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Authored by Melvin Goodman via Counterpunch.org,

The Central Intelligence Agency has practiced a double standard for many years.  Former CIA director David Petraeus escaped a jail sentence despite providing eight notebooks of highly classified information, including names of covert operatives, to his biographer-mistress.  Conversely, Reality Winner, a former Air Force linguist, has been in jail for the past year, awaiting sentencing for leaking a classified report about Russian interference in the 2016 elections.  Everyone in the United States is talking about Russian interference in the U.S. elections.

There is nothing new here, however.  Former CIA director John Deutch placed sensitive operational materials on his home computer, which was used to access pornographic sites, but he was pardoned by President Bill Clinton.  Clinton’s national security adviser, Samuel Berger, received a modest fine for stuffing into his pants classified documents from the National Archives.  And Attorney General Alberto Gonzales was not even charged when he kept sensitive documents about the NSA’s massive surveillance at his home.  Conversely, my good friend Tom Drake was charged with violations under the Espionage Act for “mishandling” what turned out to be unclassified information.

Now we have recent examples of a double standard that is abetted by the media. 

Over the past week, former high-level CIA officials have written opeds for the Washington Post dealing with drone warfare and information warfare.

On August 6, Bernard Hudson, the former director of counterterrorism at the CIA, wrote about the “new peril” of weaponized drones in the “hands of non-state actors.”  There is a far greater problem regarding drone warfare, and that is the secretive counterterrorist infrastructure in the United States and elsewhere that sustains endless, borderless wars in places far removed from actual battlefields.  The U.S. practice of “targeted killing”—the extrajudicial killing of suspected terrorists and militants—raises serious moral and legal issues.

The CIA, however, would not allow me, a former CIA officer to deal with such U.S practices.  Material in one of my books dealing with U.S. drone war was redacted.  There have been numerous articles in the mainstream media dealing with drone warfare, but the CIA considers this discussion classified.  The fact that President Barack Obama discussed this issue publicly on many occasions had no impact on CIA’s publications review process.

On August 8, Mike Morell, the former deputy director at the CIA, wrote an oped on the dangers of Russian information warfare against the United States.  Morell is fully knowledgeable of U.S. information warfare against Russia, but never would have received permission from CIA’s Publication Review Board to discuss U.S. activities.  It would be useful to have an understanding of these programs in order to make the case for bilateral dialogue to resolve differences and create ground rules for behavior.  Morell wants to “impose severe costs” on Russia; perhaps it would be better to engage in constructive diplomacy before worsening bilateral relations.

It is noteworthy that these opeds appeared in the Washington Post, whose masthead proclaims that “Democracy Dies in Darkness.”  In fact, the Post is an enabler of such darkness when it allows former intelligence officers to engage in polemical and one-sided accounts of serious problems that deserve a fuller discussion.

Even more serious is the threat to the First Amendment free speech rights when former intelligence officers are not permitted to discuss sensitive matters that are no threat to American national security.  Several years ago, the CIA cleared for publication the memoirs of two senior officers with more than 70 years of professional experience who claimed there was no such thing as torture and abuse.  John Rizzo, a senior career lawyer at the CIA, and Jose Rodriguez, a senior operative who ordered the destruction of the 92 torture tapes, denied that the CIA conducted torture and abuse.

Recently, when I tried to write about the confirmation process for CIA director Gina Haspel, I was prevented from discussing aspects of her career that dealt with the issue of torture and abuse.  Once again, there was no threat to American national security and there was ample documentation from the mainstream media, but the CIA considered the issue to be classified.  One way to address the darkness that beclouds our democracy is to conduct a serious reform of government censorship of its public servants.

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Election officials in South Florida on Thursday refuted a claim made by Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL) that Russian hackers had penetrated their voter registration system. 

“We have had absolutely no information regarding that,” said Broward County Elections Supervisor Brenda Snipes. “We have not seen anything with our system that something strange is going on.”

State officials also say Nelson’s claim is unfounded. 

On Wednesday, Nelson – the ranking member of the cyber subcommittee of the Senate Armed Services Committee said that Russian operatives had penetrated some of Florida’s election systems ahead of this year’s midterms. 

“They have already penetrated certain counties in the state and they now have free rein to move about,” Nelson told the Tampa Bay Times, though he wouldn’t identify which counties were affected – saying it was classified. 

“The threat is real and elections officials — at all levels — need to address the vulnerabilities.”

Election officials in Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties likewise said they weren’t aware of any breaches. 

That said, Florida election officials say they are doing everything they can to monitor for Kremlin hijinks. 

Susan Bucher, supervisor of elections for Palm Beach County, said her office has been working diligently to ensure systems are safe on Election Day.

Employees have undergone training, and the county’s system has been repeatedly tested for vulnerabilities. “We are confident we have done as much as we can,” Bucher said.

Snipes said she too has conducted additional training and monitoring in response to the threat. –SunSentinel

Florida counties are receiving $15.5 million to beef up election security before November’s midterms, which Governor Rick Scott’s office says $14.5 million of which has been distributed to date – including $3.7 million which went to Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties. 

