A new thermal area was discovered under Yellowstone National Park, nestled in beautiful Wyoming. But scientists are adamant this time that there is no “impending eruption” because they found another area of thermal activity near the caldera.
Although scientists say that this new thermal area is just simply a normal part of Yellowstone’s dynamic hydrothermal activity, the area has been slowly forming over the past two decades. Not only that, but it was just recently spotted using infrared images of the existing Tern Lake thermal area. Obviously trying to quell the amount of talk about a supervolcano eruption, scientists insist there is no eruption coming to Yellowstone.
According to a report by Weather.com, the new area is entrenched deep in Yellowstone’s backcountry between West Tern Lake and the previously mapped Tern Lake thermal area. The U.S. Geological Survey confirmed the thermal area’s location earlier this month while downplaying any potential for an eruption.
“This is exactly the sort of behavior we expect from Yellowstone’s dynamic hydrothermal activity,” R. Greg Vaughan, a research scientist with USGS, wrote in a blog post, “and it highlights that changes are always taking place, sometimes in remote and generally inaccessible areas of the park.”
The serene nature of Yellowstone is also one of volcanic activity. Yellowstone has about 10,000 thermal areas concentrated into about 120 distinct areas. The USGS says that a “thermal area” is an area in which magma activity is concentrated underground. These areas can include geysers, like Yellowstone’s Old Faithful; hot springs; and fumaroles, which are vents that allow volcanic gases to escape. They are surrounded by hydrothermal mineral deposits, geothermal gas emissions, heated ground and lack of vegetation, the USGS added.
The new thermal area, about half a mile from the nearest trail, and about 11 miles from the nearest trailhead was first noticed in an infrared satellite image acquired in April 2017. The area showed up as a bright spot between the Tern Lake thermal area and the western edge of West Tern Lake. –Weather.com
“Yellowstone’s thermal areas are the surface expression of the deeper magmatic system, and they are always changing,” Vaughn wrote. “They heat up, they cool down, and they can move around.” And Yellowstone has undergone some changes as of late, such as the eruption of Ear Spring, and the newly active Steamboat Geyser.
Even though a portion of these eruptions, earthquakes, and new thermal activity can be classified as normal, Yellowstone has a long a violent history showing those even mildly concerned about an eruption could be on the right track. But scientists are sticking to their guns and saying there is “no way” Yellowstone is going to erupt.
“We’ve heard many statements that Yellowstone is overdue — that it has a major eruption every 600,000 years on average, and since the last eruption was 631,000 years ago… well… you can see where this is going,” Michael Poland, scientist-in-charge of the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory, recently wrote in a blog post.
“Is this true? In a word, no. In two words, no way. In three words, not even close. Yellowstone doesn’t work that way.”
via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2U5XYyy Tyler Durden
WTI dipped today after The IMF lowered their global growth forecast and Putin said Russia is comfortable with current prices and not yet ready to say whether it wants to extend output curbs it orchestrated with OPEC.
Investors have “reasonable excuses” to break their stride and take profits, said Kyle Cooper, a consultant at Ion Energy Group in Houston. “The market’s taking a little bit of a pause after what’s still been a very, very substantial rally.”
API
Crude +4.09mm (+2.5mm exp)
Cushing -1.3mm
Gasoline -7.1mm – biggest draw since Sept 2017
Distillates -2.4mm
A third weekly build in crude stocks in a row was trumped by a major gasoline inventory drawdown
WTI hovered around $64 ahead of the API print but despite the larger than expected build, prices popped modestly on the big draw in gasoline…
via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2Vxt7fP Tyler Durden
Though not surprising, it’s nevertheless extraordinary to watch Donald Trump publicly and shamelessly morph into a George W. Bush era neocon when it comes to foreign policy, and a CNBC stock market cheerleader when it comes to the economy.Just like Barack Obama before him, Trump talked a good populist game on two issues of monumental importance (foreign policy and the rigged economy), but once elected immediately turned around and prioritized the core interests of oligarchy.
