Month: September 2019

Trump’s War on Immigrants Doesn’t Stop At Citizenship

[This post was coauthored with John Langford, Counsel at Protect Democracy.]

President Trump’s campaign to restrict access to citizenship continues to make headline news. On August 28, USCIS announced that the children of some U.S. military personnel and other government employees stationed overseas will no longer automatically become citizens. Three weeks ago, the President indicated that he’s seriously considering an attempt to end all birthright citizenship. Last month, the Trump Administration announced a new rule that could cut legal immigration in half by denying visas and permanent residency to people for being too poor. 

But Trump’s war on immigrants doesn’t stop at citizenship. In a new law review article, one of us and Professor Cassandra Burke Robertson of Case Western Reserve University’s School of Law explain how the Trump Administration is weaponizing the government’s power to  strip naturalized citizens of their citizenship through civil denaturalization proceedings. Since the late ’60s, that power has been used exceedingly rarely, reserved primarily for denaturalizing Nazi officials and war criminals. Until recently, that is. 

This Administration obtained its first-ever successful civil denaturalization in 2018. Since then, USCIS has begun to form a new office in California to pursue civil denaturalizations in an effort called “Operation Second Look.” Earlier this year, the Trump Administration asked for $207.6 million to review 887 new leads. By some accounts, that brings the total number of files USCIS and ICE are currently reviewing for possible denaturalization proceedings to over one million. 

Trump’s weaponization of the government’s civil denaturalization powers is bad enough in its own right. But taken together with Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric and propensity to retaliate against critics, his effort to ramp up civil denaturalizations poses a far more immediate threat: silencing immigrant dissenters. 

As president, “Trump has used the words ‘predator,’ ‘invasion,’ ‘alien,’ ‘killer,’ ‘criminal’ and ‘animal’ at his rallies while discussing immigration more than 500 times.” Trump’s re-election campaign is already inundating voters with warnings of an immigrant “invasion.” A month ago, Trump suggested that four Representatives of color, including one who is a naturalized citizen, “go back” to their countries, invoking a “taunt that has long, deeply entrenched roots in American history.” Trump’s rhetoric mirrors the language that fueled the deadly anti-Irish riots of the 1830s and the post-World War I resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan. It is just as potent today. 

Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric cannot be dismissed as empty words, given his propensity to use the powers of government to suppress criticism. Trump’s willingness to punish critics among the institutional press, for example, is well documented. He has revoked press passes and security clearances; directed or asked others to direct the Department of Justice, the Postmaster General, and the Department of Defense to punish the owners of CNN and The Washington Post; and threatened to revoke NBC’s broadcasting license, all in response to coverage Trump didn’t like. 

Taken together, Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric, propensity to retaliate against critics, and efforts to denaturalize citizens—each harmful and/or illegal in its own right—will silence dissent among naturalized citizens. In the context of an administration that is actively seeking to denaturalize citizens, Trump’s nativist tweets are threats. His rhetoric will chill dissent among immigrants unless and until Congress, courts, and others take this threat seriously and respond accordingly.

Congress should act to defang Trump’s threats by stripping or limiting the government’s ability to pursue civil denaturalizations. Those denaturalizations lack the procedural safeguards necessary to prevent abuse and violate naturalized individuals’ right to be free from the arbitrary deprivation of their citizenship. There is no good reason for Congress to arm any President with the power to strip critics of their citizenship, and removing that power would go a long way towards hollowing Trump’s threats. 

Further, courts must check Trump’s threats and retaliatory acts by making clear that using government power to censor critics violates the First Amendment. To do so, courts will need to recognize that victims of Trump’s censorship efforts are not likely to risk filing their own lawsuits and must allow those who can sue to challenge Trump’s First Amendment violations. 

Last fall, for example, one of us helped file a First Amendment lawsuit on behalf of PEN America, challenging Trump’s threats and retaliatory acts towards critics among the press. The government has moved to dismiss the suit, arguing that each individual victim of Trump’s threats and retaliatory acts must bring their own lawsuit. If courts are to act as a meaningful check on the President’s repeated violations of the First Amendment, they must recognize, as the Supreme Court did long ago, that a victim of First Amendment violations may fall silent rather than risk challenging the government, and courts must allow organizations like PEN to vindicate the First Amendment. 

In addition to Congress and the courts checking the president, government officials who become aware that they are being asked to use their power to carry out Trump’s threats should sound the alarm. And journalists should continue the work of unearthing any connection between Trump’s penchant for vengeance and potentially related government actions. The concerted efforts of Congress, the courts, and civil society will be necessary to protect immigrants’ ability to dissent–as well as everyone else’s.

