In the beginning, there was Instapundit, one of the web’s first great aggregator and commentary sites. Launched in August 2001, the site became massively popular after the 9/11 attacks, when it acted as a clearinghouse for information and commentary from all over the world about what the hell was going on.
That was then. Reynolds’ new book is called The Social Media Upheaval. In it, he makes the case that the federal government should use antitrust law to curtail the cultural, market, and political power amassed by Twitter, Facebook, Google, and other tech companies. In a wide-ranging conversation with Nick Gillespie, Reynolds talks about why he quit Twitter last year, how his thinking has changed regarding the internet, and what he hopes will come next online and elsewhere. He also recounts the earlier, Wild West days of online communities in the 1980s, how a photoshopped joke image kept showing up on his Wikipedia page, and why libertarians seem to gravitate to unconventional diets.
The world’s largest bond manager is getting extremely worried about two things that it knows a lot about i) the overall market and ii) the bond market in particular.
Speaking to Bloomberg TV, Scott Mather, chief investment officer of U.S. core strategies at Pimco, joined a bevy of other money managers and warned, in no uncertain terms, that credit market risk is at an all-time high.
“We have probably the riskiest credit market that we have ever had” in terms of size, duration, quality and lack of liquidity, Mather said, adding that the current situation compares risk to mid-2000s, just before the financial crisis.
“We see it in the build up in corporate leverage, the decline in credit quality, and declining underwriting standards – all this late-cycle credit behavior we began to see in 2005 and 2006.” One way of visualizing what Mather was referring to is the following chart of corporate debt to GDP which has never been higher. As for the lack of creditor protections, well, just wait until the screams of anger start after the next wave of bankruptcies.
There was a silver lining, with the PIMCO CIO noting that credit is “not at the point where it will fall of its own weight”, yet, “but it certainly is a vulnerability today and all the ingredients are there for that vulnerability to grow” he added, referring to record stock buybacks this year, much of it financed with leverage, and almost all of which has been used to boost stock prices and shrink shares outstanding.
In response, Mather said that Pimco is “much more defensive,” up in quality in credit, and prefers asset backed securities – i.e., leveraged loans which themselves are a pandora’s box just waiting to be opened – to corporate credit.
So is all credit doomed? No: apparently the three-decade long bond bull market which so many experts saw as dead just one year ago, is quite safe now according to Pimco, with the 10Y approaching a 1-handle again: “The U.S. Treasury market is about the only place you could look for large capital gains as we’re seeing in the markets today, versus the rest of the world”, Mather said, why? Because “there’s no hedge to risky assets other than U.S. high-quality bonds, Treasuries.” A handful of gold or bitcoin fans would disagree.
Still, this to Mather is a unique situation and unlike the last recession, when there was a variety of negatively- correlated assets to buy for protection. “People are probably too optimistic about the growth outlook in the US” he concluded.
In a market outlook released earlier by Pimco, the Newport Beach-based firm warned that global growth is expected to be lackluster with low inflation before a recession occurs in advanced economies likely within five years. Financial market vulnerability, following the recent Federal Reserve pivot away from tightening, “has the potential to lead to greater excess in valuations, particularly in credit”, the report warmed.
But wait, there’s more, because if Mather is right, not even bonds will be risk-free soon, as the era where central banks are “powerful in terms of taking volatility out of the market and pumping asset prices up” is coming to an end, Matther warned: “The U.S. is about the only central bank that was able to normalize policy rates, but elsewhere, there is basically no monetary firepower left.”
Well, if he is right and central banks are indeed about to lose control, then investors have far greater things to worry about than whether their paper gains will turn to paper losses overnight – one worry would be whether investors have enough guns and ammo, for example.
Mather’s conclusionL: “I think that’s what you’re seeing now in markets. People are starting to come to a more realistic outlook about the forward-looking growth prospects, as well as the power of central banks to pump up asset prices.“
Considering that the S&P is about a few hundred percent higher than where it would be without central banks “pumping up prices”, the market is about to go through a lot of pain in the near future if the world’s largest bond manager is correct.
