Schiff: Public Has No Right To Observe Impeachment Inquiry…Then Kicks GOP Lawmaker Out 

Schiff: Public Has No Right To Observe Impeachment Inquiry…Then Kicks GOP Lawmaker Out 

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) says that the public shouldn’t be allowed to observe hearings in the ongoing impeachment inquiry, as doing so may allow Republicans to then “fabricate testimony” (and totally not because their case is falling apart). 

On Sunday, Schiff told host Margaret Brennan that the ongoing impeachment inquiry is “analogous to a grand jury proceeding,” which is “done out of the public view initially.” 

Watch:

Based on a politically biased CIA officer’s second-hand complaint over a phone call between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky in which Trump asked for an investigation of former VP Joe Biden, House Democrats have forged ahead with their impeachment inquiry despite several damaging revelations to their narrative; namely that the whistleblower worked with former Biden and two Schiff staffers

More importantly, a transcript of the call in question reveals no such pressure or quid pro quo by Trump. 

Meanwhile, Schiff booted GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz out of Monday morning testimony with former White House Russia adviser Fiona Hill, who resigned shortly before President Trump’s call with Zelensky. 

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), assuming he was allowed to sit in on the testimony because he’s a member of the  House Judiciary Committee, found that he was mistaken. 

Gaetz told the press that House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff had asked him to leave because only the Intelligence, Oversight and Reform, and Foreign Affairs committees, who are leading the impeachment inquiry, had the right to be there. –Town Hall

Interesting, Schiff went from calling for Trump to release a transcript of the Zelensky call and the whistleblower complaint – which Trump did, to wanting everything done through non-public, ‘secretive’ proceedings.


Tyler Durden

Mon, 10/14/2019 – 17:30

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Government Scares Companies Away From Facebook’s Libra Project

Last week, Democratic Sens. Brian Schatz (Hawaii) and Sherrod Brown (Ohio) sent letters to leadership at Visa, Mastercard, and Stripe, encouraging them to pull out of Libra, a planned cryptocurrency project spearheaded by Facebook.

Among other concerns, the senators griped that Facebook “has not provided a clear plan for how it will prevent Libra from facilitating criminal and terrorist financing, destabilizing the global financial system, interfering with monetary policy, or exposing consumers to risks currently limited to accredited investors.” They then raised the issue of child sex abuse photos and videos, claiming such things would be facilitated by combining encrypted messaging with encrypted payments.

“If you take this on,” the senators warned, “you can expect a high level of scrutiny from regulators not only on Libra-related payment activities, but on all payment activities.”

The letter of concern—or threat—from government bullies seems to have had its intended effect. Within days, all three companies (plus other prominent would-be partners) ran away scared and abandoned the project.

At least for now. A Visa spokesperson told The Verge that while the company will not be joining the Libra Association right now, “our ultimate decision will be determined by a number of factors, including the Association’s ability to fully satisfy all requisite regulatory expectations.”

Note that last clause, a pretty clear echo of the senators’ threats. Now Libra doesn’t have any partner capable of payment processing (especially since PayPal already pulled out). Stripe and eBay also replied to The Verge with vague declarations of non-cooperation with Libra while leaving door open for signing on in the future.

The first meeting of the Libra Association Council is happening today in Geneva, Switzerland. Facebook chieftain Mark Zuckerberg is scheduled to testify next week before the House Financial Services Committee, and the government’s fears about Libra will no doubt be further piled on him.

As Jim Epstein previously wrote at Reason, Libra is:

a useful reminder that Silicon Valley can’t ever compete with bitcoin’s mission of reclaiming control of money from the state….Libra is best understood as PayPal 2.0, and yet the white paper invites specious comparisons to bitcoin, noting that “existing blockchain systems have yet to reach mainstream adoption.”…

The difference is that bitcoin is a decentralized technology that nobody controls…Libra’s engineering hurdles are comparatively simple because its a centralized payment system run by a bunch of big companies…Libra is fundamentally a top-down system that runs using a database, which will never change.

Why is bitcoin’s decentralization worth all that extra time and effort? Because governments can’t stop it.