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FBI Finally Agrees To Name Saudi Official Who Helped 9/11 Attackers

FBI Finally Agrees To Name Saudi Official Who Helped 9/11 Attackers

Just 18 years after the terrible events of September 11, 2001, The FBI has agreed to provide a key piece of new information about alleged official Saudi involvement following intense efforts by the victims families.

While the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, remains at Guantamo Bay (trial date set for January 2021!), he opened the door in July to helping victims of the attacks in their lawsuit against Saudi Arabia if the U.S. government spares him the death penalty.

And, as The Wall Street Journal reports, victims’ families have urged the government to make more information public, telling President Trump in a letter recently that it would help them “finally learn the full truth and obtain justice from Saudi Arabia.”

The families had sought an unredacted copy of a four-page 2012 summary of an FBI inquiry into three people who may have assisted two of the hijackers in California in finding housing, obtaining driver’s licenses and other matters.

Two of the people, Fahad al-Thumairy and Omar al-Bayoumi, were linked to the Saudi government, according to FBI and congressional documents.  The third person, whose name is redacted, is described in the summary as having tasked the other two with assisting the hijackers.

As a reminder, most of the attackers were from Saudi Arabia; Riyadh has denied complicity in the attacks.

In an odd admission, that appears to suggest they are withholding even more evidence, The FBI, citing the “exceptional nature of the case” said it would provide the name of one Saudi official the families’ had most wanted, but wouldn’t release any other information they sought.

Of course, this decision puts President Trump back in an awkward position of maintaining ties with his petrodollar partners who are buying all those arms while being forced to face realities about the Saudis’ behaviors.


Tyler Durden

Thu, 09/12/2019 – 16:45

Tags
Politics

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Why did “sources familiar with the private Supreme Court deliberations” talk to CNN about the Census Case?

Shortly after NFIB v. Sebelius was decided, Jan Crawford dropped a bombshell report: Chief Justice Roberts switched his vote. Over the ensuing weeks, months, and years, more information was released from the Court about how, why, and when he changed his vote. Why was this information leaked? Generally, private information is revealed for self-serving purposes. Perhaps the conservatives were frustrated with the Chief’s vote. Perhaps the liberals were trying to rehabilitate the Chief. We may never know for sure.

Today, Joan Biskupic of CNN dropped another bombshell report:

Chief Justice John Roberts cast the deciding vote against President Donald Trump’s attempt to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census, but only after changing his position behind the scenes, sources familiar with the private Supreme Court deliberations tell CNN. . . .

After the justices heard arguments in late April, Roberts was ready to rule for Ross and the administration. But sometime in the weeks that followed, sources said, Roberts began to waver. He began to believe that Ross’ rationale for the citizenship question had been invented, and that, despite the deference he would normally give an executive branch official, Ross’ claim had to matter in the court’s final judgment, which Roberts announced on June 27.

I pose the same question for Department of Commerce as I did with NFIB.  Why was this information leaked? What is the potentially self-serving purpose for revealing this information? And why was it leaked now, nearly three months after the case was decided?

This leak reaffirms a principle we are all too-familiar with: the Chief Justice can be swayed after a case is submitted for argument. In 2012, perhaps he was moved by certain political currents concerning the ACA. (I wrote about the aftermath of oral arguments in Part VII of Unprecedented.) And in 2012, perhaps Chief Justice Roberts was affected by the release of the Hofeller files. Biskupic cannot say for sure:

It is not known how Roberts might have been influenced in the census dispute by information that emerged on May 30 in news reports and court filings that appeared to reinforce the possibility that Ross had not been truthful.

This leak provides further encouragement to those who try to work the courts after a case is submitted. Though, to be frank, no one needed this reassurance. At this point, all court watchers know Roberts’s modus operandi by now.

Why was this information leaked? Was it a move from the right to embarrass the Chief, or put pressure on him ahead of this significant term? If so, why wait so long? It would not have made much sense to release this information in the immediate aftermath of Department of Commerce, because there was still a chance that the Trump Administration would try to issue a new policy. Though, soon enough that plan was abandoned.

Finally, a note on sourcing. Who are “sources familiar with the private Supreme Court deliberations”? There are at least two source (plural). They could be a mix of (1) Justice(s), (2) clerk(s), (3) non-Court personnel in contact with a Justice, or (4) non-Court personnel in contact with a clerk. I am skeptical Biskupic would run a story of this magnitude based solely on information from people in category 3 or 4. There is likely someone in category 1 or 2.