Trump doesn’t even give lip service to big picture populist topics anymore unless they’re somehow related to the culture war, which works out perfectly for the entrenched oligarchy since the culture war primarily serves as a useful distraction to keep the rabble squabbling while apex societal predators loot whatever’s left of this hollowed out neo-feudal economy.
The pivot toward status quo consensus when it comes to two of the most existential issues facing the nation should be deeply concerning to everyone, but particularly to those who thought Donald Trump would be different. When it comes to militarism and empire, Trump’s hypocrisy and bait and switch is one for the record books. Just as it became clear Obama was a fraud once he hired Larry Summers and Timothy Geithner (we later found out his cabinet was apparently chosen by Citibank), Trump placing neocons Mike Pompeo and John Bolton into key positions was a clear sign you could take “Make America Great Again” and flush it down the toilet. This administration is now laser focused on maintaining and even expanding imperial reach.
Like Obama before him, Trump’s abandonment of every important thing he ran on was noticeable early on. Recall that while campaigning, Trump accurately called out the Saudis for their key role in the 9/11 attacks:
“Who blew up the World Trade Center? It wasn’t the Iraqis, it was Saudi — take a look at Saudi Arabia, open the documents,” Trump told the gang at Fox & Friends Wednesday morning…
“It wasn’t the Iraqis that knocked down the World Trade Center,” Trump told a crowd in Bluffton, South Carolina. “It wasn’t the Iraqis. You will find out who really knocked down the World Trade Center, ‘cuz they have papers in there that are very secret. You may find it’s the Saudis, okay? But you will find out.”
Shortly after he made those comments, the infamous “28 Pages” were released showing how Saudi elites helped finance the whole operation. Did that stop Trump from making Saudi Arabia his very first state visit after being elected? Don’t be ridiculous.
Donald Trump knows the score when it comes to Saudi Arabia. He knows about their role in 9/11 and he knows they’re the top global proliferators of terrorist ideology on the planet. Nevertheless, Trump is now enthusiastically tied to the hip with the Saudis, thus making him a defender and protector of the status quo. Defend him all you want, but this isn’t the sort of thing he ran on with regard to America’s foreign policy.
Like other presidents who came before him, he campaigned on one foreign policy platform and then supports another once elected. In fact, Trump’s now so far off the deep end he’s widely expected to veto a measure recently passed by both houses of Congress to stop aiding Saudi Arabia in its ongoing genocidal war in Yemen.
Trump knows better when it comes to foreign policy, but he’s doing this stuff anyway. A similar thing could be said for his economic policy. While on the campaign trail he accurately called what was going on in financial markets a “big, fat, ugly bubble,” but now that he’s in the Oval office, he can’t get enough of it — cheering on the stock market every chance he gets as if it means anything to the masses of people barely getting by.
Pres needles economic advisor Larry Kudlow at meeting. “The market is way up today, Larry. So today, you’re great. When the market goes down — he’s not so great. But it’s been mostly up, I have to say.” Kudlow replies, “I’m only as good as my last trade, sir.” pic.twitter.com/MQk465mV9z
Turns out QE led to massive asset price inflation and society-destabilizing wealth inequality which played a key role in Trump’s election, but he’s not concerned about that anymore. In fact, he’s now actively begging for more Federal Reserve money printing.
BREAKING: Trump says “I personally think the Fed should drop rates” because they are slowing down the economy and instead of “quantitative tightening it should actually now be quantitative easing” https://t.co/rlZqcl348zpic.twitter.com/rwxXgE87pg
Many people naively believed Trump meant what he said on the campaign trail. They thought because he was already wealthy and not a career politician he’d get in there and really shake up the status quo on hugely important issues like foreign policy and the rigged, monopoly dominated, surveillance focused, financialized crony-economy. Well it turns out Trump’s just like everybody else. He doesn’t want to be the guy sitting in the White House when the scam economy and unsustainable empire collapses. I guess I can’t blame him, but it doesn’t make the situation any less dire for the rest of us.
While there’s a very high probability that both the U.S. empire and the world financial system fall apart under Trump, it’s important to note that he didn’t create either one of those things. All the dangerous, outdated, corrupt and unsustainable things being desperately stitched together on a daily basis to maintain the status quo have been building up for decades.