Epstein foresaw exactly this week’s outcome: “Libra, on the other hand, will be controlled by a handful of big companies that will have no choice but to comply with government dictates.”

Reason TV was also prescient on the threats that an operation such as Libra faced from government that other cryptocoins such as bitcoin do not:

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Government Scares Companies Away From Facebook’s Libra Project

Last week, Democratic Sens. Brian Schatz (Hawaii) and Sherrod Brown (Ohio) sent letters to leadership at Visa, Mastercard, and Stripe, encouraging them to pull out of Libra, a planned cryptocurrency project spearheaded by Facebook.

Among other concerns, the senators griped that Facebook “has not provided a clear plan for how it will prevent Libra from facilitating criminal and terrorist financing, destabilizing the global financial system, interfering with monetary policy, or exposing consumers to risks currently limited to accredited investors.” They then raised the issue of child sex abuse photos and videos, claiming such things would be facilitated by combining encrypted messaging with encrypted payments.

“If you take this on,” the senators warned, “you can expect a high level of scrutiny from regulators not only on Libra-related payment activities, but on all payment activities.”

The letter of concern—or threat—from government bullies seems to have had its intended effect. Within days, all three companies (plus other prominent would-be partners) ran away scared and abandoned the project.

At least for now. A Visa spokesperson told The Verge that while the company will not be joining the Libra Association right now, “our ultimate decision will be determined by a number of factors, including the Association’s ability to fully satisfy all requisite regulatory expectations.”

Note that last clause, a pretty clear echo of the senators’ threats. Now Libra doesn’t have any partner capable of payment processing (especially since PayPal already pulled out). Stripe and eBay also replied to The Verge with vague declarations of non-cooperation with Libra while leaving door open for signing on in the future.

The first meeting of the Libra Association Council is happening today in Geneva, Switzerland. Facebook chieftain Mark Zuckerberg is scheduled to testify next week before the House Financial Services Committee, and the government’s fears about Libra will no doubt be further piled on him.

As Jim Epstein previously wrote at Reason, Libra is:

a useful reminder that Silicon Valley can’t ever compete with bitcoin’s mission of reclaiming control of money from the state….Libra is best understood as PayPal 2.0, and yet the white paper invites specious comparisons to bitcoin, noting that “existing blockchain systems have yet to reach mainstream adoption.”…

The difference is that bitcoin is a decentralized technology that nobody controls…Libra’s engineering hurdles are comparatively simple because its a centralized payment system run by a bunch of big companies…Libra is fundamentally a top-down system that runs using a database, which will never change.

Why is bitcoin’s decentralization worth all that extra time and effort? Because governments can’t stop it.

Epstein foresaw exactly this week’s outcome: “Libra, on the other hand, will be controlled by a handful of big companies that will have no choice but to comply with government dictates.”

Reason TV was also prescient on the threats that an operation such as Libra faced from government that other cryptocoins such as bitcoin do not:

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via IFTTT

Is President Trump Right On Syria?

Is President Trump Right On Syria?

Authored by Boyd Cathey via The Unz Review,

The unified foreign policy establishment in Washington, the Deep State politicos – from Lindsey Graham and Lynne Cheney in Congress, to the inveterate Never Trumpers like Peggy Noonan in The Wall Street Journal, [“he’s (Trump) all impulse, blithely operating out of his depth”], to the near totality of the progressivist Left (e.g. Chuck Schumer, Diane Feinstein, and others) – have come together (as they always do) to protect their sacred commitment to globalism and, this time, in opposition to President Trump’s decision to finally withdraw American support troops from northeastern Syria.

If there’s one thing that brings the “Swamp” together in solidarity it is a serious threat to their hegemony in administering America’s foreign policy. From the pseudo-conservative “right” to the loony Left, the one issue that unites these agents of the Managerial Administrative State is the absolute imperative for the United States “to be involved” practically everywhere in the world, the zealous pursuit of “democratization” and the imposition of “egalitarian” values—most significantly in our export of “educational” programs and the various strings attached to our voluminous aid packages. Such programs always follow in the wake of any boots on the ground. They are part and parcel of the Deep State’s attempt to re-fashion the world along the lines and with globalist postulates that are, in fact, inimical to the traditions and heritage of the American founding.