Towards the end of her report, Biskupic also drops a bombshell about Gundy v. United States, a case of far greater significance than the one-off Department of Commerce:

But the decision-writing process is fluid. As they draft and share opinions, justices sometimes change positions, subtly in ways that affect parts of the legal reasoning undergirding an opinion, or more dramatically in ways that affect the entire outcome.
Sources familiar with deliberations say that two such noteworthy changes occurred last session, in the census controversy and in a dispute over the validity of a federal sex offender registration act.
In that latter case, the justices upheld the act by a 5-3 vote. (Justice Brett Kavanaugh did not participate in that case heard on the second day of the new session because he was not yet confirmed for the bench.)
Earlier in those negotiations that began in October and stretched until June, a different five-justice majority was headed in the opposite direction, toward invalidating the law and potentially limiting the authority of Congress to delegate power to another branch of government. (The 2006 Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act gave the attorney general authority to determine how the law applies to some convicts; Roberts, who dissented from the final decision preserving Congress’ delegation power, did not switch his vote in this case, Gundy v. United States.)

This passage is far more perplexing than the discussion about Department of Commerce. In Gundy, the short-handed Court upheld the SORNA provision by a 5-3 vote. Justice Gorsuch dissented, joined by the Chief Justice, and Justice Thomas. Biskupic tells us that Roberts did not change his vote. And I am doubtful Gorsuch or Thomas would have changed their vote. Even if Justice Alito originally joined the conservative trio, there still would not have been a five-member majority. Therefore, if Biskupic’s reporting is correct, one member of the liberal wing–the Ginsburg Four!–would have originally gone along with the conservatives to declare unconstitutional the SORNA provision.

My theory: Justice Sotomayor was given the original assignment. She was the only Justice who did not write an opinion from the October sitting. Perhaps she tried to craft a narrow, pro-defendant opinion that would have killed the SORNA regulation, without opening up a new front against the administrative state. At that point, Justice Kagan wrote a dissenting opinion for herself, and Justices Kagan and Breyer. However, something changed. Perhaps Justice Gorsuch circulated a concurring opinion (which would become his dissent). At that point, the conservatives may have refused to join the Sotomayor opinion, because it was too narrow, and perhaps foreclosed future expansions of the nondelegation doctrine. Or, it is even conceivable that Justice Sotomayor did not want to give credence to the Gorsuch position, abandoned her own majority opinion, and decamped to Kagan’s bloc! At that point, the Court would have fractured 4-4. To avoid that outcome,  Justice Alito bit the bullet and did something he had never done before: join four liberal Justices. (Could Justice Kagan have withdrawn her own opinion, forcing a 4-4 affirmance?!) But doing so ensured that the Gorsuch opinion would be published, and, with Justice Kavanaugh on the bench, become a majority opinion.

What do you think?

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Why did “sources familiar with the private Supreme Court deliberations” talk to CNN about the Census Case?

Shortly after NFIB v. Sebelius was decided, Jan Crawford dropped a bombshell report: Chief Justice Roberts switched his vote. Over the ensuing weeks, months, and years, more information was released from the Court about how, why, and when he changed his vote. Why was this information leaked? Generally, private information is revealed for self-serving purposes. Perhaps the conservatives were frustrated with the Chief’s vote. Perhaps the liberals were trying to rehabilitate the Chief. We may never know for sure.

Today, Joan Biskupic of CNN dropped another bombshell report:

Chief Justice John Roberts cast the deciding vote against President Donald Trump’s attempt to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census, but only after changing his position behind the scenes, sources familiar with the private Supreme Court deliberations tell CNN. . . .

After the justices heard arguments in late April, Roberts was ready to rule for Ross and the administration. But sometime in the weeks that followed, sources said, Roberts began to waver. He began to believe that Ross’ rationale for the citizenship question had been invented, and that, despite the deference he would normally give an executive branch official, Ross’ claim had to matter in the court’s final judgment, which Roberts announced on June 27.

I pose the same question for Department of Commerce as I did with NFIB.  Why was this information leaked? What is the potentially self-serving purpose for revealing this information? And why was it leaked now, nearly three months after the case was decided?

This leak reaffirms a principle we are all too-familiar with: the Chief Justice can be swayed after a case is submitted for argument. In 2012, perhaps he was moved by certain political currents concerning the ACA. (I wrote about the aftermath of oral arguments in Part VII of Unprecedented.) And in 2012, perhaps Chief Justice Roberts was affected by the release of the Hofeller files. Biskupic cannot say for sure:

It is not known how Roberts might have been influenced in the census dispute by information that emerged on May 30 in news reports and court filings that appeared to reinforce the possibility that Ross had not been truthful.

This leak provides further encouragement to those who try to work the courts after a case is submitted. Though, to be frank, no one needed this reassurance. At this point, all court watchers know Roberts’s modus operandi by now.

Why was this information leaked? Was it a move from the right to embarrass the Chief, or put pressure on him ahead of this significant term? If so, why wait so long? It would not have made much sense to release this information in the immediate aftermath of Department of Commerce, because there was still a chance that the Trump Administration would try to issue a new policy. Though, soon enough that plan was abandoned.

