Venezuelan Government Seizes Kellogg’s Factory After Closure: A Recipe For Failure

Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTFplan.com,

The socialist Venezuelan government has seized a closed Kellogg’s factory and decided to make the perfect storm for failure out of their theft.  The government has handed control of the factory over to the workers who will attempt to continue to produce Kellogg’s products.

Hold your laughter, because this actually happened. According to the BBC, the move comes as Kellogg’s announced it was pulling out of the dystopian communist country because of the worsening economic situation brought on by the disturbing socialist policies of President Nicolas Maduro.

Maduro, who has previously accused the United States of waging economic war against his government, and called the factory closure “absolutely unconstitutional and illegal,” even though his policies are the ones which caused the closure of the factory to begin with.

But in the meantime, Maduro has decided to hand the factory over to workerswho he thinks will continue production.  Interesting, considering most people won’t work long without being paid, and if Kellogg’s cannot find supplies to produce their infamous cereals, it’s unlikely the workers will be successful.  But socialists don’t think much more than one second about any decision anyway.

Venezuela’s battered economy has been hit by falling oil revenue and the plummeting value of its currency, the bolivar. It also has one of the highest rates of inflation in the world. Kellogg is simply the latest multinational company to close or heavily scale back operations in Venezuela, citing strict currency controls, a lack of raw materials and soaring inflation.

Kellogg’s said it hoped to return to Venezuela in the future and warned the Venezuelan government against sales of its brands “without the expressed authorization of the Kellogg Company.”

But the company probably doesn’t have to worry much.

 Worker-run businesses are the biggest recipe for failure in economics that has likely ever existed.

Just ask Venezuela how that’s working out…

For example, in 2016, Venezuela’s government took over a plant belonging to US-based hygiene products manufacturer Kimberly-Clark after it announced it was stopping operations because it could not obtain raw materials. The Texas-based firm recently requested the start of arbitration proceedings against Venezuela at the World Bank. The Texas-based company said in a statement:

“If the Venezuelan government takes control of Kimberly-Clark facilities and operations, it will be responsible for the well-being of the workers and the physical asset, equipment and machinery in the facilities going forward.”

Responsibility is a word socialists cannot readily define, however. And you would think with all this seizure of private businesses, Venezuela wouldn’t have food and toilet paper shortages if these policies were successful. But that’s the problem.  There is little success in Marxist ideals and yet they still insist on blaming capitalism.

“I would rather be subjected to the few failures of capitalism than the few successes of socialism.” -Unknown

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Inspector General Finds FBI, DOJ Broke Law In Clinton Email Probe, Refers To Criminal Prosecutor

As we reported earlier Thursday, a long-awaited report by the Department of Justice’s internal watchdog into the Hillary Clinton email investigation has moved into its final phase, as the DOJ notified multiple subjects mentioned in the document that they can privately review it by week’s end, and will have a “few days” to craft any response to criticism contained within the report, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Those invited to review the report were told they would have to sign nondisclosure agreements in order to read it, people familiar with the matter said. They are expected to have a few days to craft a response to any criticism in the report, which will then be incorporated in the final version to be released in coming weeks. –WSJ

Now, journalist Paul Sperry reports that “IG Horowitz has found “reasonable grounds” for believing there has been a violation of federal criminal law in the FBI/DOJ’s handling of the Clinton investigation/s and has referred his findings of potential criminal misconduct to Huber for possible criminal prosecution.”

Sperry also noted on Twitter that the FBI and DOJ had been targeting former National Security Advisor Mike Flynn before his December 2016 phone call with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, stemming from photos of Flynn at a December 2015 Moscow event with Vladimir Putin (and Jill Stein).

Who is Huber?

As we reported in March, Attorney General Jeff Sessions appointed John Huber – Utah’s top federal prosecutor, to be paired with IG Horowitz to investigate the multitude of accusations of FBI misconduct surrounding the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The announcement came one day after Inspector General Michael Horowitz confirmed that he will also be investigating allegations of FBI FISA abuse

While Huber’s appointment fell short of the second special counsel demanded by Congressional investigators and concerned citizens alike, his appointment and subsequent pairing with Horowitz is notable – as many have pointed out that the Inspector General is significantly limited in his abilities to investigate. Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) noted in March “the IG’s office does not have authority to compel witness interviews, including from past employees, so its investigation will be limited in scope in comparison to a Special Counsel investigation,”

Sessions’ pairing of Horowitz with Huber keeps the investigation under the DOJ’s roof and out of the hands of an independent investigator.