Nearly $2 million will be used to purchase a network monitoring security system that provides automated alerts about threats, the Florida State Department said. –SunSentinel

Scott, a Republican who is challenging Nelson’s Senate seat, has demanded that Nelson provide proof of his vague claim over election system penetration. 

“Either Bill Nelson knows of crucial information the federal government is withholding from Florida elections officials or he is simply making things up,” Scott said in during a campaign event in Tampa. “Did Nelson illegally release some classified information? Or did he make this charge of Russian penetration up?”

Nelson and Republican Senator Marco Rubio, who sits on the Senate Intelligence Committee, wrote a July letter to Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner, warning election officials that the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence had discovered that “Russia was preparing to undermine confidence in our voting process” and suggested they take advantage of federal resources. The letter claims that in a small number of cases “cyber actors affiliated with the Russian government accessed voter registration databases.” 

Nelson suggested that Russians could start eliminating registered voters.

“You can imagine the chaos that would occur on Election Day when the voters get to the polls and they say: ‘I’m sorry, Mr. Smith. I’m sorry, Mr. Jones, you’re not registered.’ That’s exactly what the Russians want to do,” Nelson said.

The Florida Department of State said they have no idea what Nelson is talking about, and has received “zero information” from the Senator or his staff to support the Russian hacking claims. 

“Additionally, the department has received no information from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the Federal Bureau of Investigation or the Florida Department of Law Enforcement that corroborates Sen. Nelson’s statement and we have no evidence to support these claims,” the Florida DoS said in a statement obtained by The Associated Press. “If Sen. Nelson has specific information about threats to our elections, he should share it with election officials in Florida.”

Okaloosa Supervisor of Elections Paul Lux, who is president of the state’s association of election supervisors, said 37 of the state’s 67 county election supervisors he received responses from indicated they had received no word of a specific threat or breach to their system.

One issue, he said, is election supervisors are not able to get security clearances that would allow them to receive briefings on classified information. –SunSentinel

“If the federal government has actionable intelligence and we don’t have access to that intelligence you can’t be surprised that we can’t take the actions necessary to respond to those threats,” said Lux. 

The Department of Homeland Security also responded to Nelson’s claim – issuing a statement Wednesday evening saying “While we are aware of Senator Nelson’s recent statements, we have not seen any new compromises by Russian actors of election infrastructure. That said, we don’t need to wait for a specific threat to be ready.”

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Authored by ‘Charlottesville Survivor’ via Unz.com,

It’s surreal to have lived through an event that is even now being mythologized. It’s nothing short of infuriating to see a mythology growing up that is almost an exact opposite of what actually happened. The lies being told about what happened at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville VA a year ago this weekend are so outrageous and so demonstrably untrue that it makes you question all of history.

What other historical events and movements have we been lied to about? And can you prop up an entire failing system based on lies?

Main Stream Media coverage throughout the country is being dominated by commemorations of the ill-fated rally [Charlottesville making final preparations for anniversary of deadly rally, by Talya Cunningham, WAVY, August 10, 2018]. The media is also eagerly hyping the second “Unite the Right 2” rally in front of the White House even though few participants in the original rally seem to be going [It’s right there in front of the White House.’: Is D.C. ready for Unite the Right? By Caroline Simon, USA Today, August 10, 2018]. The obvious intention: to claim the Alt Right has been defeated after almost no one shows up.

But it’s more likely that patriots have simply learned their lesson: not to put their trust in the law, the police, or the First Amendment. Flagrantly-biased law enforcement since last August has convinced many on the Dissident Right that they not only will not be defended by police, they will not even be permitted to defend themselves. Since the release of the Heaphy Report on the events in Charlottesville, it has been undeniable that the local police department deliberately fostered a climate of instability and unrest so it would have an excuse to shut down the rally.

This chaos culminated with James Fields driving into a crowd of screaming protesters, an act which led to the death of Heather Heyer, now being celebrated as a martyr. Of course, as Ann Coulter bravely pointed out earlier this week, Fields had good reason to fear for his life. In the end, he may well be acquitted like George Zimmerman or found guilty of a lesser offense – unless, as Coulter half-joked, “his defense lawyer is planning on intentionally throwing the case for the greater good.” Of course, if Fields is acquitted, we can probably expect another riot.

Aside from VDARE.com, no media outlets seem curious about the questionable cases being brought against defendants who are still jailed in Charlottesville – even as “anti-fascist” protesters caught on tape engaged in violence are let off scot free.

Even more serious: this double standard seems to be spreading across the country. Eric Clanton, a college professor caught on tape hitting people with a bike lock in Berkeley last spring, was let go with only probation. Somehow, no one died. He probably would never have been arrested at all if online activists at /pol hadn’t done the job the cops didn’t want to do and actually investigated these assaults.

Establishment reporters seem remarkably uninterested in confronting city and state officials to demand answers about why a climate of violence was deliberately cultivated in Charlottesville – including by Antifa against reporters [Female reporter for The Hill allegedly punched by ‘antifa’ protester in Charlottesville, by Adam Shaw, Breitbart, August 12, 2017]. Instead, the “free press” that constantly brags to us about its role in curbing the powerful is doing things like hunting down pizza delivery guys with far more moderate views than the newest member of The New York Times Editorial Board[When the pizza delivery guy is also ‘Nazi Bob,’ by Matt Viser, Boston Globe, November 18, 2017].