Finally, a note on sourcing. Who are “sources familiar with the private Supreme Court deliberations”? There are at least two source (plural). They could be a mix of (1) Justice(s), (2) clerk(s), (3) non-Court personnel in contact with a Justice, or (4) non-Court personnel in contact with a clerk. I am skeptical Biskupic would run a story of this magnitude based solely on information from people in category 3 or 4. There is likely someone in category 1 or 2.

Towards the end of her report, Biskupic also drops a bombshell about Gundy v. United States, a case of far greater significance than the one-off Department of Commerce:

But the decision-writing process is fluid. As they draft and share opinions, justices sometimes change positions, subtly in ways that affect parts of the legal reasoning undergirding an opinion, or more dramatically in ways that affect the entire outcome.
Sources familiar with deliberations say that two such noteworthy changes occurred last session, in the census controversy and in a dispute over the validity of a federal sex offender registration act.
In that latter case, the justices upheld the act by a 5-3 vote. (Justice Brett Kavanaugh did not participate in that case heard on the second day of the new session because he was not yet confirmed for the bench.)
Earlier in those negotiations that began in October and stretched until June, a different five-justice majority was headed in the opposite direction, toward invalidating the law and potentially limiting the authority of Congress to delegate power to another branch of government. (The 2006 Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act gave the attorney general authority to determine how the law applies to some convicts; Roberts, who dissented from the final decision preserving Congress’ delegation power, did not switch his vote in this case, Gundy v. United States.)

This passage is far more perplexing than the discussion about Department of Commerce. In Gundy, the short-handed Court upheld the SORNA provision by a 5-3 vote. Justice Gorsuch dissented, joined by the Chief Justice, and Justice Thomas. Biskupic tells us that Roberts did not change his vote. And I am doubtful Gorsuch or Thomas would have changed their vote. Even if Justice Alito originally joined the conservative trio, there still would not have been a five-member majority. Therefore, if Biskupic’s reporting is correct, one member of the liberal wing–the Ginsburg Four!–would have originally gone along with the conservatives to declare unconstitutional the SORNA provision.

My theory: Justice Sotomayor was given the original assignment. She was the only Justice who did not write an opinion from the October sitting. Perhaps she tried to craft a narrow, pro-defendant opinion that would have killed the SORNA regulation, without opening up a new front against the administrative state. At that point, Justice Kagan wrote a dissenting opinion for herself, and Justices Kagan and Breyer. However, something changed. Perhaps Justice Gorsuch circulated a concurring opinion (which would become his dissent). At that point, the conservatives may have refused to join the Sotomayor opinion, because it was too narrow, and perhaps foreclosed future expansions of the nondelegation doctrine. Or, it is even conceivable that Justice Sotomayor did not want to give credence to the Gorsuch position, abandoned her own majority opinion, and decamped to Kagan’s bloc! At that point, the Court would have fractured 4-4. To avoid that outcome,  Justice Alito bit the bullet and did something he had never done before: join four liberal Justices. (Could Justice Kagan have withdrawn her own opinion, forcing a 4-4 affirmance?!) But doing so ensured that the Gorsuch opinion would be published, and, with Justice Kavanaugh on the bench, become a majority opinion.

What do you think?

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“A Giant Policy Failure” – Trader Slams Draghi’s QE Infinity Idiocy

“A Giant Policy Failure” – Trader Slams Draghi’s QE Infinity Idiocy

Authored by Sven Henrich via NorthmanTrader.com,

It’s finally official. QE Infinity is here, so announced today by Mario Draghi at his final press conference as the head of the ECB. Not only QE, but also joining Turkey and Denmark as the latest countries to cut rates this year. Just today and many more to come.

I’ve opined on the subject quite a bit on twitter already today, but what happened today deserves some additional points to be made, mainly because of the intellectual bankruptcy permeating our entire market structure.

Let’s start with the main point:

It’s the point critics of these policies have been predicting for years. Permanent intervention is needed to hold the construct up. These policies never went everywhere. Whatever inflation or growth targets were promised never materialized. Whatever promises of normalization were made never came to fruition. All lies and false promises.

Year after year central bankers have come out, made promises and projections only to push them further into the distance and kept pressing the dovish button. Mario Draghi being the worst offender.

But of course he didn’t get booed out of the press conference. Draghi was free to bullshit his way through the press conference with flat out nonsense like this:

Really? Where?

Inflation expectations (the stated goal of his policies) have trended down ever since the financial crisis.

Let’s add QE to the mix and whaddya got?

Nothing.

Growth? In what? GDP?

Trending down and like the US on an ever slowing path from cycle to cycle. That may not be Draghi’s fault. Demographics, technology, a messy conglomeration of nations trying to operate a common union and currency. Nobody can blame Draghi for that. What one can blame Draghi for is the utter dishonesty of it all making claims that are simply not true.