***

Who is Horowitz?

In January, we profiled Michael Horowitz based on thorough research assembled by independent investigators. For those who think the upcoming OIG report is just going to be “all part of the show” – take pause; there’s a good chance this is an actual happening, so you may want to read up on the man whose year-long investigation may lead to criminal charges against those involved. 

In short – Horowitz went to war with the Obama Administration to restore the OIG’s powers – and didn’t get them back until Trump took office.

Horowitz was appointed head of the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) in April, 2012 – after the Obama administration hobbled the OIG’s investigative powers in 2011 during the “Fast and Furious” scandal. The changes forced the various Inspectors General for all government agencies to request information while conducting investigations, as opposed to the authority to demand it. This allowed Holder (and other agency heads) to bog down OIG requests in bureaucratic red tape, and in some cases, deny them outright. 

What did Horowitz do? As one twitter commentators puts it, he went to war

In March of 2015, Horowitz’s office prepared a report for Congress  titled Open and Unimplemented IG Recommendations. It laid the Obama Admin bare before Congress – illustrating among other things how the administration was wasting tens-of-billions of dollars by ignoring the recommendations made by the OIG.

After several attempts by congress to restore the OIG’s investigative powers, Rep. Jason Chaffetz successfully introduced H.R.6450 – the Inspector General Empowerment Act of 2016 – signed by a defeated lame duck President Obama into law on December 16th, 2016cementing an alliance between Horrowitz and both houses of Congress. 

1) Due to the Inspector General Empowerment Act of 2016, the OIG has access to all of the information that the target agency possesses. This not only includes their internal documentation and data, but also that which the agency externally collected and documented.

TrumpSoldier (@DaveNYviii) January 3, 2018

See here for a complete overview of the OIG’s new and restored powers. And while the public won’t get to see classified details of the OIG report, Mr. Horowitz is also big on public disclosure: 

Horowitz’s efforts to roll back Eric Holder’s restrictions on the OIG sealed the working relationship between Congress and the Inspector General’s ofice, and they most certainly appear to be on the same page. Moreover, FBI Director Christopher Wray seems to be on the same page as well. Click here and keep scrolling for that and more insight into what’s going on behind the scenes. 

Here’s a preview: 

 

Which brings us back to the OIG report expected by Congress a week from Monday.

On January 12 of last year, Inspector Horowitz announced an OIG investigation based on “requests from numerous Chairmen and Ranking Members of Congressional oversight committees, various organizations (such as Judicial Watch?), and members of the public.” 

The initial focus ranged from the FBI’s handling of the Clinton email investigation, to whether or not Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe should have been recused from the investigation (ostensibly over $700,000 his wife’s campaign took from Clinton crony Terry McAuliffe around the time of the email investigation), to potential collusion with the Clinton campaign and the timing of various FOIA releases.

Courtesy @DaveNYviii

On July 27, 2017 the House Judiciary Committee called on the DOJ to appoint a Special Counsel, detailing their concerns in 14 questions pertaining to “actions taken by previously public figures like Attorney General Loretta Lynch, FBI Director James Comey, and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.” 

The questions range from Loretta Lynch directing Mr. Comey to mislead the American people on the nature of the Clinton investigation, Secretary Clinton’s mishandling of classified information and the (mis)handling of her email investigation by the FBI, the DOJ’s failure to empanel a grand jury to investigate Clinton, and questions about the Clinton Foundation, Uranium One, and whether the FBI relied on the “Trump-Russia” dossier created by Fusion GPS. 

On September 26, 2017, The House Judiciary Committee repeated their call to the DOJ for a special counsel, pointing out that former FBI Director James Comey lied to Congress when he said that he decided not to recommend criminal charges against Hillary Clinton until after she was interviewed, when in fact Comey had drafted her exoneration before said interview. 

And now, the OIG report can tie all of this together – as it will solidify requests by Congressional committees, while also satisfying a legal requirement for the Department of Justice to impartially appoint a Special Counsel.

As illustrated below by TrumpSoldier, the report will go from the Office of the Inspector General to both investigative committees of Congress, along with Attorney General Jeff Sessions, and is expected within weeks.