Over the last year, this has also meant a concerted effort to dox and economically destroy people for simply commenting on unapproved websites [Dov Bechhofer Did Nothing Wrong, by Greg Johnson, Counter-Currents, August 1, 2018]. This blunt exercise of power is especially disgusting as journalists continue to pose as martyrs because President Trump has criticized their dishonest tactics [Newspaper calls for war of words against Trump media attacks, by Bob Salsberg, Associated Press, August 10, 2018].

In contrast, as opposed to the hypothetical violence supposedly encouraged by President Trump, reporters seem totally comfortable with the long record of physical attacks on journalists by Antifa in the recent past [Physical assault on journalists’ rap sheet reveal antifa: 10—Trump Supporters: 0, by John Nolte, Breitbart, August 31, 2017].

Indeed, after Portland police used to separate the two sides at a recent rally in that city, reporters have responded with a public relations campaign against the cops. Some examples of their agitprop include:

• [Violent proto-fascists came to Portland. The police went after the anti-fascists, by Christopher Mathias and Andy Campbell, Huffington Post, August 5, 2018]

• [Portland investigating police actions toward antifa protesters at far-right rally, by Molly Olmstead, Slate, August 6, 2018]

• [Protester maimed by Portland police: ‘I thought I was going to die’ by Arun Gupta, Daily Beast, August 9, 2018]

Of course, as it is Antifa who create the violent conditions at any patriot protest. Police restraint only fuels chaos, as the antifa then turn their destructive tendencies on the larger community, as they did on Inauguration Day.

Since the tragedy of Charlottesville, America has experienced anarcho-tyrannyon a mass scale. In a classic example of victim-blaming, Unite The Right was exploited not just to enable a crackdown on public Alt Right demonstrations, but even on the expression of opinion online. What’s more, as shown by the recent deplatforming of Alex Jones and one-time VDARE.com contributor Gavin McInnes, more recently founder of the explicitly multicultural (and pro-Israel) Proud Boys, the censorship is expanding to targets that have nothing to do with race. The campaign is also being cheered on by System media outlets, most of whom are urging that more targets be taken down [Deplatforming works, Motherboard, August 10, 2018].

Ultimately, it will extend even to “mainstream” hosts with large audiences. CNN, which played a large part in promoting the anti-Jones campaign, is now targeting Laura Ingraham and Tucker Carlson for supposedly giving a voice to “white anxiety” [White anxiety finds a home at Fox News, by Tom Kludt and Brian Stelter, CNN, August 9, 2018]. It’s no exaggeration to say that most journalists see their job as shutting up other people they disagree with. The line between “journalist” and SPLC apparatchik is practically nonexistent.

It can be expected that most Establishment conservatives will do nothing to oppose this, allegedly because much of the censorship is perpetrated by ostensibly “private” institutions. However, even that may not be true much longer: Senate Democrats, using the excuse of “Russian disinformation” campaigns, are already circulating a memo that would establish more government control over Internet content, including the de facto end of online anonymity [Senate Democrats Are Circulating Plans for Government Takeover of the Internet: Reason Roundup, by Elizabeth Nolan Brown, Reason, July 31, 2018].

Slowly, America is moving toward a system where only favored groups will be allowed to express their opinion. Arguably, America is already at the point where groups such as Antifa simply do not have to obey the law at all, while ruinous lawsuits and “lawfare” are unleashed against conservative groups.

However, because of the nature of far-Left groups, and the high level of frenzy needed to keep the campaign against the Alt Right going, it is practically guaranteed the climate is going to grow more hysterical in the future, regardless of whether patriots continue to take to the streets or not.

The end result: a country that increasingly seems on the brink of madness as it is gaslighted by a media growing ever more shrill. America is being put on a permanent war footing—and the enemy its people are being mobilized against is the historic American nation, those European-Americans who live this country and its heritage.

President Trump, who seems to have far less power over this country than do the media and technology conglomerates, must act forcefully to ensure freedom of speech and the objective rule of law is re-established.

Otherwise, if there is ever a true history of the United States, Unite the Right in Charlottesville will be remembered as the day America truly came under enemy occupation.

*  *  *

Charlottesville Survivor [Email him] is a white man who voted for Trump. The Left hates all white men who voted for Trump, whether they were in Charlottesville or not.

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Ten days after Trump lashed out at Jeff Sessions, when on August 1st he demanded the Attorney General “should stop this Rigged Witch Hunt right now”, the president once again escalated his attacks on Sessions on Saturday, tweeting that Sessions is “scared stiff” and “Missing in Action” in a series of tweets asking questioning if there will be an Inspector General report about the Steele dossier, Steele’s meetings with former Deputy Attorney General, Bruce Ohr and Ohr’s wife, Nellie Ohr.