Watch the full Bloomberg interview below
via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2QyzLR0 Tyler Durden
“The biggest problem that most people have is that they read Wall Street research reports and they believe the Wall Street hype… Wall Street analysts are very, very easy to fool, they’re generally parrots for what management tells them.” – Sam Antar, former CFO Crazy Eddie
In 2018, Goldman Sachs underwrote 513 corporate debt issuance deals totaling $94.5 billion. They were paid an average fee of 0.48% or approximately $453.6 million for those efforts.
In a recent research report entitled, Corporate Debt Is Not Too High, Goldman Sachs discusses why they are not concerned with the current levels of corporate debt despite record levels of corporate debt when compared to the nation’s GDP as shown in the chart below.
Goldman’s argument cites the following four reasons:
Corporate debt remains below the 2001 peak as a share of corporate cash flows and has declined as a share of corporate assets
Lower interest rates and more stable cash flows, which help reduce the cost of debt, mean that equilibrium leverage is likely higher than most of the post-war period
Corporate debt in aggregate has a longer maturity which has reduced the refinancing risk
The corporate sector runs a financial surplus which implies that capital expenditures are less dependent on external financing and less vulnerable to a profit squeeze
As discussed in our article The Corporate Maginot Line, not only have corporate debt levels risen dramatically since the financial crisis, but the quality of that debt has declined markedly. With the post-crisis recovery and expansion, the full credit spectrum of corporate debt levels are significantly larger, but debt outstanding in the single-A (A) and triple-B (BBB) rating sectors have grown the most by far.
Unlike previous periods, the composition of corporate debt within the investment grade sector is now heavily skewed toward the riskiest rating category of BBB. BBB-rated securities now represent over 40% of all corporate bonds outstanding. Additionally, all sorts of other risky loans reside as liabilities on corporate balance sheets and are potentially toxic assets for banks and investors. Most notable are leveraged loans extended to businesses by banks to corporations.
Beyond the amount of debt outstanding, another consideration related to creditworthiness are the uses of cash raised by corporations via debt issuance. Have the proceeds been used productively to enhance the future earnings and cash flows of the company, thereby making it easier to service the debt, or have they been used unproductively, creating a financial burden on the company in the future?
In A Perfect World
In an environment where the economy continues to grow at 2% and interest rates remain low, corporations may be able to continue borrowing at the pace required to fund their operations and conduct share buybacks as they wish. The optics appear sound and, based on linear extrapolation of circumstances, there is no reason to believe that tomorrow will differ from yesterday. However, if things do change, this happy scenario being described by the analysts at Goldman Sachs may turn out to be naively optimistic and imprudent.
Let us consider Goldman’s four points one at a time:
1. Corporate debt remains below the 2001 peak as a share of corporate cash flows and has declined as a share of corporate assets
Corporate debt as a share of cash flow may not be at the 2001 peak, but it is higher than every other instance since at least 1952. As seen in the chart below, this measure tends to peak during recessions, which makes sense given that cash flows weaken during a recession and debt does not budge. This argument is cold comfort to anyone who is moderately aware of the late cycle dynamics we are currently experiencing.
Using corporate debt as a share of corporate assets as a measure of debt saturation suffers from a similar problem. The pattern is not as clear, but given that the value of corporate assets tends to decline in a recession, this metric does not offer much confidence in current conditions. While not at or above prior peaks, debt as a share of corporate assets appears somewhat elevated relative to levels going back to 1952. Unlike debt as a share of cash flow, this metric is not a helpful gauge in anticipating downturns in the economy.