DOJ Flowchart, Courtesy TrumpSoldier (@DaveNYviii)

Once congress has reviewed the OIG report, the House and Senate Judiciary Committees will use it to supplement their investigations, which will result in hearings with the end goal of requesting or demanding a Special Counsel investigation. The DOJ can appoint a Special Counsel at any point, or wait for Congress to demand one. If a request for a Special Counsel is ignored, Congress can pass legislation to force an the appointment. 

And while the DOJ could act on the OIG report and investigate / prosecute themselves without a Special Counsel, it is highly unlikely that Congress would stand for that given the subjects of the investigation. 

After the report’s completion, the DOJ will weigh in on it. Their comments are key. As TrumpSoldier points out in his analysis, the DOJ can take various actions regarding “Policy, personnel, procedures, and re-opening of investigations. In short, just about everything (Immunity agreements can also be rescinded).” 

Meanwhile, recent events appear to correspond with bullet points in both the original OIG investigation letter and the 7/27/2017 letter forwarded to the Inspector General: 

With the wheels set in motion last week seemingly align with Congressional requests and the OIG mandate, and the upcoming OIG report likely to serve as a foundational opinion, the DOJ will finally be empowered to move forward with an impartially appointed Special Counsel.

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The Housing ATM Is Back (And It Won’t Work Any Better This Time)

Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk,

It makes little sense to refi at these rising rates. But here we are.

Refis at 8-Year Lows

With mortgage rates rising, one would expect refi activity to slow. And it has: Refi Applications are at an 8-Year Low.

But why is there any refi activity all at all?

In September 2017 the MND mortgage rate rate was 3.85%. In June 2016, the MND rate was 3.43%.

It makes little sense to refi at 4.70% when one could have done it less than two years ago a point and a quarter lower.

At these rates, refi activity should be in the low single digits. Yet, 36% of mortgage applications are refis.

Housing ATMs

Are people pulling money out of their houses to pay bills?

That’s how it appears, as Cash-Out Mortgage Refis are Back.

What’s Going On?

  1. People feel wealthy again and are willing to blow it on consumption

  2. People pulling money out to invest in stocks or Bitcoin

  3. People are further and further in debt and need to pull out cash to pay the bills

I suspect point number three is the primary reason.

Regardless, releveraging is as wrong now as it was in 2007. Totally wrong.

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Stocks Tumble As Trump “Doubts China Trade Talks Will Be Successful”

Having seemingly implied that China was behind the North Korean shenanigans regarding the US summit, President Trump said that he “doubts the China trade talks will be successful” and took the shine off stocks…

Stocks slid lower…

But the dollar and bond yields were unimpressed for now.

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The “World’s Most Bearish Hedge Fund Manager” Makes A Major Change To His Portfolio

Last March, after the worst year in Horseman Capital’s history when the fund lost -24% of its AUM, on par with its performance in 2009, fund CIO Russell Clark capitulated on what until then was the world’s most bearish portfolio, sending its net exposure from -100% to just -12%. Clark also revealed that instead of being outright short equities, as he mostly had been for years, he would split his bullish exposure by shifting long into Emerging Markets, while staying short Developed markets.

What I find interesting, is that US markets have moved up on the promise of reform, even though they look fully valued in my view. China and India we have already had reform take place, and the stocks are not priced for these benefits. Plainly the choice is obvious for me. Long emerging markets, short developed markets is the strategy for the fund.

The decision to rotate into EMs, which at the time was certainly contrarian, may have helped Horseman Global, – which back then was struggling with an avalanche of redemptions – survive, because while it failed to generate spectacular gains, it still managed to turn around the 2016 rout and return 2.3%. The fund’s winning ways continued in 2018, when after the first 4 months, the fund – which we previously dubbed “the world’s most bearish hedge fund” due to its chronic net short bias – was up just over 5%, even as Clark maintained his unprecedented net short book into its 6th year.

Fast forward to today, when after several bland monthly letters to investors in which as Russel Clark himself admitted he “refrained from talking about the market in detail”, the widely followed contrarian is out with a new missive which may presage another key inflection point in the market.

According to Clark, recent developments in China may have finally revealed the key that “unlocks” the QE trap, which would then permit the gradual rise in rates without catastrophic consequences, however this combination of slightly higher short-term interest rates and higher commodity prices “seems to be slowing growth.” This, combined with the general long equities and short bond position of the investing community, strikes Clark as dangerous.