Trump attacked former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele, the man at the center of the Trump dossier scandal, who had extensive contacts with the Department of Justice’s former #4 ranked official, before and after the FBI opened its Trump-Russia probe in the summer of 2016, according to new emails recently turned over to Congressional investigators.

That official, Bruce Ohr, was demoted twice after the DOJ’s Inspector General discovered that he lied about his involvement with opposition research firm Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson – who employed Steele. Ohr’s CIA-linked wife, Nellie, was also employed by Fusion as part of the firm’s anti-Trump efforts, and had ongoing communications with the ex-UK spy, Christopher Steele as well, suggesting that Steele was much closer to the Obama administration than previously disclosed, and his DOJ contact Bruce Ohr reported directly to Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates – who approved at least one of the FISA warrants to surveil Trump campaign aide Carter Page.

“The big story that the Fake News Media refuses to report is lowlife Christopher Steele’s many meetings with Deputy A.G. Bruce Ohr and his beautiful wife, Nelly. It was Fusion GPS that hired Steele to write the phony & discredited Dossier, paid for by Crooked Hillary & the DNC….” Trump tweeted.

 “…Do you believe Nelly worked for Fusion and her husband STILL WORKS FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF “JUSTICE.” I have never seen anything so Rigged in my life. Our A.G. is scared stiff and Missing in Action. It is all starting to be revealed – not pretty. IG Report soon? Witch Hunt!”

The big story that the Fake News Media refuses to report is lowlife Christopher Steele’s many meetings with Deputy A.G. Bruce Ohr and his beautiful wife, Nelly. It was Fusion GPS that hired Steele to write the phony & discredited Dossier, paid for by Crooked Hillary & the DNC….

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 11, 2018

….Do you believe Nelly worked for Fusion and her husband STILL WORKS FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF “JUSTICE.” I have never seen anything so Rigged in my life. Our A.G. is scared stiff and Missing in Action. It is all starting to be revealed – not pretty. IG Report soon? Witch Hunt!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 11, 2018

Trump’s latest broadside on Steel and Ohr was likely prompted by speculation that the Republican chairman of the House Judiciary Committee is preparping subpoenas for people connected to the controversial Steele dossier. As The Hill reported earlier this week, Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) is said to be preparing subpoenas for Bruce Ohr, his wife Nellie Ohr and Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson.

By escalating his all too public demands on AG Sessions, Trump is risking further scrutiny by Robert Mueller, who is already poring over Trump’s tweets to solidify his Obstruction of justice case, while inviting a whole new set of contradictory statements by his newest attorney, Rudy Giuliani, who most recently said that Trump would be willing to sit down with Mueller if two specifics topics are not discussed:

1. Why Trump fired FBI Director James Comey.
2. What Trump said to Comey about the investigation of former national security adviser Michael Flynn.

Of course, by continuing his periodic twitter attacks on Sessions, Trump makes it prohibitively difficult for Mueller to agree to those terms.

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With Turkey’s inflation soaring to a 15 year high as the ongoing result of a currency in meteoric free fall, coupled with tumbling capital markets and record high interest rates, both from unsustainable domestic imbalances as well as the prospect of a doubling of steel and aluminum tariffs by the Trump administration, and a warning from the ECB about European bank exposure to Turkey…

… traders and investors have expressed growing concerns where potential contagion may strike next, who is most exposed to the Turkish crisis, in the process hitting European stocks and EU banks, and what a “worst case” scenario for Turkey would look like.

To be sure, the FX market’s response this week certainly was swift as the currency plunged by more than 20% since last Friday vs. the USD, with JPMorgan analysts warning that policy options for the Turkish government are limited, as policy rate hikes alone would likely no longer be sufficient and could have been counter-productive as it could exacerbate concerns over the banking system, meanwhile president Erdogan remains staunchly opposed to both an IMF bailout and capital controls for now, the two other emergency escape valves that are traditionally used in similar situations.

Meanwhile, fears are also growing about the viability of the Turkish banking sector, with Goldman recently warning that the banks’ excess capital would be eroded should the Turkish Lira depreciate to 7.1, not too far from its Friday close…

… which in turn prompted JPMorgan to caution that a comprehensive package is required that includes backstops for Turkey’s banks.

So what does that data say?

First, a look at foreign equity exposure to Turkey.

As JPMorgan points out in a note published overnight, despite the sharp movements in the currency, outflows from Turkish equity ETFs have been relatively modest, at least until a few days ago. Turkish equity ETFs saw modest outflows in July, but had seen a reversal of those outflows thus far in August, up to close Aug 9th.

Meanwhile, the short interest ratio for the largest US-listed equity ETF (TUR ) rose sharply during the broader sell-off in EM in late April/early May, but has since moderated significantly. This to JPM suggests Turkish equity ETFs remain vulnerable.

What about trade?

JPMorgan next looks at the largest trading partners of Turkey in terms of exports to Turkey.  The largest 5 exporters to Turkey are China, Germany, Russia the US and Italy, which account for nearly 40% of Turkish imports.

However, while at face value this implies that a continuation of the turmoil in Turkey would hit these countries the most, it is also important to look at how important Turkey is relative to the overall size of exports. Figure 11 depicts the proportion of exports to Turkey as a share of total exports for the 20 largest exporters to Turkey in 2017.