2. Lower interest rates and more stable cash flows, which help reduce the cost of debt, mean that equilibrium leverage is likely higher than most of the post-war period
Goldman’s claim is purely speculative. How does anyone know where the “equilibrium leverage” level is other than by reflecting on historical patterns? Yes, interest rates are abnormally low, but for them to continue being an on-going benefit to corporations, they would need to continue to fall. Additionally, those “stable cash flows” are an artifact of extraordinary Fed policy which has driven interest rates to historical lows. If the economy slows, those cash flows will not remain stable.
3. Corporate debt in aggregate has a longer maturity which has reduced the refinancing risk
This too is a misleading argument. Goldman claims that the percentage of short-term debt as a share of total corporate debt has dropped from roughly 50% in 1985 to 30% today. The amount of corporate debt outstanding in 1985 was $1.5 trillion and short-term debt was about $750 billion. Today total corporate debt outstanding is $9.7 trillion and short-term debt is $2.9 trillion. The average maturity of debt outstanding may be longer today, but the nominal increase in the amount of debt means that the corporate refinancing risk is much bigger now than it has been at any time in history.
4. The corporate sector runs a financial surplus (income exceeds spending) which implies that capital expenditures are less dependent on external financing and less vulnerable to a profit squeeze
According to Federal Reserve data on corporate financial balances, the corporate sector does currently have surplus balances that are above the long-term average, but the chart below highlights that those surpluses have been declining since 2011. The recent boost came as a result of the corporate tax cuts and is not likely to be sustained. Historically, as the economic cycle ages, corporate balances peak and then decline, eventually turning negative as a precursor to a recession. If corporate financial surpluses continue to erode, capital expenditures are likely at risk as has been the case in most previous cycles.
Summary
In a recent speech, Dallas Fed President Robert Kaplan stated that the high ratio of corporate debt to U.S. GDP is a concern and that it “could be an amplifier” if the economy turns down. A few days later, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell echoed Kaplan’s comments but followed them by saying, “today business debt does not appear to present notable risks to financial stability.”
“Today” should not concern Chairman Powell, tomorrow should. In that speech, entitled Business Debt and Our Dynamic Financial System, Powell contrasts some key characteristics of the mortgage crisis with current circumstances in corporate lending and deduces that they are not similar.
Someone should remind the Chairman of a speech former Chair Ben Bernanke gave on October 15, 2007, to the Economic Club of New York. Among his comments was this:
“Fortunately, the financial system entered the episode of the past few months with strong capital positions and a robust infrastructure. The banking system is healthy.”
That was exactly 12 months prior to Congress passing legislation to bailout the banking system.
As we suspected, you do not have to search too hard to find a Goldman Sachs report downplaying the risk of subprime mortgages in the year leading up to the subprime crisis.
In February 2007, Goldman penned a research report entitled Subprime Mortgage: Bleak Outlook but Limited Impact for the Banks. In that report, after elaborating on the deterioration in the performance of subprime mortgages, Goldman states, “We expect limited impact of these issues on the banks as bank portfolios consist almost entirely of prime loans.” Goldman followed that up in October 2007 publishing a report on financial crisis poster child AIG titled, Weakness related to possible subprime woes overdone.
Goldman Sachs and their competitors make money by selling bonds, being paid a handsome fee by corporate counterparties. Do not lose sight of that major conflict of interest when you read reports like those we reference here.
Even though it rots teeth and contributes to diabetes, Coca-Cola will never tell you that their soft drink is harmful to your health, and Goldman et al. will never tell you that corporate bonds may be harmful to your wealth if you pay the wrong price. Like most salespeople, they will always hype demand to sell to investors.
Banks will continue to push product without regard for the well-being of their clientele. As investors, we must always be aware of this conflict of interest and do our homework. Bank and broker opinions, views, and research are designed to help them sell product and make money, period. If this were not true, there never would have been a subprime debacle.
via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2wqmml3 Tyler Durden
China is shooting blanks with its threat of a rare earth minerals embargo, the most recent salvo in an ongoing trade war with the United States.
