unless the US takes the bait of Iran sacrificing a knight to leave the West’s queen exposed, ie a greater war in the Middle East which may involve Iraq, Syria, Israel, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia.
Last time, just ten minutes prior to pulling the trigger (depending on accounts!) to consummate the Neocon’s dream for war with Iran, Trump had other ideas.
Now, let’s review the reasons the United States cannot initiate a ground war versus Iran.
Iran Strike Strategic map
Afghanistan
Most likely candidate here would be to stage US air strikes on Iran from Bagram air base. But at this time Afghanistan seeks closer ties with Iran on trade; for example, to trade with India via Iran’s Chabahar port.
And while the US could stage air strikes from Bagram, to launch a ground attack from this region would be a virtual impossibility. That is, due to mountainous terrain and firmly entrenched and well-armed IRGC mountain troops, neighboring.
Furthermore, it is exceedingly likely that Dostum/Ghani would forbid any attack by the US on Iran from Afghanistan, that would result in a major new war. And note that Dostum is pushing for the removal of US troops from Afghanistan, including its air bases.
As a matter of conjecture, it is likely that the US presented Dostum / Ghani with an enticing “deal” to host US forces for staging their new war on Iran. And while initially accepting Trump’s deal, it is thought that with such high stakes for Afghanistan it would have ultimately been rejected. (An interesting bit of propaganda along these lines appears here.)
There is noise too from Trump about withdrawing from Afghanistan, but that eventuality is highly unlikely.
Turkmenistan
The “Hermit Kingdom” proves even more problematic for the US than Afghanistan, for attacking Iran. There is little infrastructure, no existing US air base, only a “secret base” proposed by various alt media sources. While such a base could be used for US harassment vs Iran, to initially stage a new US war versus Iran from Turkmenistan is exceedingly unlikely. Especially so, since Turkmenistan (a former Soviet republic) has very close relations with China, and China has already warned the US to refrain from attacking Iran.
US State is so concerned with Khan and his shifting alliance to Iran and China, the department recently released a counter to allegations re deteriorating US – Pak relations.
Based on its history and current leadership, Pakistan will not allow the United States to use Pakistan as a base for a ground war versus Iran.
United Arab Emirates
The US RQ-4 shot down by Iran on June 19th was launched from the UAE via a US military base there. This base is alleged to be devoted to US action versus ISIL, but is thought to be a major US base for reconnaissance on Iran.
The UAE is hostile to Iran, but has no land bridge with Iran, being directly across the Strait of Hormuz. Its location on the strait would certainly close the Strait in a full-blown US war, for which the UAE would be blamed as an accomplice. The UAE has trade relations with Arab states too, that prevent it from being used as initial staging for a US war of aggression versus Iran.
It may be reasonably conjectured that the UAE agreed to allow US harassment strikes on Iran from its airfield there, but then withdrew that agreement abruptly.
Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia is an ally of the US only for financial reasons, and a sworn enemy of Iran. Recently Saudi Arabia turned to China in an attempt to broaden trade and diversify its economy. Saudi Arabia must look to the future despite its cold war with Iran, and maintain reasonable relations with other Arab states.
Besides having no land mass directly adjacent to Iran, and based on its history, for Saudi Arabia to host US troops capable of undertaking a ground war of aggression versus Iran seems unlikely. However, the Crown Prince is a noted war hawk and apparently not averse to wars of aggression (example, Yemen) so reports of Saudi Arabia hosting a new US air base and hundreds of US troops in Saudi Arabia may present an opportunity for the US to threaten Iranby its military presence there.
Iraq
Iraq has a significant history with the US military and has lost many thousands of its people to war and sanctions imposed on it by the United States. Even though the US has a significant presence in Iraq and many US bases still present there, the Iraqi government has on numerous occasions expressed its desire that the US’s 5,200 troops leave the country.
Recently, the call for US troops to leave Iraq has become more vocal and pronounced. Analyst consensus is of course that the US continues to occupy Iraq as a means to counter Iran’s influence in the country and elsewhere.
Iraq has a strong majority who now favour Iran, for trade, political, and cultural reasons. Iraq has significant trade with Iran, and Iran leverages that trade in oil and electricity.
Many militias operate in Iraq, supportive of Iran, and anti-US. These militias are well-armed and battle-tested, and for the US to stage a ground war versus Iran from Iraq would be quite alarming to the populace generally, likely resulting in serious retaliation in Iraq, versus US forces.