This suggests that the countries that are most vulnerable are other EM countries in the region.

What about financial asset exposures?

Looking at the stock of portfolio and direct investment assets held by foreign investors published by the Turkish central bank, i.e. Turkey’s liabilities from a balance of payments perspective, shows that that Turkey’s portfolio liabilities stood at $160bn in May 2018, three quarters of which were debt securities. In terms of FDI, the stock of direct investment liabilities stood at $140bn in end-May. The country breakdown of net FDI liabilities is only available to end-2017, and around 75% of those liabilities were held be European countries, with largest single country exposure is to the Netherlands at around 18%, which is likely to reflect mainly holdings by investment funds.

Other large European country exposures include Germany, France, Spain, Switzerland and Russia. Of the remaining 25%, around 60% is held by countries in the Middle East.

To JPM this is troubling, because since a significant share of claims on Turkey is likely to be held by investment funds, “this suggests that Turkish assets remain vulnerable to outflows”, or in other words, absent a decisive stabilization of Turkey’s economic plight in the coming days, the nation could be hit with a reflexive outflow of capital, which would only accelerate the currency collapse.

What about foreign bank exposure to Turkey?

In light of the ECB’s Friday warning, which arguably catalyzed the sharpest leg of the Lira collapse, this has emerged as the most pertinent question and precipitated Friday’s “contagion” response across European markets. According to BIS statistics, foreign banks held claims of around $220bn on Turkey as at the end of 1Q18, a figure which includes cross-border claims as well as local claims of foreign affiliates. 60% of this reflects exposure to the non-bank private sector. The direct exposure to Turkish banks is lower, at around $50bn, while exposures to the official sector are around $38bn.

Looking at the split by country, Spanish, French and Italian banks are the ones with the highest foreign claims on Turkey, followed by US and UK banks. The good news, at least according to JPM’s credit strategists, is that “even for the European banks with the largest exposures to Turkey the impact on fundamentals is likely to be manageable”, absent of course further emerging market spillovers.

Besides direct claims, foreign banks also held additional exposure of around $78bn to Turkey via “credit commitments”, “guarantees extended” and “derivative contracts”, which include “the contingent liabilities of the protection seller of credit derivatives contracts, warranties and indemnities, confirmed documentary credits, irrevocable and standby letters of credit, acceptances and endorsements” according to JPMorgan.

Here, approximately 50% of these exposures are held by French, Italian and Spanish banks, and a further 40% by US and UK banks. For derivative contracts and guarantees extended, US and UK banks account for more than 50% of total exposures. Meanwhile, around $9bn of these additional exposures reflects CDS protection on the Turkish sovereign, which has been relatively stable since 2014.

Summing up JPMogan’s findings, the bank concludes that “in terms of foreign bank exposures it appears that Spanish, French and Italian banks, as well as US and UK banks through contingent exposures, are most exposed to Turkey.“

And while the direct threat of contagion spillover from Turkey appears limited so far, the risk is that an adverse cascade especially among the country’s EM peers – should investors scramble to cut their exposure to emerging markets – could ripple and have a magnifying effect on the global financial system, resulting in a repeat of the Asian Financial Crisis if Turkey’s economic freefall is not arrested early enough.

Ironically, this “worst case” scenario for contagion could be catalyzed in one of two ways: if Erdogan decides to do nothing, or – paradoxically – if he panics, and implements the most draconian of countermeasures – capital controls.

This is how Robert Marchini, a political strategist at Zenith Asset Management laid out to Bloomberg how he see the “worst case scenario” for Turkey:

Regarding Turkey as a potential ‘Black Swan’-level event, I’m skeptical the collapse of the currency per se would be enough of an incident. The market has known for a while Erdogan was leading the country in an economically reckless direction. The real question was when it all would blow up (although I don’t think anyone thought it would go down this quickly.) More specifically, I think that the [EU] banks’ exposures to both external debt and local operations, while significant, are not at a crisis level.

Where the real risk lies, and one that I think has not been adequately considered, is the markets’ reaction to [potential] capital controls. Should Erdogan impose capital controls, in addition to banks’ writedowns on [now-toxic] Turkish assets, investors’ reaction is likely to be panic and to yank capital out of other EMs before either A. That EM’s currency falls further and/or B. That EM’s government gets the same idea as Turkey.

This becomes somewhat of a self-fulfilling prophecy, and in my opinion is where the real possibility for contagion lies.

In other words, having done nothing while the Turkish financial crisis spiraled out of control first slowly and then blazing fast, Erdogan now finds himself facing a most unpleasant dilemma: damned if he does, and damned if he doesn’t.

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In the aftermath of Elon Musk’s shocking announcement that he was contemplating a $72 billion LBO for Tesla with “funding” allegedly “secured” from investors, investors promptly concluded that there is only a handful of names that could bankroll such as massive transaction. The first name cited was that of Japan’s SoftBank, which thanks to its $100bn Vision Fund, has been linked to most tech deals.