So, one year after dramatically uprooting and overhauling his entire portfolio, Clark is making another major change to his book once again, and as he explains, in the past two months, he has “reduced shorts that work well with higher interest rates, such as staples, REITs, and telecom stocks.” Instead, Horseman has shifted bearishly into the economic cycle-sensitive short book, “namely semiconductor stocks and financials.”

So what about his net exposure? Here Clark says that while he is “tempted” to cut the long book, he has instead “maintained this exposure because, if growth heads south, the chance of central bank intervention in either China or the US rises.” Indeed it does as April 17 showed, when the PBOC unexpectedly cut RRR rates, launching the current surge in both the US Dollar and Treasury yields.

So with the threat of central bank intervention in minds, Clark writes that “Chinese intervention may well be to be cut more capacity and raise commodity prices higher” while the US may back away from further rate increases, with both moves “bullish for commodities.” As a result, the Horseman “long book is really a hedge against central bank policy supporting the economic and market cycle.

Curiously, anticipating that LPs and investors in the fund may be “fickle” as Clark begins another major portfolio rotation, he writes that he is closing the fund to new investors from June 1, and says there are several reasons for the move: “I understand my style of investing better. I have a natural tendency to attack consensus positions. And, by definition, when I do well, everyone else does badly, and vice versa. The best investors for me are those who understand this, and therefore, by definition, these are the investors that are in the fund now after a period of average returns.”

Which brings us to the punchline: on the (roughly) one year anniversary of his last major portfolio rotation, this is what the Horseman Global CIO will be doing now:

For the last year or so I have characterised the fund as long emerging markets and short developed markets. This is not correct anymore. We are short three of the four largest emerging market stocks. We have also started to buy bonds again: 30-year Japanese Government Bonds a couple of months ago, and 10-year treasuries at the beginning of May.

Considering the recent plunge in EMs, Clark may have timed his rotation perfectly

And since this latest portfolio shift brings Horseman back to its original, bearish posture, Clark’s poetic conclusion is spot ont:

Markets are much like life, if you keep going long enough you end up back in the same spot. Coming back a full circle, your fund is once again long bonds (and commodities), short equities.

Clarke’s full letter to investors is below:

Your fund lost 2% last month, all from the currency book. Losses in the short book balanced gains in the long book.

The last two newsletters have largely refrained from talking about the market in detail. I believe quantitative easing (“QE”) is a disastrous policy, and the example from Japan of it being an extremely hard policy to escape still seems true to me. However, the Chinese policy of forcing capacity cuts and raising interest rates, seemed to offer a way out of the QE trap. Certainly, since China enacted its policy change, the Federal Reserve has managed to reverse far more of its QE policies than the Japanese ever managed. So, I have been conflicted. Maybe the Chinese,
with their unusual hybrid economy, can unlock us from the QE trap that we have fallen into?

Sadly, April saw Chinese government bond yields start to fall significantly. Even as interest rate increases have become more expected, 30-year bonds have stayed becalmed, and in some cases are starting to move lower. The combination of slightly higher short-term interest rates and higher commodity prices seems to be slowing growth. This, combined with the general long equities and short bond position of the investing community, strikes me as dangerous.

So, April and early May have seen me reduce shorts that work well with higher interest rates, such as staples, REITs, and telecom stocks. We have used the space created to increase our economic cycle sensitive short book, namely semiconductor stocks and financials. The gross short book has shrunk, but when beta adjusted it is probably flat. I am tempted to cut the long book, but have maintained this exposure because, if growth heads south, the chance of central bank intervention in either China or the US rises. Chinese intervention may well be to be cut more capacity and raise commodity prices higher. The US may back away from further rate increases. Both seem bullish for commodities. The long book is really a hedge against central bank policy supporting the economic and market cycle.

I have recommended to the fund Directors that they close the fund to new investors from June 1. From that point on, we will only accept investments from new investors that began their due diligence before June 1.

I suspect that many readers of the newsletter will wonder why I want to close the fund to new investors. Whilst returns have improved, and we have seen some inflows, neither has been extreme. There are several reasons. I understand my style of investing better. I have a natural tendency to attack consensus positions. And, by definition, when I do well, everyone else does badly, and vice versa.

The best investors for me are those who understand this, and therefore, by definition, these are the investors that are in the fund now after a period of average returns. I obviously struggle at inflection points, so by not having the distraction of new prospects I would hope to manage inflection points better.