Negative rates have not produced growth, more likely they have hindered growth. Check the European banking sector if you don’t believe.

Heck, check the ECB’s own GDP forecast for the next 3 years:

That’s what you get with QE infinity and negative rate infinity. Nothing. 1% growth. Congrats.

So an outrageous statement to make. But worse than the statement: None of the reporters present challenged Draghi. He never got challenged by reporters during his tenure, just submissive note taking, moving onto the next question adding no value all the while seeing his promised not come to fruition.

And so Draghi leaves office with a perfect dovish score of 4.68 trillion Euro with a policy of QE infinity on the table for his successor Christine Lagarde to not only embrace but to double down on.

Why am I ranting and complaining about all this?

Well, for one, I don’t like being lied to and a concerted effort of deception is what the entire central banking cabal is engaged in during every policy meeting and press conference as they keep dancing about a key truth: With a fragile global economy the world is one confidence sapping 10%-20% market correction away from triggering a global recession. Central banks know this. Preventing this is the prime directive. Everything else is noise.

And unaccountable to policy failure they keep doubling down on policies that have prompted record wealth inequality spurred not by growth in the larger economy but by growth in vast asset price inflation benefitting the very few:

Structural bears have of course warned against this for years. But of course central banks are doubling down again now that all their projections have turned out to be wrong. And bulls are once again counting on central banks to bail them out as all their projections have turned out the wrong. Yield implosion this year? Didn’t see it coming. GDP growth projections? Too optimistic.

Earnings forecasts? All off:

Price target reductions as a result? Nah, Let’s raise price targets. Why? Multiple expansion courtesy rate cuts, QE and intervention.

Look, anybody can be wrong. I’ve been wrong. Bulls were massively wrong in 2018 and frankly they are wrong again in 2019 for the reasons I outlined. But then say that you were wrong and say that you are entirely reliant on central bank intervention to bail out the overstated earnings forecasts. At least that would be honest.

And I repeat: No bull market without central bank intervention. And this is precisely what bulls are counting on, that the almost recession can be averted agin like in 2012 and 2016:

And what, precisely, prompted these “resets”? Central bank intervention. In 2012 it was the Fed’s QE3, in 2016 it was the combined efforts of global central banks leading to $5.5 trillion in intervention. And now bulls are counting on these intervention programs to succeed again.

But of course there may be a problem or two:

First we’re coming from rock bottom to start with which raises the unanswered efficacy question I keep wondering about?

Why efficacy? Because there’s this thing called yield curves that is now re-soundly dismissed by many. There are no yield curve inversions in 2012 nor in 2016. But of course bulls want to dismiss yield curve inversions like everything else, so strong is the faith in central bank efficacy.

But ignore yield curve inversions at your own risk:

Corporate profitability has a lot of catching up to do. But then perhaps this market no longer needs corporate profitability I understand. We have QE infinity and permanent multiple expansion.

Come on. Get real. QE infinity will not produce growth and neither will more negative rates. At best they can hope for is prevent a major market sell off to trigger a confidence bust leading to a recession. But the jury on this remains out. All new highs over the past 18 months have been sold.  All highs have come on central bank promises. As we are making new highs on the heels of the ECB decision and perhaps the Fed next week the question of efficacy will reveal itself. Failure is not an option for central banks. Question is how much longer investors will be contented with being lied to.

*  *  *

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Tyler Durden

Thu, 09/12/2019 – 16:25

Tags
Business Finance

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

Northeastern Illinois University Students Say Hosting Sean Spicer Promotes Violence

Sean Spicer, former White House press secretary, and Donna Brazile, former Democratic National Committee chairwoman, are slated to appear at Northeastern Illinois University (NEIU) on Thursday night to discuss the 2020 election.

But some student activists are demanding that the administration cancel the event. They argue that giving Spicer a platform promotes violence against marginalized people.

“We see the policies and rhetoric of the Trump administration—including the role Spicer took early in this administration—as drivers of this violence,” protest organizers wrote on the Facebook event page for the Rally to Stop Sean Spicer at NEIU, which will take place during the event. “The role Spicer played—and that the Trump administration continues to play—in this violence is one of creating space for these acts to occur.”

According to these students:

Spicer has consistently promoted policies like the Muslim ban, a border wall, family separation, mass deportations, banning trans people from serving in the military, and many other policies that have encouraged the violence that is taking over our world.

Any platform he is provided, including ones where people are allowed to debate and argue these policies, serves to legitimize these policies, and creates more space for right-wing extremists to escalate their attacks on our communities.

Protest organizers did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

NEIU’s Student Government Association recently held a town hall to discuss the upcoming Spicer event. SGA President Melanie Glover described it as “a space designed to support students, a space designed for your voice to be heard, and a space for you,” according to the NEIU Independent. One participant expressed concern that “when you give these people coverage, on any platform, large or small, I think that encourages violence and helps make their ability to grow that much better.”