However that speculation was promptly put to bed last week when the FT reported that even when the stock was trading around $300/share, “people close to SoftBank tell the FT that the fund considers Tesla to be overvalued and there are no indications it wants to invest.”

Meanwhile, Bloomberg reported that Soft Bank head Masayoshi Son and Musk had met in April 2017 to discuss an investment in Tesla, and while the talks touched on taking Tesla private, they “failed to progress due to disagreements over ownership. Musk proposed a structure that would have given him disproportionate control over the company through stock with super-voting rights”, a similar outcome to the structure he has proposed publicly, even if it still remains unclear just what Musk hopes to achieve beside cutting the “liquidity”, i.e., buying and selling period to every six months. Bloomberg also reported that “there are no active talks between the companies now.”

And with Soft Bank gone, only one potential anchor investor remained: the one that started last week’s Tesla surge in the first place, the Saudi Arabian Sovereign Wealth Fund, which as the FT reported less than an hour before Elon Musk tweeted his LBO proposal, had purchased a stake just below 5% in TSLA shares in the open market (but not directly from the company), sparking speculation that it may be interested in acquiring the entire company.

However, as Reuters reports on Saturday, these hopes were also crushed because according to two sources familiar with the matter, “Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) has shown no interest so far in financing Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s proposed $72 billion deal to take the U.S. electric car maker private, despite acquiring a minority stake in the company this year.”

Investors and analysts viewed PIF as a natural financing partner. Beyond amassing a stake of just below 5 percent in Tesla, the sovereign wealth fund has poured tens of billions of dollars into technology investments, including $45 billion in SoftBank Group Corp’s Vision Fund over five years.

However, citing a source who is familiar with PIF’s strategy, Reuters also adds that the PIF “was not currently getting involved in any funding process for Tesla’s take-private deal.” Separately, “a second source close to the situation said PIF was not taking part in any such plan at this stage.”

This source said that the Saudi fund would not make an investment of this kind without seeking guidance first from Softbank.

And as we already learned previously, SoftBank is not currently pursuing a deal for Tesla given its investment earlier this year in rival GM Cruise, and its consideration that Tesla was already “overvalued” at lower stock prices.

There is another reason why the Saudis would be reluctant to bankroll such a massive deal: they have financial problems of their own with the FT reporting last Thursday that the “Saudi sovereign wealth fund scrambles for resources” as “Riyadh is taking radical steps to bolster the investment vehicle’s coffers.”

Riyadh is now taking radical steps to boost the fund’s coffers. The Royal Court instructed Saudi Aramco to acquire the fund’s 70 per cent stake in Saudi petrochemicals maker Sabic, potentially raising $70bn for the PIF, three people familiar with the matter said.

As the kingdom delays the Saudi Aramco privatisation indefinitely, these people said, the transfer of funds from one state coffer to another allows the PIF to raise cash quickly at a time when finance ministry handouts have diminished and its big-ticket investments are yet to yield returns.

PIF’s reluctance to invest, Reuters concludes “will add to the pressure on Musk to produce details of his financing plan.”

That may be a problem, because as of late last week, Tesla’s board had not yet received a detailed financing plan from Musk and was seeking more information, while Bloomberg reported at the same time that Tesla is only now canvassing investor and bank interest for the massive transaction.

The board will make a decision on whether to hire advisers and launch a formal review of Musk’s take-private proposal in the coming days, based on how much detail on the financing plan it receives from Musk, a third source said.

Of course, all this assumes that Musk actually had a “financing plan” and had obtained “secured funding”, a possibility that grows remote by the day, and is also why the SEC contacted Tesla to ask about Musk’s assertion on Twitter that funding for his proposed deal was “secured”, the WSJ reported, and has resulted in at least two class-action lawsuits filed by shorts who alleged that Musk engaged in fraud and market manipulation to “burn the shorts” without actually having a credible going private plan in hand.

Meanwhile, Reuters further notes that investment bankers and analysts have so far reacted with scepticism, “telling Reuters it would be hard for Musk, whose net worth is pegged by Forbes at $22 billion, to raise the equity and debt financing needed for the deal given Tesla is not turning a profit.”

Some analysts have suggested that Musk could convince Tesla’s top shareholders, such as Fidelity Investments and China’s Tencent, to roll their equity stakes into the deal, thereby significantly reducing the amount of money needed to be raised.

However, such a deal structure would come with big logistical and legal challenges when it comes to buying out smaller shareholders, analysts warned, even as large investors stand to gain little – aside from drowning out the noise created by shorts – while limiting their ability to exit the investment at a moment’s notice.

Which then begs the question: why push for such a deal in the first place, if not simply to burn the shorts? Some have speculated that it could be merely a smokescreen to distract from other problems facing the company (while pushing the stock price higher), bringing up the following blast from the past that was circulating just two months before Lehman filed for bankruptcy:

The good news, now that litigation is involved and a discovery process appears imminent, coupled with the SEC’s own investigation, is that an answer will be forthcoming relatively soon.