So, while the US still has a significant presence in Iraq, a US attack and war on Iran based in Iraq would likely result in serious and immediate setbacks for the US.
Syria
Syria has no land border with Iran. In spite of Syrian objections, the US does host air bases to protect the terrorist region of al Tanf, and in Manbij. US harassment air raids on Iran could be launched from these bases, but a ground war could not be launched from Syria without a massive expansion of US bases there. Such an expansion would constitute a move that would surely be militarily resisted by Syrian security forces and their significant allies.
What Options Does the US Have Versus Iran?
Being a major military power, the US does have limited military options versus Iran, in addition to economic sanctions already imposed, while noting that an attack could certainly provoke the Russian or Chinese leadership to aid Iran. While the United States has never ‘won a war’ — and only in the case of Vietnam, Laos, Cuba, and North Korea has the US ever been forced to flee its chosen theater — as Greer points out, there is a difference between outright losing a war, when compared to not winning one.
Even if a war is not won, the result may benefit western powers, as it has (arguably) in the case of Israel-Palestine, Vietnam, Korea, Laos, Lebanon, Cambodia, Panama, and perhaps even Iraq, if imposed western participation in Iraq’s oil business and production is considered.
For the US to consider Iran to be among the “attack-worthy” group noted above, the US must first consider Iran to be weak enough (economically and militarily) to be worth attacking — since an outright quick US military victory versus Iran is an odds-on impossibility. The US must also consider the response of either Russia or China to be muted, as trade and diplomatic relations continue to sour exponentially with both countries.
Neither scenario above (militarily/economically weak) really applies in Iran’s case, so any attack on Iran must be largely symbolic and unlikely to result in massive retaliation; or to provoke the Russian or China’s leadership to intervene militarily, to assist Iran in its defense.
According to the western press, the targets chosen for Trump precisely one month ago on June 19th were three military and radar installations within Iran, the destruction of which would have resulted in relatively few deaths. Will those same targets be on the cards for the US military again? We shall see.
Should Trump fire cruise missiles at those targets or bomb them from the air, it is highly likely that Russia’s or China’s leadership (China still receives significant amounts of oil from Iran) will quickly provide Iran with upgraded air defenses and possibly even warplanes. And as this author has already suggested, the latter is the greatest concern for Washington in the face of a US-led attack on Iran.
Indications that the United States will attack Iran or not, even in a limited air strike, will likely appear on social media with the usual attack dogs – Bolton and Pompeo – rattling their sabers and exhorting the usual nonsense about the “danger” Iran poses to the west… or not. So far social media is quiet on the subject, but Trump may hold his counsel and engage in a surprise move. We shall see who is surprised!
This author speculates, perhaps incorrectly, that the US will take no action versus Iran for now, assuming the UK’s oil tankers are released promptly within the next few days… probably subsequent to a joint US-UK statement/demand. Should the tanker seizure drag on, I believe the odds of a limited US strike versus Iran will rise exponentially by the day. That’s because the UK is of course a NATO participant, and the US could thus consider seizure of British ships to be militarily actionable.
What of Iran’s Motives?
The culture that invented the game of chess never makes a move without careful and calculating consideration. Iran has been forced to play black for decades now, and has done so with skill, alacrity, and will take the initiative whenever possible.
Whether Iran has sensed a particular point of weakness in the West at this time, or Iran has hidden agreements in place with significant allies to come to its defense in the event of an US attack, is of course unknown.
That Iran may be holding a surprise move in check with support from its allies must be of extreme concern to the US Hegemon. And eventually that concern must be all of ours, when the hegemon inevitably fails to intimidate and control the board with its white advantage, and its queen is taken.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2Yh7gxz Tyler Durden
Tesla whistleblower Karl Hansen doesn’t seem to be deterred by the intimidation tactics that the company has used against whistleblowers in the past. He’s also dead set on trying to help other whistleblowers come forward, according to The Drive.
He filed a lawsuit on July 19 in Nevada against Elon Musk for violations of the Sarbanes-Oxley act, intentional interference with business relations and breach of contract.
Hansen said:
“It’s taken a long time to get to this point, and I remain steadfast regardless of any monetary outcome. The only thing we are guaranteed to take to our graves is our name. I’ve spent a career of integrity, and won’t stand idly by when someone like Elon Musk runs roughshod over others because he happens to be a billionaire.”