Such initiatives mirror in numerous ways the goals of international financiers and subversive globalist instigators such as George Soros, whose multiple “Europe without Borders” (“Europe sans frontiers”) initiatives involve the virtual destruction of that historic continent by dissolving national borders and via an open door policy towards immigration, most especially from “Third World” countries. Soros and his apparatchiks have run into fierce opposition from Hungary and its valiant Prime Minister Viktor Orban, and, to some degree, from Poland and now from Italy, under its more rightist populist government. Yet, for Soros such opposition is a mere hindrance. He and those internationalists like him continue feverishly their scheming towards a global “nation” founded on ruins of an older, Christian civilization.

Just as with the massive “re-education” of Europe following German defeat in 1945, the results are not always what we are informed they will be. In the case of post-war Germany, it was not only the tearing out, root-and-branch, of any supposed trace of Naziism and antisemitism, but the real and practical disauthorization of ANY actual, traditional conservative presence (including traditional, non-Nazi conservatives), to the point that German history was so completely re-written and sanitized as to make any defense of even pre-1918 Germany—of Prussian history—any defense of a “national German spirit,” the equivalent of “the recrudescence of antisemitism and Hitlerism.” Germans were taught and continue to be taught to despise and reject their past, not just the twelve year interregnum under Adolf Hitler, but in fact its near entirety. The German nation has become, in a real sense, one immense bog of continuous apologies and imposed, never ending penance.

The ignominious demise of Soviet Communism, a threat to us and our existence prior to 1991, in no way lessened the beating war drums and the dreams of international “democratization” or the desire for imposing “egalitarian values” emitted from the American foreign policy establishment. Nor its implicit, if not always seamless, tacit collaboration with the aims of uber-globalists like Soros. The specter of the George W. Bush years, of a John McCain and Lindsey Graham, and of Neocon “thought leaders” like Bill Kristol and James Kirchick demanding that the full panoply of “gay and lesbian rights” be implemented in Russia, that “democratic values” be imposed in Iraq, and that America intervene in Syria, are stark reminders that those policies continue full blast in the Swamp.

And thus when Donald Trump uttered the unutterable and ordered the withdrawal of American troops, he enraged not just the fanatics over on the progressivist Left, but the unelected managerial bureaucrats and Republican and “conservative” denizens of that same Swamp (who hold themselves condescendingly above all those rubes and deplorables out in the American hinterland). How dare the Trumpster question the “national consensus”! How dare he challenge the irrepressible advance towards world democracy and equality for everyone, everywhere! How dare he be so petty and insular as to reject “progress”!

Thus the howls of disapproval and anger directed at the president for his announcement last week that he is doing exactly what he declared he would do, both during his presidential campaign and back in December: withdraw American “advisers” from the Turkish border in extreme northeastern Syria.

Unlike the jeremiads one hears from nearly all the media, including Fox News and pundits like Chris Wallace and Brian Kilmeade, this decision was not unexpected, but had been in the planning stage and in the offing since this past December (when General Mattis resigned because he disagreed). The president just finally decided to follow through on his promise.

Perhaps the most pointed—and poignant—argument used by those who oppose the president is that we are leaving “our Kurdish allies in the lurch, we are deserting them,” placing them at the mercy of the Turks just across the border who have already begun to attack them. Those who make this argument appear to forget that the Marxist Kurdish resistance in that region has been and continues to be, in many respects, an anti-Turkish terror group hoping to carve out of Turkey a large area to be part of an independent Kurdish nation. Over the years they have engaged in various barbaric acts of terrorism and mayhem directed not only against the Turkish military but also against civilians. Our alliance with them, such as it was, was one of convenience: that we would offer them some temporary aerial cover, a kind of shield against their hereditary enemies, and in return they would assist us in that small area of northeastern Syria that continued to be subject of ISIS attacks.

This they did.