Agence France-Pressereports that, according to various state propaganda sites, the Chinese government may counter President Trump’s tariffs by cutting off America’s access to exports of rare earth minerals that are used in all sorts of advanced electronics. Rare earth metals are chemically similar and include cerium, neodymium, europium, and samarium. Despite their name, most rare earth metals are similarly abundant as more familiar elements like copper, nickel, and zinc.
“Waging a trade war against China, the United States risks losing the supply of materials that are vital to sustaining its technological strength,” the official Xinhua news agency said in a commentary. The state-owned Global Times further warned, “It is believed that if the U.S. increasingly suppresses the development of China, sooner or later, China will use rare earths as a weapon.”
While the U.S. Geological Survey reports that China produced 70 percent of rare earth minerals in 2018, there are rare earth minerals elsewhere in the world. What’s more, the Chinese government has played this game before, imposing export restrictions on rare earth minerals back in 2010. At the time, I predicted that “new supplies and innovation will ensure that the future of the world’s high tech economy will not depend upon the whims of the mercantilist mandarins who steer Chinese industrial and trade policy.” By 2016, my prediction had come true.
As a result, the price for the VanEck rare earths ETF, for example, has dropped by more than 85 percent since the fund’s inception in 2010.
Also, keep in the mind that the U.S. Geological Survey estimates the value of rare earth compounds and metals imported by the United States in 2018 was just $160 million. Chinese export restrictions on rare earth compounds could cause some short term economic pain, but it would be soon alleviated as miners and innovators turned to exploit the nearly two-thirds of the world’s reserves that lay outside of the Middle Kingdom. Those global reserves, by the way, would last more than 700 years at current rates of extraction.
from Latest – Reason.com http://bit.ly/2W0kgCG
via IFTTT
It was an Oxford-style debate, in which the audience votes on the resolution at the beginning and end of the event, and the side that gains the most ground is victorious. Katz prevailed in the debate by convincing 13 percent of audience members to change their minds.
Arguing for the affirmative was Nina Teicholz, whose 2014 book, The Big Fat Surprise, challenged the conventional wisdom on dietary fat. Teicholz’s writing has also been published in The BMJ, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, The Independent, The New Yorker, and The Los Angeles Times among others. Teicholz is the Executive Director of The Nutrition Coalition, a non-profit group that promotes evidence-based nutrition policy.
David L. Katz, MD argued for the negative. He’s the founding director of the Yale-Griffin Prevention Research Center, which practices community and alternative medicine, and is founder/president of the True Health Initiative,a non-profit organization established to promote a healthy diet and lifestyle. The holder of five U.S. patents, Katz has authored roughly 200 peer-reviewed publications and 16 books to date, including textbooks in both nutrition and preventive medicine.
The Soho Forum, which is sponsored by the Reason Foundation, is a monthly debate series at the SubCulture Theater in Manhattan’s East Village.
Music: “Modum” by Kai Engle is licensed under a CC-BY creative commons license.
Uber passengers who receive low ratings from their drivers will be subject to banishment from the service, according to a Tuesday announcement by the ride-hailing company.
Under the new community guidelines, riders with “significantly below average” ratings may lose access to the app.
Riders may lose access to Uber if they develop a significantly below average rating. Riders will receive tips on how to improve their ratings, such as encouraging polite behavior, avoiding leaving trash in the vehicle and avoiding requests for drivers to exceed the speed limit. Riders will have several opportunities to improve their rating prior to losing access to the Uber apps.
Respect is a two-way street, and so is accountability. Drivers have long been expected to meet a minimum rating threshold which can vary city to city. While we expect only a small number of riders to ultimately be impacted by ratings-based deactivations, it’s the right thing to do. –Uber
There is no word on whether riders will be able to earn their way back into Uber’s good graces, or if the bans will be permanent. The company did not disclose what ratings threshold would be used to begin taking action against passengers – who can see their rating underneath their name by opening the main menu while in the app.