For the last year or so I have characterized the fund as long emerging markets and short developed markets. This is not correct anymore. We are short three of the four largest emerging market stocks. We have also started to buy bonds again: 30-year Japanese Government Bonds a couple of months ago, and 10-year treasuries at the beginning of May. Markets are much like life, if you keep going long enough you end up back in the same spot. Coming back a full circle, your fund is once again long bonds (and commodities), short equities.

 

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The Regulations That Could Push Oil Up To $90

Authored by Nick Cunningham via OilPrice.com,

International regulations on the fuels used in shipping could tighten the oil market and push prices up to $90 per barrel in the next two years.

The International Maritime Organization (IMO) has new rules coming into effect at the start of 2020 requiring shipowners to dramatically lower the concentration of sulfur used in their fuels.

Ships plying the world’s oceans tend to use heavy fuel oil, a bottom-of-the-barrel fuel that is especially dirty. The IMO regulations are targeting this fuel because of its high sulfur content. Current rules allow sulfur concentrations of 3.5 percent, but by 2020 ships must slash that to just 0.5 percent. “Effectively, bunker fuel is the last refuge for sulphur, which has been driven out of most other oil products,” the IEA wrote earlier this year in its Oil 2018 report.

Shipowners have several options to achieve this goal, and there probably won’t be a single approach. They could install scrubbers to remove sulfur from the fuel, switch to low-sulfur fuels, or switch to LNG. Scrubbers are thought to be costly, although some shipowners see the payback period as worth it. LNG is also an expensive route.

But a lot of shipowners will switch over to lower-sulfur fuels such as gasoil, a distillate similar to diesel. The IEA says that by 2020, demand for gasoil will shoot up to 1.74 million barrels per day (mb/d), an increase of over 1 mb/d relative to 2018. That will displace the heavy fuel oil that is currently widespread. The IEA says that high-sulfur fuel oil demand will crater from 3.2 mb/d in 2019 to just 1.3 mb/d in 2020.

The switchover will have enormous ramifications for the oil market. The shipping industry represents about 5 percent of the global oil market, using about 5 million barrels of oil per day. Swapping out one form of oil for others will have ripple effects across the refining industry, awarding some and dealing losses to others.

Refiners processing middle distillates – diesel and gasoil – will see a windfall. Meanwhile, refiners that churn out heavy fuel oil will be left with surplus product on their hands.

More specifically, complex refineries can use different types of crude to produce gasoil, often without being stuck with heavy fuel oil as a byproduct. On the other hand, smaller more simple refineries are unable to do that with ease, and “some simple refineries may be forced to close or to upgrade,” according to the IEA.

“We foresee a scramble for middle distillates that will drive crack spreads higher and drag oil prices with it,” Morgan Stanley analysts said in a note.

The investment bank said that Brent crude prices could jump to $90 per barrel, aided by the IMO regulations and the rush to secure compliant fuel. “The last period of severe middle distillate tightness occurred in late-2007/early-2008 and arguably was the critical factor that drove up Brent prices in that period,” Morgan Stanley wrote.

Already, stocks of middle distillates have declined below the five-year average in Europe, the U.S. and Asia. “The additional gasoil needed in 2020 is likely to trigger a spike in diesel prices. In our forecast, we assume an increase of 20 percent to 30 percent in that year,” the IEA said.

The intriguing conclusion from this scenario is that U.S. shale can’t be the solution. The flood of oil coming from the Permian basin is light and sweet, which tends to be transformed into gasoline, and is not suited for the production of middle distillates. Medium and heavy blends are more preferable for the distillates needed for maritime fuels, but those barrels are being held off of the market right now by the OPEC cuts.

“We expect the crude oil market to remain under-supplied and inventories to continue to draw,” the bank said. “This will likely underpin prices.”

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Brazilian Real Rout Returns Despite Hawkish Central Bank ‘Hold’

Brazil’s central bank (BCB) surprised the market by foregoing a final rate cut overnight in what seemed like a hawkish effort to stem the tide of collapse in its currency. For a few brief minutes it worked… but the Real is no collapsing lower again to more than 3.70/usd.

 

As Goldman Sachs noted, the BCB decision went against a broad market consensus expecting a final 25bp rate cut: only 2 of the 39 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg expected the Copom to leave the policy rate unchanged at 6.50%. The forward guidance hardened, now indicating the end of the long easing cycle.