He continued:
“Even though this has been and continues to be one of the most wrenching experiences of my life, it’s important for people to do the right thing, even if it means doing it alone. If you stay in the arena long enough, even by yourself, people will notice that, and the right people are going to notice your courage, and will support you.”
In his lawsuit, he says that the company interfered with his ability to find work. It’s a similar claim that some former Buffalo factory workers made, alleging Tesla “intentionally interfered with efforts to seek employment with other employers in retaliation for outspoken union support.”
Musk and Tesla’s management actively concealed and participated in misconduct including spying on employees
Thefts ranging between $37 and $150 million dollars, along with links to a Mexican drug cartel
A Tesla employee was terminated after reporting the theft of $13,000 of copper wire to law enforcement, foreshadowing Hansen’s own termination from the company shortly after briefing management about his findings into criminal activities taking place
With regard to the cartel claims, it’s also worth noting that “Pablo Escobar’s brother recently demanded $100 million in cash or Tesla shares from Musk for purportedly stealing his flamethrower idea”. Nothing to see here…
Hansen’s own termination is reminiscent of a former Tesla Director of Environment, Health, Safety and Sustainability who claimed they were fired after reporting safety violations. An assembly line worker was also reportedly fired after reporting anti-gay harassment.
And, of course, whistleblower retaliation was the main theme of the Martin Tripp case:
…after Tesla identified him as the source for a Business Insider article, Tesla’s Security team gave police a tip that they’d received an anonymous call that Tripp was planning a mass shooting at the Nevada factory where he had worked. That evening, when police confronted the tearful, unarmed Tripp he expressed his terror of Musk; they concluded Tripp posed no threat, meaning he had been the victim of a ‘swatting’.
Tesla provided a comment for the article, which included the following paragraphs:
Tesla takes misconduct like Mr. Hansen’s very seriously and the company has every right to expect its employees and contractors to abide by its policies, and to be fully honest and cooperative when dealing with an internal investigation. As a result of the discovery of Mr. Hansen’s misconduct and misappropriation of confidential information, Tesla informed Mr. Hansen’s third-party employer and asked the firm to no longer assign Mr. Hansen to the Gigafactory. However, Mr. Hansen’s termination from the third-party contractor is a matter between his employer and Mr. Hansen, and does not involve Tesla.
Elon was not personally involved in the decision to request that Hansen be reassigned from the Gigafactory, and doesn’t remember having ever met Hansen and certainly wouldn’t be able to identify him out of more than 40,000 employees at Tesla.”
Certainly, he wouldn’t, right? We’d bet Mr. Hansen may disagree with this take…
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2Ybe4ZI Tyler Durden
Perfectly echoing former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s own words during his brief press conference in May, a Justice Department official told Mueller – in response to his initiated inquiry – that his upcoming testimony to House lawmakers “must remain within the boundaries” of the public report.
As a reminder, here is what Mueller said in May:
“I hope and expect this to be the only time that I will speak to you in this manner,” Mueller said today, explaining that his report was his testimony and that Congress should not expect him to answer questions with any new information.
And here is today’s response to Mueller’s inquiry of the DoJ with regard how to proceed during his testimony…
“…the decision to testify… is yours to make… please note that there should be no testimony concerning the redacted portions of the public version of your report… any testimony must remain within the boundaries of your public report…”
Of course this will not stop Nadler and Schiff proclaiming yet more obstruction of justice allegations – even though the DoJ advice is exactly what Mueller himself already said and conforms to the law.
Additionally, Fox News reports that former special prosecutor Ken Starr had some advice for Robert Mueller ahead of his Wednesday Capitol Hill testimony, saying he should stick to the script and keep things apolitical as promised.
“I would say do what you have said you’re going to do,” Starr said on “Fox News Rundown,” in an interview that will air Tuesday.
“The report speaks for itself.”
“And I’m not going to turn myself beyond the report and I’m not going to turn myself into an instrument or a tool to further a political process, namely the possible impeachment of the president of the United States. That’s up to the people who were elected. I’m not going to play along.“
Starr also claimed the media has been soft on Mueller, as compared with what he himself experienced while investigating former President Bill Clinton, and painted the former FBI director as “overzealous.”