The entire global financial system is Enron as far as I’m concerned.
It’s become clear no president will ever intentionally dismantle this ticking time bomb, it just has to play out on its own timeline. The important thing is to be honest about what’s really going on so you’re not completely caught off guard when the world changes faster and more dramatically than you could ever imagine in the years ahead.
* * *
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via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2D899ko Tyler Durden
Your mission, should you wish to accept it, is to keep global stock markets at record highs, and sentiment soaring, as the global economy collapses beyond its debt-limit “event horizon”… The other IMF is not so sure…
Tick, tock…
Chinese markets saw two rescues overnight after Monday’s weakness…
Ugly day for Europe on increased tariff chatter..
For the second day in a row, sellers were in charge at the open…but unlike yesterday, dip-buyers did not battle back after The IMF slashed global growth outlooks…
As goes AAPL so goes the world…
After its longest win streak since 2010, AAPL faded today – no real surprise…
Treasury yields fell on the day, erasing yesterday’s Aramaco-driven losses…
10Y fell back to 2.50%…
The dollar bounced off recent swing lows today but ended the day weaker for the 2nd day…
NOTE: DXY is stuck back at 97.00…
Despite the dollar weakness, Argentine credit risk surged to a Macri-reign high…
Cryptos drifted modestly lower on the day…
WTI limped lower as PMs rallied on the day…
Ahead of tonight’s API inventory data, oil prices were slipping as gold gained, back above $1300…
Finally, “Most Shorted” stocks have been hit hard the last two days…
(did the buyback blackout curtain just come down?)
via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2P1PO9c Tyler Durden
One month after one of the most powerful storms on record pummeled the Plains and Midwest, another storm of similar strength has been forecasted to strike the same region this week.
“While likely not a “bomb” (requires a 24mb drop in 24 hours or less), this will be another very strong storm with significant impacts. Rain and snow will break out across South Dakota, Nebraska, and Iowa Tuesday night, and expand in coverage across the central Plains and Midwest into Wednesday. As this storm deepens, winds will be strong, gusting 40-60 mph across the Plains, leading to strong wind generation. Alternatively, heavy rain and snow will impact SD, northern NE, and MN with some areas seeing up to 2 feet of accumulation. Data points to total liquid falling from this storm ranging from 2-4″, with locally higher amounts. Regardless of exact numbers, this region is moisture laden due to heavy winter rain and snow, and this additional moisture will lead to catastrophic flooding in the Upper Midwest. This will continue to promote disruptions to planting processes in the central and southern U.S., and likely lead to delays further north as we head deeper into the Spring,” Vallee added.
Vallee explains the probabilities of the storm developing into a “bomb cyclone” (an area of low pressure that drops 24 millibars in 24 hours) are low. However, some weather models are showing the storm is on the brink of becoming one. Either way, this storm is expected to unleash severe weather in the next 12 to 48 hours.
The WPC forecast for Thursday morning implies that April low pressure records are possible in the central Plains & Midwest. pic.twitter.com/kb2eyOrzT5
The storm is currently developing in the Rockies Tuesday, where it will quickly intensify and bring blizzard conditions to the Plains on Wednesday.
Blizzard and winter storm warnings are posted for Wyoming, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Minnesota. Arctic air will collide with the storm, could unleash up to 20 inches of snow with wind gusts of 45-50 mph in some parts.
Tuesday night temperatures in the Plains will drop 40 degrees in less than 12 hours.
By Thursday, the storm will dump heavy snow on the Midwest. Places like Minneapolis could see close to a foot.
In the warmer air to the south, heavy rains and high winds could create flooding concerns for Kansas and Nebraska. On Thursday, the storm will cross into Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, and Tennessee. Tornadoes are likely in some parts.
Even if Vallee is right and this storm doesn’t become a bomb cyclone, it’s still expected to unleash hazardous weather affecting tens of millions of people while further adding to the woes of farmers in the region, who as we reported yesterday, face $100 millions in losses on destroyed crops.
via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2OZnbcS Tyler Durden
Despite facing indictment for fraud and breach of trust, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition appears to have held on to their majority in Tuesday’s federal election, according to media reports.