Another put it this way:

“To me, this is like a safe space. So why are we inviting people of this nature, that indirectly attack us, our parents and families, to come to a place like this, and enter our safe haven? Why are we not allowed a voice in our own safe space?”

This apparent consensus among activist students that giving right-wing speakers any opportunity to speak will increase the power of the far-right is baffling. If they really believed that giving people like Spicer “coverage, on any platform, large or small” was such a terrible idea, then the last thing they should do is hold town halls, protest, and make demands: These antics only make it likely that Spicer’s remarks will actually attract more attention from the public, media, etc.

According to The College Fix, Spicer and Brazile’s speaking fees were paid by a donor to the university. The administration has pledged to move forward with the discussion.

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Momo Meltdown Stalls As Stocks Jump On Draghi And Trump

Momo Meltdown Stalls As Stocks Jump On Draghi And Trump

Global equity, FX, and bond markets are trading like penny stocks once again as central bank promises, leaks, and actions combine with US and China trade negotiators’ promises, leaks, and actions spark panic-buying – and manic-selling – each and every day. Add to that the biggest quant quake in a decade and “things just went just a little bit slightly turbo” today…

For the first time in a month, offshore yuan traded above its fix

Source: Bloomberg

But intraday it was chaos…

Source: Bloomberg

Chinese stocks lifted on the tit-for-tat de-escalation in trade rhetoric…

Source: Bloomberg

European stocks were also chaotic as Draghi unveiled his grade finale bazooka…

Source: Bloomberg

US Futures show the fun and games best as Trump delayed tariffs soon after the close, China reciprocated on soybeans, Draghi disappointed, rumors of an interim trade deal were then quickly “absolutely” denied…

NOTE – futures tested the initial tariff delay spike 7 times (and failed)

On the cash side, the short-squeeze stalled early on, Trannies ended red as Small Caps played catch-up in the afternoon but tumbled back into the fed at the close…

NOTE – for a change, some weakness into the close

US equity markets are back within spitting distance of all-time record highs (S&P 3025.86 and Dow 27359 closing high)…

 

The meltdown in momentum stalled today – the best day for the momo factor since August 1st!

Source: Bloomberg

“Most Shorted” stocks trod water today as the squeezers appear to have run out of ammo…

Source: Bloomberg

No Smiles for Smile Direct Club as its ugly IPO flopped…

 

VIX traded with a 13 handle intraday…

 

Treasury yields ended higher across the curve (for the 7th day in a row) by around 5bps with massive intraday swings…

Source: Bloomberg

30Y Yields plunged 10bps before surging 14bps amid various headlines (note that 30Y ignored the denial of the interim trade deal)…

Source: Bloomberg

The yield curve continued to steepen, but 3m10Y remains notably inverted…

Source: Bloomberg

A chaotic day in FX land too as Draghi promises and White House denials pumped and dumped and pumped the euro and the dollar. The dollar ended the day lower…

Source: Bloomberg

Draghi dud…

Source: Bloomberg

Cryptos rallied on the day with Bitcoin getting back to even on the week…

Source: Bloomberg

Bitcoin tested $10k a few times and bounced today…

Source: Bloomberg

Oil tumbled overnight – despite all the exuberance over a potential trade deal, PMs pumped and dumped around Draghi…

Source: Bloomberg

WTI tested all the way down to $54.00 before bouncing…

 

Gold spiked up to $1530 before fading back, but still ended higher… (silver ended lower)

 

Meanwhile, the price of gold in Euros hit a record high…

Source: Bloomberg

Finally, we note that amid record high stocks, potential trade deal de-escalation, hotter than expected inflation, and soaring macro surprise data; the market is rapidly pricing out the most extreme view of Fed easing…

The last week has seen the market shift from pricing in 2.7 rate-cuts to just 2 now.

Source: Bloomberg

And then there’s Draghi who just promised to more of what’s not worked for a decade to fix everything…

Source: Bloomberg


Tyler Durden

Thu, 09/12/2019 – 16:01

Tags
Business Finance

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2LtRjx6 Tyler Durden

Northeastern Illinois University Students Say Hosting Sean Spicer Promotes Violence

Sean Spicer, former White House press secretary, and Donna Brazile, former Democratic National Committee chairwoman, are slated to appear at Northeastern Illinois University (NEIU) on Thursday night to discuss the 2020 election.

But some student activists are demanding that the administration cancel the event. They argue that giving Spicer a platform promotes violence against marginalized people.

“We see the policies and rhetoric of the Trump administration—including the role Spicer took early in this administration—as drivers of this violence,” protest organizers wrote on the Facebook event page for the Rally to Stop Sean Spicer at NEIU, which will take place during the event. “The role Spicer played—and that the Trump administration continues to play—in this violence is one of creating space for these acts to occur.”