But too often we Americans suffer from both strategic and historical myopia. We did not win the war against ISIS, and neither did the Kurds. The vast majority of the fighting was done by the Syrian Army of Bashar al-Assad, backed strongly by Russian assistance—and with the near unanimous support of Syria’s beleaguered Christian population. Some 80% of the country was liberated by the Syrians themselves.

Now the Kurds in that part of Syria may have to look to President Assad for an alliance and protection, and that would not be a bad thing at all. Assad is, after all, the legitimate president of Syria. Despite the best efforts and machinations of the American State Department (abetted by the late Senator John McCain) to undermine his struggle against Islamic extremists, Assad has been largely successful in defending his nation’s geographical integrity and its independence. Just as in Iraq, American intervention—in the name of “human rights” and “spreading democracy”—was wrongheaded from the beginning and woefully counter-productive. Would there have even been such involvement in Syria had it not been for “protecting Israel’s flank”?

Certainly, there are some outstanding issues that need resolution: no one wishes to see additional civilians—Kurdish women and children—caught up in more cross fire. And there are approximately 10,000 ISIS prisoners being held in the area (which European countries don’t wish to take, and who we don’t want either). Hopefully, discussions between Donald Trump and President Erdogan of Turkey will result in some kind of solution for these questions.

Yet, over it all there is the overarching and searing reminder that for thousands of years the Middle East has presented an almost unsolvable conundrum, a morass where armies perish in the sands, where whole nations seem to disappear into the recesses of history. Just reflect, if you will, on efforts over the past fifty years to engineer (that is the correct word) peace between the Israelis and their Arab neighbors…of the immense hostility existing between the Sunni and Shi’a and Wahabi Muslims…of the enmity between the Saudis and Gulf States, and Syria and Iran. These conflicts are not isolated, nor new: they reflect millennia of violence, carnage, and hate. And there are few signs that that will change, with or without Americans in the region.

And, given our very dubious record (at best) in the Middle East, our efforts at “democratization” and “peace-keeping” should have taught us a lesson or two.

Unfortunately, the foreign policy Swamp and the globalists continue to believe that they can reconstruct human nature, with enough American advisers, enough American aid, enough secularized education and population re-programming and re-educating…and maybe a few body bags thrown in for good measure.

In so doing, they actually bring on the eventual demise of the America Empire.


Tyler Durden

Mon, 10/14/2019 – 17:10

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ABC News Used Footage From a Kentucky Gun Show and Said It Was Syrian Warfare

Trust in the news media is at historic lows. Days like today won’t make it any better.

During Sunday evening and Monday morning broadcasts, ABC News showed footage from a gun show at the Knob Creek Gun Range in West Point, Kentucky. Except they told viewers it was a showdown between Syria and Turkey.

“We’ve taken down video that aired on World News Tonight Sunday and Good Morning America this morning that appeared to be from the Syrian border immediately after questions were raised about its accuracy,” a network representative told the Washington Examiner, which first reported this story.ABC News regrets the error.”

Tensions have indeed escalated between Turkish forces and the Syrian Kurds after President Donald Trump abruptly pulled back U.S. troops from northern Syria, essentially greenlighting an invasion from Turkey. “Turkey will soon be moving forward with its long-planned operation into Northern Syria,” said a statement from the White House last week. There have already been reports of violence, including footage of Turkish militants executing a group of civilians and a Kurdish politician on the side of a highway.

Many say Trump’s sudden decision was devoid of foresight, which made a bad situation much worse. Rep. Justin Amash (I–Mich.), a non-interventionist by all means, tweeted that the president “facilitated a disaster” in choosing this course.

“The situation rapidly spiraling out of control in northern Syria,” said ABC News anchor Tom Llamas as he narrated the footage on Sunday. “One week since President Trump ordered U.S. forces out of that region, effectively abandoning America’s allies in the fight against [the Islamic State].”

So perhaps ABC was searching for footage—dramatic, explosive footage—that confirmed that narrative. Or maybe it was a clumsy mistake. Whatever it was, it shows how few journalists understand the particulars of guns.