Should Netanyahu return for a fifth term as prime minister, making him a lock to become the longest serving leader in Israeli history come July, the conservative firebrand and Trump ally plans to make history again by moving ahead with plans to annex parts of the West Bank, while also becoming the first sitting prime minister to officially be indicted on serious criminal charges while in office.
Thanks to a historic low voter turnout among Arab Israels, who have reportedly become disillusioned with the country’s politics after the passage of a bill officially declaring Israel to be the ‘Jewish homeland’, according to the NYT.
Bloomberg reports that Netanyahu’s Likud party and former military chief Benny Gantz’s Blue & White bloc each won about three dozen of parliament’s 120 seats. But together with other right-wing and religious partners, a Netanyahu-led bloc secured a total of 66 seats in one poll, and 64, according to another. A third showed the blocs tied but with so many small parties running close to the electoral threshold the picture could still change as official results begin trickling in.
via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2P2niUV Tyler Durden
If you want to know had badly Keynesian central banking has corrupted the financial discourse, just check into the current PC sensation of the week.
We are referring to Ray Dalio’s punking of the very capitalism under which his $160 billion hedge funds has become the largest in the world and his net worth has soared to a tidy $18 billion. Yet Sunday night he told millions of “60 Minutes” viewers that the American Dream is dead, capitalism is in desperate need of reform and that wealth, income and opportunity maldistribution in the US is so severe that the President should call an national emergency.
(We hear you, Ray, but please don’t encourage the Donald to declare any more national emergencies—the Mexican border one is stupid enough).
In any event, Dalio was just getting started, reprising on bubblevision itself yesterday morning with further heaping loads of admonishment about why the system isn’t working anymore, and that among other things he and people like him need to be taxed good and hard. Ok, Ray, the Dems will send you a pretty hefty due bill in the spring of 2021 after they sweep the tables in the next election. But for crying out loud, can’t you explain why America has gone into reverse Robin Hood without resorting to the utterly incoherent babble you dispensed on CNBC this AM? After all, if the Billionaires Club is to be visited upon by a condign punishment of its own urging, the indictment ought to at least make sense, which Dalio’s 25 minutes of bloviation absolutely did not. For want of doubt, his gibberish is all right here…
We might ordinarily be inclined to spare Dalio the embarrassment of this amazingly stupid clip, but the thing that needs be established is that not once did he mention the front, center and overwhelming cause of the baleful condition he rightly identifies.
To wit, wealth distribution in modern America started to go to hell in a hand basket about 1987, which is to say, the exact time in which Bubbles Alan Greenspan took over the Fed and discovered the printing press in the basement of the Eccles Building during the 22% market meltdown of October 19, 1987.
Therefore, if the top 1% went from a 34% share of the national wealth to 40% during the last three decades while the bottom 90% went from a roughly equivalent share (33%) down to just half of the slice (21%) going to the super wealthy, it should at least be conceded that the essence of capitalism did not change during that interval. Nor did Ronald Reagan’s so-called trickle down tax cut policy skew even more to the rich.
In fact, the low water mark on the top marginal tax rate was the 28% level embedded in the 1986 tax reform act, which rose steadily thereafter to an effective rate of 42% by December 2017.
Still, the best that Dalio could muster while studiously avoiding the central banking elephant in the room was that people are being left behind by technology. That is, the same explanation the Luddites had when they were smashing the mechanically powered textile looms back in the 18th century.
Then again, the hoary story about technology displacing good jobs is supposed to embody a kind of economic neutron bomb. That is, the jobs are wiped out but production is left standing and keeps growing.
Alas, that has not happened. The physical volume of manufacturing output in February 2019 was no higher than it was in March 2007!
That’s a 12-year round trip to square #1—and it’s the primary reason that high paying manufacturing jobs have disappeared, not robots and automation, which have been with us for decades.
For want of doubt, here are the five previous business cycles since the early 1970s, and in each case output that was temporarily lost during the recession was quickly recouped, with the index rising steadily higher with each recovery. Overall, the physical index of manufacturing output rose at a rate of 3.0% per annum over the 35 year period.