According to these students:

Spicer has consistently promoted policies like the Muslim ban, a border wall, family separation, mass deportations, banning trans people from serving in the military, and many other policies that have encouraged the violence that is taking over our world.

Any platform he is provided, including ones where people are allowed to debate and argue these policies, serves to legitimize these policies, and creates more space for right-wing extremists to escalate their attacks on our communities.

Protest organizers did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

NEIU’s Student Government Association recently held a town hall to discuss the upcoming Spicer event. SGA President Melanie Glover described it as “a space designed to support students, a space designed for your voice to be heard, and a space for you,” according to the NEIU Independent. One participant expressed concern that “when you give these people coverage, on any platform, large or small, I think that encourages violence and helps make their ability to grow that much better.”

Another put it this way:

“To me, this is like a safe space. So why are we inviting people of this nature, that indirectly attack us, our parents and families, to come to a place like this, and enter our safe haven? Why are we not allowed a voice in our own safe space?”

This apparent consensus among activist students that giving right-wing speakers any opportunity to speak will increase the power of the far-right is baffling. If they really believed that giving people like Spicer “coverage, on any platform, large or small” was such a terrible idea, then the last thing they should do is hold town halls, protest, and make demands: These antics only make it likely that Spicer’s remarks will actually attract more attention from the public, media, etc.

According to The College Fix, Spicer and Brazile’s speaking fees were paid by a donor to the university. The administration has pledged to move forward with the discussion.

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US Forces Accused Of “Indiscriminate Attacks” On Civilians In Syria: UN Report

US Forces Accused Of “Indiscriminate Attacks” On Civilians In Syria: UN Report

Authored by Andrea Germanos via CommonDreams.org,

A new report out Wednesday from United Nations investigators says that U.S. forces may have committed war crimes in Syria.

Released by the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic, the report catalogs how the eight-year conflict “continues to torment civilians who bear the brunt of hostilities,” as operations carried out by the U.S.-led international coalition, militants, and Russia-backed pro-government forces have left essential infrastructure obliterated, civilians killed, maimed, and uprooted, and communities in “near complete destruction.”

US forces in Syria. Image source: Getty

The powers providing support for the warring parties, the report says, “bear a shared responsibility for the crimes committed against millions of Syrian women, men, and children.”

The commission’s findings are based on investigations conducted from January to July this year, including satellite imagery, interviews, and medical records.

Among the specific actions scrutinized in the report was the Al-Jazeera Storm operation in Hajin carried out by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and international coalition. One strike in the operation targeted a residential building and killed 16 civilians, the majority of whom were less than 5 years old. The commission said its investigation turned up no evidence of an ISIL presence or military target in the area. From the report:

The evidence obtained regarding this incident indicated that international coalition forces failed to employ the necessary precautions to discriminate adequately between military objectives and civilians. The commission finds that there are reasonable grounds to believe that international coalition forces may not have directed their attacks at a specific military objective, or failed to do so with the necessary precaution. Launching indiscriminate attacks that result in death or injury to civilians amounts to a war crime in cases in which such attacks are conducted recklessly.

Actions by terrorist groups and pro-government forces were also identified as possible war crimes.

“The commission finds that there are reasonable grounds to believe that members of the armed groups in Afrin continued to commit the war crimes of hostage-taking, cruel treatment, torture, and pillage,” the report states.

The document cites evidence of pro-government forces having used cluster bombs on a residential area in southern Idlib.

It also say pro-government forces launched air strikes on at least three hospitals in Idlib. The “pattern of attack strongly suggests that pro-government forces systematically targeted medical facilities,” says the report. “Such attacks may amount to the war crime of deliberately attacking protected objects and intentionally attacking medical personnel.”

The report also laid out a number of recommendations, including for the Syrian government to ensure unconditional access to medical and humanitarian aid and to ensure protection of health workers.

The U.N. body also urged the U.S.-led coalition to strengthen protections to avoid civilian casualties and to carry out transparent post-operation investigations “following allegations of civilian casualties from aerial and night search operations, with a view to identifying broader patterns of harm, improving operational practice and promoting accountability, and ensuring adequate and prompt reparations.”

Human Rights Watch (HRW): “The use of artillery-delivered white phosphorus by the United States-led coalition fighting Islamic State (also known as ISIS) forces in Syria and Iraq raises serious questions about the protection of civilians.”

Advocacy groups including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have previously pointed to the ongoing tally of Syrian civilian deaths at the hand of the U.S.-led coalition, and said the true death toll is likely far higher that what the coalition acknowledges.

In their detailed exposé on the 2017 U.S.-led bombing campaign of Raqqa, Amnesty and transparency group Airwars captured the voices of some of the Syrians living through the deadly attacks.