This was one of the few instances where a central bank surprises a heavy market consensus and, yet, is likely to be applauded for it and gain credibility. The reason analysts were expecting a rate cut was not because in their assessment of the macro fundamentals and overall evolution of the balance of domestic and external risks further easing would be warranted, but simply because the central bank guidance from the previous meeting, reiterated in the Quarterly Inflation Report, clearly suggested so, and in recent weeks, amidst already clear currency pressures, central bank officials did not publicly abandon such guidance.

Overall, while the Copom communication with the market may have been imperfect, the decision to hold is, in our assessment, perfectly justified by the recent developments in external financial markets and the ongoing depreciation pressure on the BRL. We expect the Copom to leave the policy rate unchanged at 6.50% for the foreseeable future and expect the next move to be a hike.

However, it didn’t and isn’t and the Real is now down almost 20% since the end of January…

And don’t forget, the Brazilian Real is what Bank of America called the best indicator of imminent emerging market turmoil

And in fact, it is LatAm FX that is getting crushed – now at its weakest level ever relative to the broad EM FX…

And this weakness is continuing even as the region’s biggest exports – commodities – are rising.

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Did CNN, NYT, ABC, & C-SPAN ‘Lie By Omission’? Falsely Claiming Trump Called Immigrants “Animals”

Authored by Joseph Wulfsohn via Mediaite.com,

President Donald Trump held a meeting on illegal immigration at the White House on Wednesday and one particular moment went viral… but for all the wrong reasons.

Fresno County Sheriff Margaret Mims expressed her frustrations with the federal government to the president regarding the handling of criminal illegal immigrants and cited MS-13 gang members as an example. Responding directly to that, Trump said the following:

“You wouldn’t believe how bad these people are. These aren’t people, these are animals, and we’re taking them out of the country at a level and at a rate that’s never happened before.”

However, dozens of media outlets have only shared the response to Sheriff Mims, not including her question and comments that were directly about MS-13 and in the process purposefully mischaracterizing the president’s remarks to accuse him of referring to immigrants as “animals.”

CNN, ABC News, CBS News, NBC News, and C-SPAN shared the clip on Twitter leaving out the crucial context of Trump’s response.

The New York Times shared Trump’s quote and implied that he was referring to “undocumented immigrants” instead of violent gang members.

NBC News Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent Andrea Mitchell tweeted that Trump’s “animal” jab was in reference to “people trying to get into the country.”

Washington Post reporter Robert Costa noted that the president had used the term “animal” before on the campaign trail in 2015, but what he neglected to mention was that Trump specifically used the word in reference to the illegal immigrant who shot and killed Kate Steinle.

The New York Daily News accused Trump of “hurling hate at immigrants” with its Thursday cover.

Among the headlines, The New York Times had “Trump Calls Some Unauthorized Immigrants ‘Animals in Rant,” USA Today had “Trump calls undocumented people ‘animals,’ rhetoric with a dark past,” Voxhad “Trump on deported immigrants: ‘They’re not people They’re animals,’” The Huffington Post had “Trump Refers to Immigrants As ‘Animals.’ Again,” Business Insider had “Trump says some unauthorized immigrants ‘aren’t people’ but ‘animals’ who will be rapidly kicked out of the US,” and The Washington Post had “Calling immigrants ‘animals,’ Trump evokes an ugly history of dehumanization.”

While the president’s attacks of the media by constantly dismissing them as “fake news” sets a dangerous precedent,  the media certainly doesn’t help its cause – giving him and his supporters ammunition – when it misleads viewers and readers by purposefully taking him out of context.

Watch the full clip below again (via CBS) and decide just how ‘fake’ the media has become.

As Scott Adams tweeted “Apologies are coming, right?” – we won’t hold our breath.

And finally, here is Mark Constantine to summarize the state of the world…

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Kilauea Erupts “Explosively” From Summit, Sending Huge Plume Of Ash In The Sky

Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano has erupted from its summit, shooting a dusty plume of ash about 30,000 feet into the sky.

KTLA reports that people are being told to shelter in place…

As AP reports, Mike Poland, a geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey, confirmed the explosion on Thursday.

The volcano is sending “ballistic blocks” out hundreds of metres – and they could reach several tonnes in weight

It comes after more than a dozen fissures recently opened miles to the east of the crater and spewed lava into neighborhoods.

Those areas were evacuated as lava destroyed at least 26 homes and 10 other structures.

Officials have said they didn’t expect the explosion to be deadly as long as people remained out of park.