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Full letter below:
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2JMtf7D Tyler Durden
With Morgan Stanley reporting Q2 results yesterday, the first half earnings of all “big 5” US banks are now public, and when it comes to sales and trading they are nothing short of a disaster.
With the S&P at or near all time highs, institutional traders have, paradoxically, been increasingly moving to the “sidelines” for much of the second quarter as Wall Street trading desks posted their worst first half to a year in a decade, according to Bloomberg calculations. David Solomon, CEO of Goldman Sachs, made note of this over the last two quarters, and other major banks like JP Morgan and Citigroup have followed.
The slowdown in trading revenue has been due to uncertainty about trade war politics and global Central Bank policy. However, in the past, these types of uncertainties have spurred more trading, not less. This has raised the question of whether or not the slowdown in trading is permanent, instead of temporary.
Morgan Stanley CFO Jon Pruzan said in an interview Thursday: “It’s more of a subdued up than sort of the animal spirits you would generally characterize in this type of environment. We haven’t seen some of the traditional things in a market like this — we haven’t seen a lot of people repositioning their portfolios, we haven’t seen leverage increase.”
Trading revenue at the five biggest Wall Street banks was down 8% in the second quarter, which followed a 14% slide in the first quarter. European banks are expected to post even larger drop offs next week when they report.
This will likely push revenue from equity and fixed income trading substantially below the $60.8 billion that was posted in the first half of 2017. These major firms generated $77.5 billion as recently as the first half of 2012.
One reason for the shrinkage – hedge funds have suffered outflows, which has also helped slow down trading volume. In addition, new rules that have limited lenders’ ability to make principal bets with their own money have acted as a headwind. Technological advancements have also narrowed spreads in many areas of trading.
And over the last couple of quarters, Wall Street firms can’t decide whether or not they want to complain about too much volatility – or too little.
Jim Shanahan, an analyst at Edward Jones said: “I’m not sure what the Goldilocks scenario is for the banks. Part of the problem is that it’s too late to hedge interest-rate volatility, there’s not currency volatility to hedge. Speculators need volatility to hedge and enter the market.”
As a response, banks have cut costs. Front office headcount in trading units is down over the last five years and divisions like consumer lending and wealth management have picked up the slack that have led banks to record profits. As a result, the six biggest US banks set another record with $32.6 billion in (adjusted, non-GAAP) net income in the second quarter.
Go figure.
Citi CFO Mark Mason bemoaned the top-line sluggishness of the trading business: “Many of the investor clients remained on the sidelines,” he said on Monday.
One can only imagine if equity revenue is slumping when the S&P is at all time high what will happen when the market finally crashes…
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2GlYaWc Tyler Durden
Tech making new highs again in July as markets are anticipating rate cuts from the Fed later in the month. It’s still early in the earning season, but about to get heavy with reports.
$NFLX was a stinker last week, but $MSFT delivered, technically as extended as it may be.
All eyes then on the standard bearers for $FAANG, $GOOGL,$AMZN, $AAPL and $FB. But when an index makes new highs it’s always useful to look under the hood and there’s a signal chart that raises some eyebrows.
Indeed one might call it a tech oddity. New highs on $NDX? Yes, but check the cumulative advance/decline index $NAAD, it tells a very different story:
What does this chart tell us?
Well, for one, during the run up from the 2016 lows into the 2018 highs $NDX ran in a steady trend higher as did $NAAD. Very clean channel as a matter of fact. Then it all fell apart in Q4 2018. But on the heels of the Fed pivot markets recovered and are now back to all time highs. $NDX made a new all time high again in April and also last week in July.
But note $NAAD did not play along. Far from it. First making a notable lower high in April it made yet another lower high last week. And by doing so it has formulated a new trend line. Instead of a steady uptrend as in 2016-2018 it has formed a line of resistance & is potentially forming topping pattern.
Notable also the relative weakness on the RSI above.
What’s the message here from a technical perspective?
Firstly note that $NDX, despite making new highs remains below the broken 2016 trend line, but new highs are also coming on an ever weakening trend in the cumulative advance/decline index.
Something’s not quite right. This is not your 2016/2017/2018 bull market. This is a different animal, it’s an oddity. A tech oddity.
Ground control to Major Tech: Put your helmet on.