Last year, for instance, the Examiner highlighted an Associated Press story which continuously differentiated between semi-automatic and non-automatic rifles, which are the same thing. Perhaps more seriously, “assault weapons”—a vague term that no one quite understands—are constantly compared to machine guns and weapons of war, although they fire at the same speed as other semi-automatic weapons.

Those mistakes are relatively small, though, when compared with ABC’s latest blunder.

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ABC News Used Footage From a Kentucky Gun Show and Said It Was Syrian Warfare

Trust in the news media is at historic lows. Days like today won’t make it any better.

During Sunday evening and Monday morning broadcasts, ABC News showed footage from a gun show at the Knob Creek Gun Range in West Point, Kentucky. Except they told viewers it was a showdown between Syria and Turkey.

“We’ve taken down video that aired on World News Tonight Sunday and Good Morning America this morning that appeared to be from the Syrian border immediately after questions were raised about its accuracy,” a network representative told the Washington Examiner, which first reported this story.ABC News regrets the error.”

Tensions have indeed escalated between Turkish forces and the Syrian Kurds after President Donald Trump abruptly pulled back U.S. troops from northern Syria, essentially greenlighting an invasion from Turkey. “Turkey will soon be moving forward with its long-planned operation into Northern Syria,” said a statement from the White House last week. There have already been reports of violence, including footage of Turkish militants executing a group of civilians and a Kurdish politician on the side of a highway.

Many say Trump’s sudden decision was devoid of foresight, which made a bad situation much worse. Rep. Justin Amash (I–Mich.), a non-interventionist by all means, tweeted that the president “facilitated a disaster” in choosing this course.

“The situation rapidly spiraling out of control in northern Syria,” said ABC News anchor Tom Llamas as he narrated the footage on Sunday. “One week since President Trump ordered U.S. forces out of that region, effectively abandoning America’s allies in the fight against [the Islamic State].”

So perhaps ABC was searching for footage—dramatic, explosive footage—that confirmed that narrative. Or maybe it was a clumsy mistake. Whatever it was, it shows how few journalists understand the particulars of guns.

Last year, for instance, the Examiner highlighted an Associated Press story which continuously differentiated between semi-automatic and non-automatic rifles, which are the same thing. Perhaps more seriously, “assault weapons”—a vague term that no one quite understands—are constantly compared to machine guns and weapons of war, although they fire at the same speed as other semi-automatic weapons.

Those mistakes are relatively small, though, when compared with ABC’s latest blunder.

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Is Everyone Wrong About NBA/China/Hong Kong Except South Park and…Ted Cruz?

Who ya gonna believe when it comes to the omni-faceted NBA/China/Hong Kong/censorship/whatever controversy, Gregg Popovich, Donald Trump, Steve Kerr, South Park, or…Sen. Ted Cruz (R–Tex.)?

That’s the first of a seemingly endless number of perhaps unanswerable questions on this week’s Reason Roundtable podcast, featuring Nick Gillespie, Katherine Mangu-Ward, Peter Suderman, and Matt Welch. Other queries include: Does Red China’s exportation of censorship disprove the hypothesis that trade and capitalism make people freer? Is President Trump’s abandonment of the Syrian Kurds a welcome clarifying agent to the U.S. body politic or a haphazard atrocity-enabler cloaked in the insincere language of imperial withdrawal? Which Democrats are most set to embarrass themselves in this week’s debate? Are Tom DeLay’s hips capable of lying? And can Nick’s enthusiasm for Columbus Day be contained, let alone stopped?

Audio production by Ian Keyser and Regan Taylor.