“The shells struck one after the other,” said Ahmad, a resident of Raqqa’s Darai’ya neighborhood. “It was indescribable, it was like the end of the world—the noise, people screaming. If I live 100 years I won’t forget this carnage.”


Tyler Durden

Thu, 09/12/2019 – 15:50

Tags
Politics
War Conflict

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The Top Lesson From The Quant Carnage: Too Many Investors Are Poorly Exposed To Positive News

The Top Lesson From The Quant Carnage: Too Many Investors Are Poorly Exposed To Positive News

Over the weekend, Morgan Stanley – once again ahead of its peers – pointed out what it saw as a major, if not the biggest, challenge facing today’s market: what if things got better. Separately, three weeks ago – long before Bloomberg published “Carnage in Crowded Hedge Fund Stocks May Mean Some Don’t Survive” – we wrote “Crowding Is Now One Of The Biggest Market Risks“, in which we explained that virtually all funds are on the same side in both the most loved momentum stocks and most hated value stocks.

Well, fast forward to this week when the combination of “good news” suddenly dominating the newsflow, together with a massive unwind of the most crowded stocks, led to the historic, worst ever 2-day return in the sector-neutral momentum factor.

As such, looking at the events of this week and asking rhetorically, what are the lessons to be learned, together with what comes next, SocGen’s Andrew Lapthorne concludes that the recent events showed that “too many investors are poorly exposed to positive news” and that “value stocks, a portfolio of doom-laden stories as we have seen in recent days, provide such a hedge.”

First, a quick step back: for those who may have missed the fireworks of the past few days, that week we saw some of the most extreme factor moves ever, with Value stocks bouncing back strongly and Quality stocks suffering. As SocGen’s Andrew Lapthorne writes, “both on Monday and Tuesday, we experienced factor performances unseen in more than ten years, across all major regions.”

What is astonishing, however, is that at the same time global equity markets barely moved. “So, this was not the typical Value rally of a bull market, but a strong reversal of the Quality vs Value trade”, according to Lapthorne.

To be sure, none of this is a surprise to the SocGen analyst who has been arguing, for some time now, “that Value stocks are extremely cheap and Quality stocks or bond proxies were expensive.”

We had a polarised equity market created by collapsing bond yields, which has been a feature of the market since QE came along but went to extreme levels over the summer.

What added to this problem was fear of an impending slowdown and a search for perceived safety; as such “any asset with volatility and drawdown was to be avoided”, while value being both volatile and cyclical and having underperformed for almost three years was shunned. Finally, with bond yields plummeting further this summer, Value stocks underperformed further and, more importantly, to a rally in all things “bond-like”.

As such, as both we and Morgan Stanley warned ahead of time, “a strong reversal was always a risk”, especially if it was in the form of good news.

What was the trigger for the biggest quant crash in history?

While there are various theories here, the simplest one is perhaps also the right one – a violent trend rejection. Over the past week, as a result of over $100 billion in investment grade bond issuance in September which led to an in kind shorting of matched maturity Treasuries, bond yields broke their downtrend and bounced back strongly. It was the force of the move, however, that highlighted how polarised the markets are as Morgan Stanley pointed out yesterday.

Essentially, as Lapthorne summarizes, the Quality versus Value trade gave back months of gains in two days. As a result, many investors freaked out out as most of the things they own lost money quite quickly. Conversely the one thing they don’t own, Value stocks and cyclical risk more generally, which many were short rallied violently.

And while it remains to be seen if this historic rotation is over, what are the lessons one can draw so far?

According to Lapthorne, the main lesson is that bond risk in equity markets should not be overlooked. SocGen’s primary argument for Value was not dependent on accelerating GDP growth or an economic regime change, but largely about the need to diversify interest rate risk, a point it first made a year ago when rates were rising. The same applies today.

As a result, there is (or rather, was) too much bond price momentum priced into asset prices and to hedge this risk investors need to buy cyclical upside, “that might be bank stocks, autos, the Nikkei 225 or Value, which by definition is a portfolio of the world’s problems.”

So what happens next?

While value stocks are still attractively valued despite the recent surge, they will likely require positive economic newsflow to extend their rally, because despite some relief from macro fears and trade talks, the economic environment has not changed. This means that rates and credit spread moves following the upcoming central bank meetings will be key to watch. Meanwhile, as we noted earlier today, “value” has already given back some of its gains in Europe following the ECB meeting today.

Irrespective, the biggest lesson to Lapthorne is that “investors need to diversify their bond and bond proxy risk. Too many investors are poorly exposed to positive news” and that “value stocks, a portfolio of doom-laden stories as we have seen in recent days, provide such a hedge.”


Tyler Durden

Thu, 09/12/2019 – 15:37

Tags
Business Finance

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