Needless to say, when the trend rate of output growth abruptly downshifts from 3.0% annual growth to 0.0% on an across the cycle basis, something is going on, but it’s not robots replacing workers.
Nor was it an outbreak of asceticism among American households. During the same 12 years during which domestic manufacturing output grew by 0.0%, real household consumption of non-durable goods rose by 17% and durable goods by 52%.
There is only one way to explain the asymmetrical math. Self-evidently, the US economy on the margin has imported essentially 100% of growth in goods consumption since the pre-crisis peak.
What comes to mind, therefore, is off-shoring and bad money. That is, the Fed kept the lower 60% of households that Dalio is worried about treading water with cheap mortgage debt, underwater car loans, unrepayable student debt and a tail-chasing rise of higher cost credit card finance.
Needless to say, artificial debt-fueled support of living standards doesn’t make for prosperity or the lost American Dream that Dalio rightly laments. In fact, the main street economy has been so badly pummeled by the Keynesian money printers in the Eccles Building that hardly any breadwinner jobs have been created during the entirety of the 21st century to date.
That’s right. Since the days when Bill Clinton was packing his bags to shuffle out of the White House, the total number of breadwinner jobs is up by just 3%. That’s hardly 9,700 jobs per month in an environment were the working age population has been growing by about 200,000 per month.
Again, do we think that since January 2001, capitalism has lost its mojo and needs to be “reformed” by the geniuses in Washington per Dalio’s recommendation?
Or that in the alternative, technological progress has gotten so red-hot that its eating the middle class alive?
We do not. The only thing that has really changed in the last few decades is the central banks. They have been taken over by Keynesian economy-wreckers.
So the elephant in the room lumbers in plain sight. The central banks of the world have purchased $21 trillion of government debt and related securities since 2003, thereby putting their Big Fat Thumb on the supply and demand scale like never before even imagined by the most far out Keynesian economists.
So doing, they made the carry cost of debt dirt cheap relative to risk, inflation and the time value of money. Not surprisingly, therefore, the world economy went head-overheels lapping it up.
Thus, at the pre-crisis peak in 2007, global GDP was about $58 trillion and total debt outstanding was about $100 trillion–implying a leverage ratio of 1.7X.
By contrast, a decade latter global debt outstanding had soared to $250 trillion against a planet-wide nominal GDP which had risen to just $80 trillion. That amounted to a 3.1X leverage ratio and the implications hardly need elaboration.
We are not aware of any sane or even quasi-sane economist who argued in 2007 that the world economy was suffering from too little debt; and, in fact, the universal hue and cry for years after the global economy almost lost its lunch during 2008-2009 was that there was way too much debt.
That is, salvation would come through deleveraging—or at least no more of the galloping gains which had occurred during the prior two decades.
That was then, but this is now—with 1.4 more turns of leverage on the world economy than stood on the eve of the financial crisis. So at current GDP levels, that’s an extra $112 trillion of debt!
We are hard-pressed to think of what would constitute a larger elephant in the room than $112 trillion of incremental debt. Nor do we doubt that an 11-year growth rate of debt at 8.3% per annum versus annual GDP growth of 3.0% adds up to sustainable prosperity.
Moreover, it’s also not that hard to see why the central banks can not escape paternity for this giant deformation.
After all, at the beginning of the chart below (2003), the combined central bank balance sheet was about $4 trillion, representing 10% of world GDP of $39 trillion. By contrast, today, the $25 trillion of central bank footings amount to more than 31% of global GDP.
What we are saying is that the eruption of worldwide debt during the last 11 years was not accompanied by an outbreak of frugality and propensity to save on the part of households, governments and businesses. Instead, it was financed from $21 trillion of “something for nothing”, which was injected into the global financial system by the central banks.
So by the year 2019, the whole Bubble Finance scheme has gone from the sublime to the ridiculous. In the case of the BOJ, which is only the advance guard of the Keynesian money-printers who run all the main central banks, its footings now exceed 100% of Japan’s GDP, it owns 90% of all Japanese ETF assets outstanding and 43% of Japan’s gargantuan public debt.