‘Duet Musette’ by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under CC BY 4.0

Relevant links from the show:

The NBA’s China Problem Gets Worse After 2 American Arenas Eject Hong Kong Supporters,” by Eric Boehm

Activision Blizzard Sided With Chinese Communists Against a 21-Year-Old Star Player,” by Robby Soave

China Banned South Park After the Show Made Fun of Chinese Censorship,” by Robby Soave

The NBA Cares More About Making Money in Mainland China Than Supporting Freedom in Hong Kong,” by Mike Riggs

Hong Kong Protesters Combat the Surveillance State,” by Zach Weismueller

Searching for New Atlantis in China,” by Michael Gibson

Ted Cruz Wants To Punish Google Because Execs Didn’t Vote for Trump,” by Elizabeth Nolan Brown

We Can Learn 3 Lessons From Trump’s Partial Syria Withdrawal,” by Bonnie Kristian

Bringing Them Home? Trump Commits 1,800 More Troops to the Middle East,” by Eric Boehm

Let the Kurds Come to America,” by Shikha Dalmia

Trump Brushes Off the Threat of Free ISIS Militants Because ‘They’re Going to be Escaping to Europe,’” by Elizabeth Nolan Brown

U.S. Consents to a Turkish Invasion in Syria; Kurdish Forces Call It ‘A Stab in the Back,’” by Elizabeth Nolan Brown

Democratic Candidates Promise LGBT Voters They’ll Punish All the Right People,” by Scott Shackford

Inside the Pro-Trump Conference Where a Violent Meme Made National News,” by C.J. Ciaramella

Summer TV Season Launches with HBO’s Murdoch-esque Succession,” by Glenn Garvin

You Know All Those Stories About The Apocalypse Being Nigh? Well, Now That Tom DeLay Is Going To Be On Dancing With The Stars, I Believe Them,” by Nick Gillespie

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By This Measure, US Unemployment Is About To Surge

By This Measure, US Unemployment Is About To Surge

One of the perplexing divergences about the ongoing economic slowdown is that whereas manufacturing, and increasingly, service surveys have shown the US economy is on the verge of a contraction, the US consumer remains quite healthy.

Indeed, as Morgan Stanley wrote yesterday, the strength of the US consumer has been the bedrock of the current economic expansion. Just a few weeks ago, in a CNBC interview, Fed Vice Chair Clarida said that “I cannot think of a time where in the aggregate the consumer has been in better shape.” With unemployment at 3.5%, the household savings rate ticking up to 8%, the aggregate debt-to-income ratio hovering around 40-year lows and consumer delinquencies at or near post-crisis lows, policy-makers’ comfort with the strength of the US consumer seems well grounded.

That said, cracks are appearing, and while aggregate consumer debt-to-income ratios and delinquency rates are indeed low, the New York Fed’s financial obligations ratio tells a different story. With the decline in homeownership, the share of rental households has risen, as have rents, which are not included in aggregate debt-servicing costs. In addition to standard debt payments, the financial obligations ratio includes payments towards rent, auto leases, homeowners’ insurance and property tax payments, with rents representing the bulk of these non-standard obligations.

Looking at this ratio together with debt-to-income, ONE can tease out the impact that increasing numbers of rental households paying progressively higher rent is having on the health of the consumer. The spread between these two ratios stands at the widest level since 1980. Renters generally tend to be younger, and at the lower end of the income spectrum versus homeowners. As such, as Morgan Stanley noted, “aggregate consumer metrics fail to capture the growing stress on rental households.”

Here Morgan Stanley made another striking observation, which we discussed yesterday: while the US consumer’s balance sheet is in fine shape overall, mainly because levels of debt and debt-servicing costs remain low, there’s a segment whose income statements are under stress –rental households with lower income and lower credit scores. How big are they? Not small, at least on one metric: borrowers with FICO scores below 650 account for about 28% of the population.

As Morgan Stanley’s economist Ellen Zentner concluded, “if the direction of gains in employment reverses, look for the cracks to widen.”

So with that, we bring readers’ attention to another remarkable chart, one which suggests that the cracks are indeed about to widen as the US unemployment rate is set to spike, perhaps signaling the long overdue start of the recession. Specifically, we show the relationship between the US unemployment rate (U-3) and the University of Michigan Consumer Confidence Survey response to the question that it is “a good time to purchase household durables.” The results of this question, which are shown on an inverted axis, tend to correlate closely with overall economic confidence overall economic and market conditions, and – most of all – with the unemployment rate which they tend to lead by about 10 months.