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via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2GjVrg3 Tyler Durden
Huawei has already been accused, with good reason, of violating US and UN sanctions over doing business with Iran. Now, the Washington Post reports, citing clandestine internal documents, that Huawei secretly helped build a North Korean wireless network.
The revelation is the latest threat to undercut trade talks between Washington and Beijing, which have already reportedly stalled.
The telecoms giant partnered with a Chinese state-owned firm called Panda International Information Technology Co. on a variety of projects in North Korea over the span of eight years, according to past work orders, contracts and detailed spreadsheets taken from a database that charts the company’s telecom operations worldwide.
The way the partnership was structured made it difficult to detect Huawei’s involvement. The spreadsheets and other documents were provided to The Post by former Huawei employees who believed the information is in the public interest. Other sets of documents were provided to WaPo by others who hoped to see them made public. All three sources spoke with WaPo on the condition of anonymity, fearing reprisals.
Taken together, the revelations raise questions about whether Huawei, which uses American technology and components in its products, violated US export controls regarding business dealings with North Korea.
The Commerce Department has been investigating potential links between Huawei in North Korea since 2016, but it hasn’t publicly connected them. Meanwhile, Huawei said it has “no business presence” in North Korea. Spokesman Joe Kelly didn’t comment, and he didn’t dispute the authenticity of the documents, either.
“Huawei is fully committed to comply with all applicable laws and regulations in the countries and regions where we operate, including all export control and sanction laws and regulations” of the United Nations, United States and European Union, the statement read. A spokesman for Panda Group, Huawei’s alleged partner, also declined to comment.
A State Department official explained the administration’s frustration with Huawei over the situation.
“All of this fits into a general concern we have about corporate responsibility and a company like Huawei that is not trustworthy because of its company culture and numerous incidents indicating a willingness to evade or outright violate laws,” the official said. “Working with regimes like North Korea, who deprive individuals on a regular basis of their basic human rights, raises concern.”
When Koryolink, the first major North Korean wireless network, emerged in 2008, it solved a serious problem: North Korea’s inability to find foreign multinationals willing to work with it. But the company only came about after a 2006 visit by Kim’s father, Kim Jong Il, to Huawei’s headquarters in Shenzhen, China.
“This was the time that confirmed not only the top leadership’s interest in dealing with Huawei but pretty much revealed a choice of Huawei as the primary supplier of technology,” said Alexandre Mansourov, an adjunct professor at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, who in 2011 wrote about North Korea’s digital transformation. “They decided to work with Huawei from that time on.”
Koryolink was built through a 2008 joint venture of Egypt’s Orascom Telecom Holding and North Korea’s state-owned Korea Post and Telecommunications Corp. The venture was called CHEO Technology. Panda, and Huawei, via its relationship with Panda, was also heavily involved with building Koryolink’s network.
Panda has a long history of doing the Communist Party’s bidding.
A key player was Panda International, part of the storied electronics conglomerate Panda Group that has sometimes served China’s foreign policy. In 2001, for instance, during a visit to Havana, China’s president at the time, Jiang Zemin, gave Cuba 1 million Panda-made TV sets and introduced a company representative to Cuban leader Fidel Castro, who “excitedly shook hands and embraced” him, the firm recounts on its website.
And Huawei was more than willing to supply the equipment needed to build the network.
Huawei worked closely with Panda, using it as the conduit to provide North Korea with base stations, antennas and other equipment needed to launch Koryolink, internal documents show. For years, Huawei and Panda employees worked out of an inexpensive hotel near Kim Il Sung Square in Pyongyang, according to a person familiar with the arrangement.
Huawei was involved in “network integration” and “software” services as well as at least one “expansion” project for Koryolink, the documents show. It also provided “managed service” and “network assurance” services. One current Huawei employee reached by The Post, Yin Chao, said he worked in 2012 and 2013 on Koryolink’s automated callback system, one of several improvements the company offered the North Koreans.
Huawei has other shady links to companies accused of violating sanctions related to their dealings with Pyongyang.
Internal documents show that Huawei has done business with a separate Chinese company, Dandong Kehua, which in November 2017 was sanctioned by the US Treasury Department for exporting and importing goods to and from North Korea – trade seen by U.S. officials as financing Pyongyang’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs.