Yet the madman who runs the BOJ, Haruhiko Kuroda, insists that he will keep printing until Japan is blessed with the alleged elixir of 2.00% inflation.
In all, since 1999 the bank of Japan’s balance sheet has risen by 604% compared to a mere 5% gain in the yen value of Japan’s nominal GDP. It is literally hard to imagine a more hideous insult to sound finance than that—yet Japan’s central banking abomination is treated as just part of the landscape in today’s bubble-infested financial system.
Nor is Japan a single case aberration or even outlier.
Here is the same picture for the ECB and the eurozone GDP. That is, since 1999 the ECB’s balance sheet is up by 575% compared to a 77% gain in nominal GDP.
Nor is the US situation any different. Since 1999, the Fed’s balance sheet has grown by 1000%, while nominal GDP is up by just 110%.
Needless to say, this massive expansion of central bank balance sheets has caused the world to be inundated with debt and speculation, and to become shorn of the historical mechanisms of honest price discovery and discipline in financial asset markets.
So, to return to the Ray Dalio contretemps of the day, there is a reason why the top 1% is wallowing in unspeakable paper wealth, while the bottom 90% of households tread water at best on a year-to-year basis; and have built up no cushion for retirement or rainy day needs at all.
To wit, it’s due to the scourge of Keynesian central banking that, ironically, is the one and same mechanism that has enabled Bridgewater’s risk party trades to flourish and Ray Dalio to become so rich that he is now on bubblevision begging to be taxed.
We have a better answer, of course.
Abolish the FOMC and capitalism will not be in need of “reform”.
And more than likely, Ray Dalio won’t find advocacy of high taxes to be such a niftyform of virtue signaling, either.
via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2WZ2Yqw Tyler Durden
Venezuelans, desperate to find anything of value in their country where the currency has collapsed and widespread political and economic chaos rules, are now targeting whatever commodity they can get their hands on: this includes jewelry and human bones, which desperate locals can then sell for a profit, according to the BBC.
The British network spoke to relatives of those who had family members at one cemetery, the Cementerio del Sur, who are now standing guard at their relatives tombs to keep looters away.
Eladio Bastida, whose wife is buried in the cemetery said: “I come here every week, or every two weeks. I keep watch. I worry I’ll arrive one day and she’ll be gone. When I buried her, you could just walk in here, but lately you can barely reach her grave, because every tomb has been opened and the remains taken out.”
Looters are primarily looking for jewelry, gold teeth, and skeleton remains that can be sold for use in various rituals. Damage at cemeteries is so widespread that workers can’t keep up with repairing graves. Even historical figures like novelist and former Venezuelan president Rómulo Gallegos have had their graves looted.
Bastida continued: “This is a lawless land, there is no respect for anything here. God will punish those people that are doing this.”
One resident, Jorge Liscano, told the BBC he plans to exhume his relatives’ remains to keep them safe: “This is the result of social collapse, a lack of education, the loss of values in our homes and our institutions. In recent years, this country has only focused on politics. We have forgotten about the things that make us human.”
The crisis in Venezuela has escalated recently as the national electric grid has broken down and left residents without basic human needs. Managing the remains of the deceased continues to be a challenge in the country.
Reports from local morgues last year revealed exploding corpses due to a lack of effective refrigeration. Most corpses placed in morgues quickly enter what is known as the emphysematous phase of decomposition, where they can no longer contain the gases and putrid fluids accumulated inside and burst as a result.
And even the country’s criminals are now seeking greener pastures:
Many morgues are also struggling to handle the sheer number of arriving dead bodies, many of whom have died as a result of violence or lack of basic medical care. A report from the Venezuelan Observatory of Violence (OVV) published last December found that murder rates actually fell over the course of 2018 because violent criminals joined the millions of people fleeing the country’s economic and humanitarian crisis.
But why worry about the borders, right?
Meanwhile, it was just days ago that we reported on the “Zombie Apocalypse” that the country has become, sharing photos of Caracas, looking empty and desolate. A series of AP photographs presented Caracas as essentially becoming a ghost town after sunset, painting eerie scenes of the empty streets and stores.