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Estonia’s defense minister has halted a NATO war exercise in Estonia pending an investigation after a fighter jet deployed in northeast Europe accidentally fired a secret missile during training. Authorities are now searching for the rocket, which was shot over the Baltic country’s airspace by a Spanish fighter jet this week near the Russian border.

Minister of Defense Juri Luik said Thursday during a press conference in Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, the air-to-air missile was mistakenly launched Tuesday over southern Estonia has not been found nor did it injure any civilians.

#Estonia / #Russia : A Spanish eurofighter accidentally fire a missile near Otepaa, at around 65 kilometer of the russian border v @TheArabSource pic.twitter.com/QwQEkgbRKc

— Emmanuel (@EmmanuelGMay) August 7, 2018

“The Spanish defense minister has apologized and expressed deep regret,” Luik said, adding that the commander of the Spanish Armed Forces has apologized for the mishap.

According to Fox News, Estonian Prime Minister Juri Ratas communicated with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg on Wednesday, expressing Estonia’s concern over the “serious incident.”

The Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile (AMRAAM) is a modern beyond-visual-range air-to-air missile (BVRAAM) capable of all-weather day-and-night operations with a range of up to 100 kilometers (62 miles). Luik told reporters the AMRAAM might have crashed into a remote nature reserve in the eastern Jogeva region — not far from Estonia’s border with Russia.

“The air-to-air missile has not hit any aircraft,” the Spanish Defense Ministry said in a statement on Tuesday. It added that three other fighter jets flew alongside the Spanish Eurofighter before the missile was launched. “After the incident, the planes returned safely to the Siauliai Air Base.”

On Friday, the Spanish Defense Ministry told Sputnik News that it would not change its pilots serving in Lithuania over the recent incident.

“The composition of a Spanish squad deployed in Lithuania, jets and crews will not be changed until the end of their mission,” the spokesperson said.

The ministry said NATO, not Spain authorized the flight plan of their planes. The spokesperson noted that an investigation would have to occur before he could give more details about the incident.

“An investigation into the causes of this incident has been launched. The probe is underway and there are no preliminary results [of the investigation],” the ministry added.

Luik urged Spain to conduct a careful investigation of the incident. He also launched a separate internal probe to review the safety regulations of arranging military air exercises in the country.

Until the investigation is complete, Luik said: “I have suspended all NATO exercises in the Estonian airspace.”

And now it seems Russia’s top brass has complained to TASS News Agency about the incident.

An official in the alliance’s military structure told TASS on condition of anonymity on Wednesday:

“At the present moment, we cannot confirm the existence of any contacts between the NATO Operations Command and the Russian military on this incident. However, after saying this, I will add that many civilian and military organizations play their role in ensuring international air security. We cannot say anything more on this incident as long as the investigation is going on.”

Well, at least social media has turned this NATO embarrassment into a laugh…

This is why I love #Estonia and estonians. Somebody in Võrumaa’s Kaagu village made a wooden statue about the AIM-120 #missile that escaped and disappeared from Spain’s air force over the country.https://t.co/iW6zaQ8i3d pic.twitter.com/R2XQOzJgNa

— Laura Halminen (@LauraHuu) August 9, 2018

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Authored by John Rubino via DollarCollapse.com,

No need to mince words anymore. If the futures market still influences gold’s price, then that price is going to spike. And silver is better than gold.

Since January, gold futures speculators have been trending from extremely bullish to scared short. And in the week ending last Tuesday (the most recent data available) they appeared to capitulate, adding a massive number of short positions while marginally cutting their longs. They’re now about as close to neutral as they’ve ever been. Based on the history of the past decade this is hugely bullish, since speculators tend to be wrong when they’re fully convinced they’re right.

For the commercials – the banks and fabricators who take the other side of speculators’ positions — it’s a mirror image: They’ve been getting less and less short for several months and in the past week took a giant step towards neutral, something that is also historically very bullish.

Here’s the same data in graphical form, with the speculators represented by the silver bars and the commercials by the red. Convergence at the middle is both highly unusual and highly bullish for gold.

Silver is better than gold

If gold is set to pop, what about silver? Again, if history is any guide gold popping means silver rocketing. The reasons for this are fairly simple: Silver is surprisingly rare and extremely cheap.

Whereas gold is mostly money, which means we save it after we mine it (nearly all the gold ever mined is sitting in vaults and jewelry boxes around the world), silver is both a monetary and an industrial metal. And what’s used for circuit boards, solar panels and the like tends to disappear rather than being recycled. So a big part of each year’s mine production is lost forever. As a result, available stockpiles of silver have been shrinking for decades.

Despite this fact, silver has gotten extremely cheap relative to gold lately. About ten times as much silver as gold is mined each year, but today it takes 78 ounces of silver to buy an ounce of gold. That means when the next bull market gets going silver won’t just rise along with gold, but will retrace a big part of the gold/silver ratio between 80 and 10. That means it will rise twice as much in percentage terms as gold.

And the junior miners are better than the metals

Mining stocks are naturally more volatile than their underlying metals because, as they like to say, they’re “leveraged to the price of the metals.” The junior miners, meanwhile, are hyper-leveraged because of their small size and lack of institutional following, which means if you buy them at the wrong time they fall by 90%. But buy them at the right time and gains of 1000% are common.