The logic is simple: US consumers spend less on critical household purchases when their economic situation deteriorates; alternatively, the decision to reduce spending on key household products, which may come amid concerns for future income and wealth, creates a feedback loop which ultimately results in an economic contraction.

More ominously, major reversal inflection points in the consumer spending intentions have been a clear leading indicator to what awaits the US unemployment rate, and as the chart below shows…

… all else equal US unemployment is about to jump by roughly a third, from 3.5% currently to just shy of 5.0%.

Finally, if the 10 month lead time on this metric is accurate, expect US unemployment to spike just as the national debate turns to the Nov 2020 presidential election. Needless to say, a sudden spike in the unemployment rate in mid/late 2020 will not help Trump’s reelection chances.


Tyler Durden

Mon, 10/14/2019 – 16:50

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Is Everyone Wrong About NBA/China/Hong Kong Except South Park and…Ted Cruz?

Who ya gonna believe when it comes to the omni-faceted NBA/China/Hong Kong/censorship/whatever controversy, Gregg Popovich, Donald Trump, Steve Kerr, South Park, or…Sen. Ted Cruz (R–Tex.)?

That’s the first of a seemingly endless number of perhaps unanswerable questions on this week’s Reason Roundtable podcast, featuring Nick Gillespie, Katherine Mangu-Ward, Peter Suderman, and Matt Welch. Other queries include: Does Red China’s exportation of censorship disprove the hypothesis that trade and capitalism make people freer? Is President Trump’s abandonment of the Syrian Kurds a welcome clarifying agent to the U.S. body politic or a haphazard atrocity-enabler cloaked in the insincere language of imperial withdrawal? Which Democrats are most set to embarrass themselves in this week’s debate? Are Tom DeLay’s hips capable of lying? And can Nick’s enthusiasm for Columbus Day be contained, let alone stopped?

Audio production by Ian Keyser and Regan Taylor.

‘Duet Musette’ by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under CC BY 4.0

Relevant links from the show:

The NBA’s China Problem Gets Worse After 2 American Arenas Eject Hong Kong Supporters,” by Eric Boehm

Activision Blizzard Sided With Chinese Communists Against a 21-Year-Old Star Player,” by Robby Soave

China Banned South Park After the Show Made Fun of Chinese Censorship,” by Robby Soave

The NBA Cares More About Making Money in Mainland China Than Supporting Freedom in Hong Kong,” by Mike Riggs

Hong Kong Protesters Combat the Surveillance State,” by Zach Weismueller

Searching for New Atlantis in China,” by Michael Gibson

Ted Cruz Wants To Punish Google Because Execs Didn’t Vote for Trump,” by Elizabeth Nolan Brown

We Can Learn 3 Lessons From Trump’s Partial Syria Withdrawal,” by Bonnie Kristian

Bringing Them Home? Trump Commits 1,800 More Troops to the Middle East,” by Eric Boehm

Let the Kurds Come to America,” by Shikha Dalmia

Trump Brushes Off the Threat of Free ISIS Militants Because ‘They’re Going to be Escaping to Europe,’” by Elizabeth Nolan Brown

U.S. Consents to a Turkish Invasion in Syria; Kurdish Forces Call It ‘A Stab in the Back,’” by Elizabeth Nolan Brown

Democratic Candidates Promise LGBT Voters They’ll Punish All the Right People,” by Scott Shackford

Inside the Pro-Trump Conference Where a Violent Meme Made National News,” by C.J. Ciaramella

Summer TV Season Launches with HBO’s Murdoch-esque Succession,” by Glenn Garvin

You Know All Those Stories About The Apocalypse Being Nigh? Well, Now That Tom DeLay Is Going To Be On Dancing With The Stars, I Believe Them,” by Nick Gillespie

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And The Prize For Most Transparently Disingenuous Media Agitprop Goes To…

And The Prize For Most Transparently Disingenuous Media Agitprop Goes To…

Authored by James Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com,

Wait For It

An eerie silence cloaked the political landscape this lovely fall weekend as the soldiers in this (so far) administrative civil war scrambled for position in the next round of skirmishes. Rep. Adam Schiff fell back on the preposterous idea that he might not produce his “whistleblower” witness at all in the (so far) hypothetical impeachment proceeding. He put that one out after running a similarly absurd idea up the flagpole: that his “whistleblower” might just testify by answering written questions. I was waiting for him to offer up testimony by Morse code, carrier pigeon, or smoke signals.