Just as riders can rate drivers, drivers can rate passengers on a scale of 1 to 5 stars. A passenger’s rating is the average of the ratings they have received from drivers. According to Uber, very few people have a perfect rating of 5.
The app provides riders with tips on how to earn a high rating from drivers, including: arriving on time, extending courtesy and a positive attitude to drivers, and buckling their seat belt. –Washington Post
Uber drivers, meanwhile, have long been required to maintain a minimum rating to continue driving for the service. Those with a rating below 4.6 may lose their privileges according to Business Insider.
Via Business Insider
Uber also said that it will launch a campaign to educate both riders and drivers about their updated community standards. Those in the US and Canada will be the first to be greeted by an in-app prompt with a summary of the new guidelines, and will be asked to confirm them.
“By educating customers and partners about the Community Guidelines, asking them to confirm they understand, and holding everyone accountable, we can help Uber be welcoming and safe for all,” wrote Uber’s head of safety brand and initiatives, Kate Parker.
According to Gizmodo, the following behaviors could get you banned from Uber before the new guidelines “ranked from least sexy to most sexy”:
5. Damaging the property of your driver or another passenger.
Sure, smashing a car window has a certain raw, terrifying sexiness to it, but “intentionally spilling food or drink, smoking, or vomiting due to excessive alcohol consumption” doesn’t quite get me where I need to be.
4. Using inappropriate and abusive language or making inappropriate gestures
You’re not allowed to “ask overly personal questions” or make verbal threats or “comments or gestures that are aggressive, sexual, discriminatory, or disrespectful.” Harassment—both sexual and otherwise—is not sexy.
3. Making unwanted contact with the driver or a fellow passenger once the trip is over.
Uber prohibits “texting, calling, or visiting someone in person after a ride has been completed.” Stalking isn’t sexy—yet I couldn’t help but feel a tingle of *something* while watching great psychosexual thrillers like Single White Female and Basic Instinct.
2. Breaking the law while using Uber
There’s an inherent sexiness to breaking the law—why does doing something wrong feel so right? Who doesn’t lust after a bad boy or girl every once in a while? Uber warns specifically against having open containers of alcohol, “traveling in large groups that exceed the number of seat belts in the car,” using the car for human and/or drug trafficking, and “asking drivers to break local traffic laws such as speed limits.” Driving 100 MPH is sexy, albeit dangerous. Human trafficking is not sexy. Drug trafficking could be sexy, depending on the circumstances. Being smushed in the back of an Uber with six friends is either incredibly erotic or an absolute nightmare.
via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2QvQDbf Tyler Durden
China is shooting blanks with its threat of a rare earth minerals embargo, the most recent salvo in an ongoing trade war with the United States.
Agence France-Pressereports that, according to various state propaganda sites, the Chinese government may counter President Trump’s tariffs by cutting off America’s access to exports of rare earth minerals that are used in all sorts of advanced electronics. Rare earth metals are chemically similar and include cerium, neodymium, europium, and samarium. Despite their name, most rare earth metals are similarly abundant as more familiar elements like copper, nickel, and zinc.
“Waging a trade war against China, the United States risks losing the supply of materials that are vital to sustaining its technological strength,” the official Xinhua news agency said in a commentary. The state-owned Global Times further warned, “It is believed that if the U.S. increasingly suppresses the development of China, sooner or later, China will use rare earths as a weapon.”
While the U.S. Geological Survey reports that China produced 70 percent of rare earth minerals in 2018, there are rare earth minerals elsewhere in the world. What’s more, the Chinese government has played this game before, imposing export restrictions on rare earth minerals back in 2010. At the time, I predicted that “new supplies and innovation will ensure that the future of the world’s high tech economy will not depend upon the whims of the mercantilist mandarins who steer Chinese industrial and trade policy.” By 2016, my prediction had come true.
As a result, the price for the VanEck rare earths ETF, for example, has dropped by more than 85 percent since the fund’s inception in 2010.