Documents obtained by The Post also illustrate the North Koreans’ concern with foreign spying on regime officials and their family members who would be using Koryolink. In spring 2008, Orascom and Korea Post tasked Huawei with developing an encryption protocol for the network, noting that the government would create its own encryption algorithm, according to the documents.
“Both sides had common agreement that the ordinary people will use the international standard mobile phones and special users will use different mobile phones which will contain locally developed encrypted algorithm,” state the minutes of a 2008 meeting, a document signed by Korea Post’s chief engineer and an Orascom board member.
Soon, the North Korean government was building a rival wireless network, and used equipment from another Chinese telecoms giant, ZTE. It’s likely that both of these networks contain American-made components.
The original joint venture agreement gave Orascom exclusive license to operate the mobile network through 2015, according to media reports, but the North Korean government launched a rival network, Kang Song, in 2013 using another Chinese telecom equipment supplier, ZTE. Kang Song quickly supplanted Koryolink as the dominant wireless provider in North Korea.
In 2014, the Commerce Department banned the export of U.S.-origin components to Panda, alleging it had furnished such parts to the Chinese military “and/or” to countries under U.S. sanctions. Since then, any company to provide Panda with telecom items intended for North Korea and containing at least 10 percent U.S.-origin content without a license would be in violation of the export ban.
Several experts, including the supply-chain analysis firm Interos, consider it to be likely that Huawei’s 3G equipment contained American components, though it is difficult to know whether it surpassed the 10-percent threshold outlined in export regulations.
So, will the Trump Administration change its plans to ease up on Huawei and blow up the trade talks over this? It’s unlikely, but that doesn’t mean a trade deal is any more likely.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2JKSUxs Tyler Durden
Property taxes will go up to pay for affordable housing if legislation now pending in the General Assembly passes. It’s not styled as a property tax increase, but that’s exactly what it is. It’s styled as property tax caps or reductions for affordable housing, which would directly result in increases for homeowners and everybody else.
Senate President John Cullerton
Two bills are pending. The first is Senate Bill 2259, sponsored by Senate President John Cullerton (D-Chicago). It would artificially limit increases in assessments of new or rehabilitated apartment complexes if the owner commits at least 20 percent of the building’s units to a rent cap for families that make less than a set income depending on the area. The second, House Bill 2168, goes further and would directly reduce assessments on similarly defined affordable apartments. It has nine House sponsors.
In other words, both bills would give a property tax break to owners of apartments for lower income renters. The problem is that the levy – the total amounts collected by each taxing authority – wouldn’t change. That means all other property owners pay the difference. The end result is simple and undeniable: Property owners would fund a special subsidy for affordable housing.
You’d think lawmakers had learned their lesson. In 2017, Chicago wanted a way to soften the blow of the city’s property tax increases, or at least make them look softer. Singling out the city wasn’t workable, so it got Springfield to pass increases in the homestead and senior exemptions for all of Cook County. We wrote about the dismal results for other taxpayers here, which the Chicago Tribune detailed. Other property owners got clobbered, especially in lower income areas.
As the Tribune reported on those results, “Many, many people are saying it’s not financially beneficial for them to pay the taxes they pay on their homes, when every 11 to 13 years, they’re paying the total costs of their home in taxes,” said Harvey Ald. Keith Price, economic development committee chairman.
“I’ve talked to a couple of people that have personally told me that they are not paying their taxes anymore. They’re going to save their money, and within the two years they have (before they lose the house), they’ll just save all their money and leave.”
It has only worsened since then.
If Illinois wants to pay for affordable housing it should be done smartly. The simplest and most efficient means to provide housing assistance is vouchers, not convoluted incentives like Springfield is moving towards. The pending bills would require a whole new level of bureaucracy for assessors and administrators to enforce.
The pending bills have other major flaws. Projects that would have been built anyway will still get the tax break. On them, the subsidy will have been wasted. And there’s no way to measure results. How will we know how many new projects, if any, get built thanks to the tax incentive? We won’t. That’s unknowable. For that same reason, we won’t know the full cost until after the fact.
Most importantly, property taxes are the last place to look to for funding. Illinois rates are already neck and neck with New Jersey’s for the highest in the nation. Hundreds of thousands of Illinois homeowners have had their equity erased or worse, been trapped with underwater mortgages. Suppressed values, primarily because of those taxes, have already cost Illinois homeowners a quarter trillion dollars just in the last ten years.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2Y5BUG5 Tyler Durden