Of course, the effort to “protect” the “whistleblower” has been a juke all along. For one thing, he-she-it is not a “whistleblower” at all; was only labeled that via legalistic legerdemain to avoid revealing the origin of this affair as a CIA cover-your-ass operation. Did Mr. Schiff actually think he could conceal this figure’s identity in a senate impeachment trial, when it came to that — for what else is impeachment aimed at? Anonymous sources are not admissible under American due process of law. Mr. Schiff must have missed that class in law school.

All of this hocus-pocus suggests to me that there is no “whistleblower,” that it is a phantom confabulation of gossip threads that unraveled the moment Mr. Trump released the transcript of his phone call to Ukraine’s president Zelensky, aborting Mr. Schiff’s game plan. The ensuing weeks of congressional Keystone Kops buffoonery since then appears to conceal a futile effort by Mr. Schiff and his confederates to find some fall guy willing to pretend that he-she-it is the “whistleblower.” He might as well ask for a volunteer to gargle with Gillette Blue Blades on NBC’s Meet the Press.

One marvels at Rep. Schiff’s tactical idiocy. But just imagine the panicked consternation it must be triggering among his Democratic colleagues. Notice that Mrs. Pelosi has been hiding out during this latest phase of the action. She may sense that there is nothing left to do but allow Mr. Schiff to twist slowly slowly in the wind, as he has hung himself out to dry. She should have known better since every previous declaration of conclusive evidence by Mr. Schiff over the past three years has proved to be false, knowingly and mendaciously so.

One also clearly senses that all the smoke-and-mirrors are a desperate attempt to divert attention from a soon-to-drop DOJ Inspector General’s report which, by the way, will only be an overture to much more damaging action likely to come from Mr. Barr’s proceeding. After all, IG Horowitz was not allowed under the rules to compel the testimony of persons outside the Department of Justice, which would now include Andrew McCabe, James Comey, and many others at the center of the RussiaGate prank.

That also includes the probable chief pranksters, former CIA head John Brennan and James Clapper, former Director of National Intelligence, the midwives of RussiaGate. The pair have been running around on cable news with both their hair and their pants on fire in recent weeks. Back in March, before the Mueller Report flopped, and when Mr. Barr was commissioned to look into all the RussiaGate shenanigans, Mr. Brennan comically claimed that he “received bad information and suspected there was more than there actually was.”

That lame admission will not avail to protect him or the CIA, an agency that is behind the administrative civil war. It has been a rogue agency for a long long time, but may have finally overplayed its hand, along with the newer adjunct agencies that have been stitched onto it since 9/11/01 — the dark network that goes by the name Intelligence Community. So many shoes are ready to drop on them that the din might drown out all the John Philip Sousa marches ever played in the lobby at Langley, let alone the thin trilling of a fake whistleblower.

Apart from these fateful developments the prize for the week’s most transparently disingenuous bit of media agitprop goes to Saturday’s New York Times puff piece on former FBI Director Jim Comey, which actually sets him for federal indictment on something like sedition or treason. Get a load of this:

Did you notice that the photo-caption states: James Comey plans to spend the next 13 months working to drive President Trump from power. Oh, really? By what means, exactly?

Single-handedly or with whom? And how did the strategy he kicked off in 2016 work out? In case Mr. Barr is looking for some way to attribute motive to the actions that he’s investigating, he may need to seek no further. Also, consider that The New York Times and its editor-in-chief Dean Baquet, and publisher A.G. Sulzberger may be named as unindicted co-conspirators in the three-year campaign of sedition (freedom of the press, of course). Alert the shareholders.


Tyler Durden

Mon, 10/14/2019 – 16:29

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/33sAp87 Tyler Durden