Also, keep in the mind that the U.S. Geological Survey estimates the value of rare earth compounds and metals imported by the United States in 2018 was just $160 million. Chinese export restrictions on rare earth compounds could cause some short term economic pain, but it would be soon alleviated as miners and innovators turned to exploit the nearly two-thirds of the world’s reserves that lay outside of the Middle Kingdom. Those global reserves, by the way, would last more than 700 years at current rates of extraction.
from Latest – Reason.com http://bit.ly/2W0kgCG
via IFTTT
It was an Oxford-style debate, in which the audience votes on the resolution at the beginning and end of the event, and the side that gains the most ground is victorious. Katz prevailed in the debate by convincing 13 percent of audience members to change their minds.
Arguing for the affirmative was Nina Teicholz, whose 2014 book, The Big Fat Surprise, challenged the conventional wisdom on dietary fat. Teicholz’s writing has also been published in The BMJ, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, The Independent, The New Yorker, and The Los Angeles Times among others. Teicholz is the Executive Director of The Nutrition Coalition, a non-profit group that promotes evidence-based nutrition policy.
David L. Katz, MD argued for the negative. He’s the founding director of the Yale-Griffin Prevention Research Center, which practices community and alternative medicine, and is founder/president of the True Health Initiative,a non-profit organization established to promote a healthy diet and lifestyle. The holder of five U.S. patents, Katz has authored roughly 200 peer-reviewed publications and 16 books to date, including textbooks in both nutrition and preventive medicine.
The Soho Forum, which is sponsored by the Reason Foundation, is a monthly debate series at the SubCulture Theater in Manhattan’s East Village.
Music: “Modum” by Kai Engle is licensed under a CC-BY creative commons license.
Another quarter, another failure by banks to do what they used to do so well under the Fed’s QE: grow revenue.
Speaking at a banking conference in New York, the two largest US banks have warned that the trading slump which started about a year ago, will continue.
Citigroup warned that second quarter revenue has declined compared to last year, following the largest US bank, JPMorgan, in reporting a downturn for the high profit margin business. And in a quarter in which the S&P was trading at all time highs less than a month ago, Citigroup CEO Michael Corbat found no shortage of scapegoats on which to blame the trading slump, including the relapse in the trade war, Brexit as wellas escalating tension between the U.S. and Ira, all of which have reportedly weighed on market sentiment in recent weeks.
“Clearly, trading revenue and wallets right now are down,” Citi’s CEO said quoted by Bloomberg, adding that “in periods of uncertainty, things tend to become pretty muted.”
Traders hoping to get some more clarity will have to wait about 6 weeks, when the banks report Q2 earnings, as Corbat declined to give specific number about his firm’s performance in Q2, instead deflecting to Chief Financial Officer Mark Mason, who would “give more details in coming weeks.” Yesterday, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon warned this his firm’s trading revenue had dropped 4% to 5% in the first two months of the second quarter, while noting that “the next month could dramatically change that.” It wasn’t clear if the “change” would be higher or lower.
As part of his own attempt at optimistic spin, Citi’s Corbat said the company is focused on developing better ties between its trading and treasury-management units to improve the experience for corporate customers.
“We’ll likely continue to take share,” Corbat said. “We’ll go up and down with the market. But I would expect that we should either match, or, probably more importantly, outperform over time.”
Bizarrely, Corbat also said Wall Street would begin to benefit as central banks around the world step back from quantitative easing, or bond buying to stimulate economic growth, “because the policy change will create room for banks to step in and provide additional liquidity or financing.” We say bizarrely because the last time central banks tried to step back from quantitative easing, and a global coordinated tightening ensured, the S&P slumped into a brief bear market and banks reported atrocious earnings, which also underscores the bigger problem faced by banks: no matter the environment, they seem unable to grow revenue any more. Perhaps it is time to acknowledge the reason: there are simply no longer enough muppets out there trading day in and out in what, to even the most clueless, is a clearly rigged and manipulated market, and where if central banks truly step back the outcome would be a crash.
via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2I6VR9w Tyler Durden
Now that a few hours have passed, the subtext of Robert Mueller’s first-ever public statement about the Russia probe is starting to sink in for both Democratic presidential contenders and the press (though comparing Mueller to a professor chiding his students for not ‘doing the reading’, like Buzzfeed did, misses the point).