When dusk turns to night, the AP reports, “the once-thriving metropolis empties under darkness” after recently “a string of devastating nationwide blackouts last month dramatized the decay.” Horrifyingly for common Venezuelans, years of mismanagement under the Maduro government and externally imposed isolation along with biting US sanctions have further sent Venezuela’s health care system into “utter collapse,” a new Human Rights Watch (HRW) report also finds.
The population has also witnessed a rapid resurgence of preventable deadly diseases. With near constant electricity shortages and sometime complete mass outages, once popular shops in upscale Caracas neighborhoods have struggled to stay open at all.
US officials have repeatedly blamed President Nicolas Ocasio-Cortez Maduro for overseeing a socialist system of vast corruption; however, Caracas officials have blamed a decade of US sanctions for exacerbating the suffering of ordinary citizens.
via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2UHbvkp Tyler Durden
After pushing out Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and dropping Ronald Vitiello, his nominee to lead ICE, President Trump is reportedly throwing a bone to critics who are wondering who is left to run DHS.
Alles confirmed on Monday that he would be leaving his position following reports that he had been fired by Trump amid an ongoing purge of DHS. Trump aide Stephen Miller, a well-known immigration hardliner, has reportedly been tasked with running the administration’s immigration policy and is working to consolidate his control over the department.
Senator Mitt Romney said at a hearing of the Homeland Security Committee on Tuesday that he’s “deeply troubled” by the vacuum at the top of DHS.
“It is dangerous,” Romney said. “Dangerous given what’s happening at the border, dangerous given the broad responsibilities the Department of Homeland Security has for protecting our nation. It is seriously troubling.”
Alles said he had been alerted by the White House that he would be asked to step down weeks before the news broke. According to BBG, Trump likes Alles – who is a veteran Marine like former Chief of Staff and DHS Secretary Gen. John Kelly – and wants to find another role for him within the administration.
via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2GaGIEu Tyler Durden
Prosecutors in the U.S. college cheating scandal have now indicted 16 parents, including actor Lori Loughlin and her husband, Mossimo Giannulli as well as former TPG managing partner Bill McGlashan, as prosecutors aggressively pursue the biggest admissions scam ever pursued.
According to Bloomberg,in addition to conspiracy to commit fraud, the parents now face an additional charges of conspiring to launder the bribes and other payments they may have made to the admitted mastermind of the scheme, the U.S. attorney in Massachusetts said Tuesday.
“The prosecutor’s case against Mr. McGlashan is deeply flawed and ignores important exculpatory facts,” his lawyer said in a statement. “We look forward to presenting his side of the story.”
TPG Growth founder Bill McGlashan
Just yesterday, we reported that actress Felicity Huffman, former co-chair of Willkie Farr & Gallagher, Gordon Caplan, and 12 others agreed to plead guilty in the scandal, signaling that prosecutors were aggressively wresting deals from the wealthy parents.
The 16 are now among 50 people accused by Boston federal prosecutors of engaging in schemes that involved cheating on college entrance exams and paying $25 million in bribes to secure their children admission at well-known universities. Federal prosecutors announced the deals on Monday afternoon, identifying the parents and a University of Texas men’s tennis coach who have negotiated plea bargains.
It’s not yet clear what their sentences will be: according to one New York lawyer, Huffman and Lori Loughlin could end up serving time in prison for their alleged involvement in the high-profile college admissions cheating scandal. Last Wednesday, the Full House and Desperate Housewives stars appeared alongside other wealthy parents in U.S. District Court in Boston for the first time since they were charged in March. During their preliminary hearings, they were both read the federal felony charges they face after their arrests in March: conspiracy to commit mail fraud and honest services mail fraud.
“With deep regret and shame over what I have done, I accept full responsibility for my actions and will accept the consequences that stem from those actions,” Huffman said in a statement. “My daughter knew absolutely nothing about my actions, and in my misguided and profoundly wrong way, I have betrayed her.”
via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2OZ7Xod Tyler Durden