And there’s more. Even if the whole COT thing turns out to be a dud and precious metals just sit there for another few years, the juniors might still outperform. As the next chart illustrates, big gold discoveries just aren’t coming any more, which means the big miners can’t find enough new reserves to replace what they’re using up.

As commodities analyst Marin Katusa notes, “Gold miners are running out of gold and they need to replenish their reserves. They’ll do this by looking for gold in the markets. They’ll go on a buying binge to take out junior gold miners with proven reserves.”

So either way the best juniors will be great investments, soaring in long, beautiful arcs on the backs of gold and silver or in quick spikes when an industry giant buys them out for a nice premium.

To sum up, gold is looking great, silver is better than gold, and the junior miners are potentially life-changing. Assuming anyone is still paying attention.

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Silicon Valley has claimed yet another conservative scalp after Twitter banned Gavin McInnes – the outspoken founder of the “Proud Boys” and co-founder of VICE magazine, along with several related accounts. 

The timing of Mcinnes’s account suspension is suspect, has he was banned shortly after declaring that his organization is in no way associated with the “Unite the Right II” white supremacist rally taking place in Washington D.C. this weekend. The Proud Boys are a “pro-Western fraternal organization” which have made recent headlines following physical confrontations with leftists, particularly Antifa. 

“It goes without saying #ProudBoys have NOTHING to do with this and won’t go near it. We are a multi-racial group that eschews the Alt-Right and despise DNC operatives such as #OccupyWallStreet’s Jason Kessler.” 

Gavin was suspended after tweeting this pic.twitter.com/go3Ri7pYp6

— Jack Posobiec 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) August 11, 2018

In 2017, as noted by journalist and pundit Ali Alexander, the Proud Boys disavowed the original Unite the Right rally: 

In a rare decision, Gavin McInnes has officially announced that the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, VA, scheduled on August 12th, has been disavowed. I personally am not surprised by this. The rally is not about “uniting the right,” it is an attempt to lump civic-nationalists in with ethno-nationalists in order to make them seem like the same thing.
FUCK.
THAT.

Of course, this didn’t stop publications from linking the Proud Boys ban to support of Unite the Right II after McInnes was banned. 

Variety ran with the headline, “Twitter Shuts Down Accounts of Vice Co-Founder Gavin McInnes, Proud Boys Ahead of ‘Unite the Right’ Rally” and leftwing The Hill screamed, “Twitter suspends far-right “Proud Boys” accounts ahead of “Unite the Right” rally” atop of its coverage. Mashable tried linking the group with the rally exclaiming, “Twitter suspends Proud Boys before white supremacist rally.” –Ali Alexander

There’s a coordinated effort to frame the #ProudBoys. I’ve been quiet and observing it. Screenshot this.

— Ali Alexander (@ali) August 6, 2018

What’s more, Twitter has reportedly been blocking links to the Proud Boys website: 

Twitter will not allow me to even link the Proud Boys website.

This is insane and blocks journalism, @TwitterSafety. Scary. @delbius @jack pic.twitter.com/GR2VRfH1QD

— Ali Alexander (@ali) August 11, 2018

same here @ali pic.twitter.com/br7G4yYLGB

— Jason Belich 🇺🇸 (@JasonBelich) August 11, 2018

In reaction to his ban, McInnes told Big League Politics “They think this is going to stop Trump,” adding “Maybe if they deplatform us, the socialists will win – but they won’t. We’ve already won. You can’t stump the Trump.”

“The left is trying to make this about Unite the Right. It’s a lie,” said McInnes. “Antifa and the socialists are the mainstream now and we’re the Rebels.”

Yesterday we noted that a flood of conservatives over various platforms vehemently denounced the event organized by Kessler – who was a leftist “Occupy” activist less than two years ago before shifting into his white supremacist schtick. 

McInnes’s ban comes on the heels of an appearance by Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey on Sean Hannity’s radio show last week, in which he assured the conservative host that he hoped to address terms of service violations “with warnings, with notices, with a temporary lock of the account” as opposed to summarily banning people. 

Twitter’s decision came just days after InfoWars host Alex Jones was kicked off multiple social media platforms including Facebook, YouTube, Apple podcasts, Spotify, and Pinterest. It also comes little more than a week after Twitter was castigated by President Trump himself for suppressing the accounts of top Republicans in the platform’s search results.

Just yesterday, the New York Times ridiculed fears of mass censorship of conservatives on social media, calling the concerns “overblown.” -Breitbart

Meanwhile, uber-popular politically agnostic podcast h3h3 had its YouTube live broadcast banned mid-stream after the show’s hosts began simply discussing the censorship of Alex Jones. 

Wow @TeamYouTube just shut down our @theh3podcast live stream and gave us a strike for talking about Alex Jones??… What.

— Ethan Klein (@h3h3productions) August 10, 2018

As Breitbart’s Allum Bokhari notes, McInnes and the Proud Boys were banned “a little over an hour later.” 

We’re guessing not even a well-coached Jack Dorsey doing softball damage-control interviews can explain this.

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