Blaze media critic Robert Eno hit the nail on the head when he pointed out in a tweet that Mueller didn’t just restate the findings from his report: His statement was larded with hints appearing to goad Democrats into pursuing impeachment.
This whole reason Mueller gave this press conference was to give the media this soundbite.
This message wasn’t lost on the contenders for the 2020 Democratic nomination, many of whom swiftly demanded that the House begin impeachment proceedings immediately.
Mueller’s statement makes clear what those who have read his report know: It is an impeachment referral, and it’s up to Congress to act. They should.
Mueller leaves no doubt:
1) He didn’t exonerate the president because there is evidence he committed crimes.
2) Justice Department policy prevented him from charging the president with any crimes.
3) The Constitution leaves it up to Congress to act—and that’s impeachment.
Mueller made clear this morning that his investigation now lays at the feet of Congress. No one is above the law—Congress should begin an impeachment inquiry.
Even AOC, who isn’t seeking higher office this election cycle, reiterated her calls for impeachment and also accused Mueller of “playing a game of Taboo with Congress,” which is actually a fairly apt comparison.
But despite growing support for impeachment, members of the Democratic Congressional leadership sounded conspicuously restrained.
Nancy Pelosi’s statement on Mueller’s remarks was surprisingly restrained. Though the leader of the Democrats in the House acknowledged that the president should be investigated, she stopped short of calling for impeach:
It is with the greatest respect for Special Counsel Robert Mueller and the deepest disappointment in the Department of Justice holding the President above the law, that I thank Special Counsel Mueller for the work he and his team did to provide a record for future action both in the Congress and in the courts regarding the Trump Administration involvement in Russian interference and obstruction of the investigation.
Special Counsel Mueller made clear that he did not exonerate the President when he stated, ‘if we had confidence that the President clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so.’ He stated that the decision not to indict stemmed directly from the Department of Justice’s policy that a sitting President cannot be indicted. Despite Department of Justice policy to the contrary, no one is above the law – not even the President.
The Special Counsel’s report revealed that the President’s campaign welcomed Russian interference in the election, and laid out eleven instances of the President’s obstruction of the investigation. The Congress holds sacred its constitutional responsibility to investigate and hold the President accountable for his abuse of power.
The Congress will continue to investigate and legislate to protect our elections and secure our democracy. The American people must have the truth. We call upon the Senate to pass HR 1, the For The People Act, to protect our election systems.
We salute Special Counsel Robert Mueller and his team for his patriotic duty to seek the truth.
Schumer’s response was similarly restrained.
Robert Mueller made clear today that the Russians interfered in our elections, the wellspring of our democracy.
If Pres Trump & Congress don’t do anything, it’ll be worse in 2020
Yet inexplicably, Sen McConnell & Senate GOP are blocking bipartisan election security legislation, despite Dems’ repeated calls to protect our democracy from interference—by Russia or any other foreign adversary
Robert Mueller’s statement also makes clear that Congress has a right—we believe an obligation—to continue our constitutionally mandated oversight without interference or stonewalling and follow the facts wherever they may lead.
The message is clear: Despite growing support for moving ahead with impeachment proceedings among some of the 2020 candidates, Pelosi, Schumer and the rest of the leadership are sticking with their plan to forego impeachment proceedings to try and avoid inflaming Trump’s base before the election.
Pursuing impeach very well might turn out to be a political trap for the Dems, but if Pelosi & Co. continue to push back against it, they could be setting themselves up for a showdown with left-wing Democrats.
via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2HHxzUt Tyler Durden