Perhaps luckily, as SHTFplan’s Mac Slavo noted before this latest eruption, the massive plume of ash rising from Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano prompted a warning yesterday to pilots planning to fly over the area. The eruption isn’t just dangerous to people on the ground anymore — it could also bring down planes. A code red warning has been issued, as the eruption continues to intensify.

Kilauea has been spurting lava, molten rock, and poisonous gases from multiple massive fissures on the island of Hawaii since May 3rd. On Tuesday morning, the Halema’uma’u crater on Kilauea’s summit also began continuously gushing ash — creating a plume that rose up to 10,000 feet in the air. Rocks falling into the vent may be responsible for more intense ash spurts. But that’s not even the worst of it, the US Geological Survey warned:

At any time, activity may become more explosive, increasing the intensity of ash production and producing ballistic projectiles near the vent.”

In addition to dangers from the bubbling, scalding-hot lava from the Kilauea volcano, residents on the Big Island of Hawaii are enduring threats from both vog and volcanic ashfall. The U.S. Geological Survey issued a “code red” for ashfall late Tuesday, due to the hazard it poses for airplanes and jets. Vog, short for volcanic smog, is the haze formed by gas and fine particle emissions from volcanoes, according to the American Meteorological Society.

The Hawaiian Volcano Observatory warned pilots about the gigantic ash plume by changing the aviation color code to red — which means that an eruption hazardous to air travel is happening, or could happen soon. This morning, local time, the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory announced that the color code would stay red for the time being. “It sounds a little bit alarming,” USGS volcanologist Michelle Coombs said in a video statement. But the “code red” is just a warning to aviators flying by the island. “It doesn’t mean that a really big eruption is imminent,” she says. “It’s really just characterizing that aviation situation.”

Although Coombs says a big eruption is not imminent, the USGS’s Hawaii Volcano Observatory (HVO) said in a statement that a red alert means otherwise. A red alert, according to the agency, means a “major volcanic eruption is imminent, underway or suspected, with hazardous activity both on the ground and in the air.”

And now it has…

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Inspector General Report On Clinton Email Probe About To Drop, Now In Final Review

A long-awaited report by the Department of Justice’s internal watchdog has moved into its final phase – after the DOJ notified multiple subjects mentioned in the document that they can privately review it by week’s end, and will have a “few days” to craft any response to criticism contained within the report, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Those invited to review the report were told they would have to sign nondisclosure agreements in order to read it, people familiar with the matter said. They are expected to have a few days to craft a response to any criticism in the report, which will then be incorporated in the final version to be released in coming weeks. –WSJ

Inspector General Michael Horowitz told lawmakers in April that he expected to issue the report in May, however Tuesday’s notification indicates that he has largely completed his inquiry

Congressional investigators will get their hands on the report in coming weeks.

A related report was released in April detailing the DOJ’s case against former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, who was found to have lied four times to the DOJ and FBI, including twice while under oath

McCabe, who was fired a day before he was set to collect his full pension, authorized a self-serving leak to the Wall St. Journal claiming that the FBI had not put the brakes on the Clinton Foundation investigation, during a period in which he was coming under fire over a $467,500 campaign donation his wife Jill took from Clinton pal Terry McAuliffe. 

To be clear, this report will have nothing to do with the FBI’s alleged FISA abuse, high-level collusion against the Trump campaign, or the genesis of the counterintelligence investigation against then-candidate Donald Trump. The OIG will be covering those issues as part of a separate investigation announced in late March.

The report on the Clinton email investigation will, however, cover the conduct of FBI “lovebirds” Peter Strzok and Lisa Page. Strzok notably spearheaded the Clinton email investigation before also handling the early Trump-Russia investigation. 

Horowitz’s report will undoubtedly also cover significant edits made by the FBI’s top brass to Hillary Clinton’s exoneration statement – effectively decriminalizing her mishandling of classified information so that she wouldn’t be prosecuted by the DOJ.

Who is Michael Horowitz?

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In January, we profiled Michael Horowitz based on thorough research assembled by independent investigators. For those who think the upcoming OIG report is just going to be “all part of the show” – take pause; there’s a good chance this is an actual happening, so you may want to read up on the man whose year-long investigation may lead to criminal charges against those involved. 

In short – Horowitz went to war with the Obama Administration to restore the OIG’s powers – and didn’t get them back until Trump took office.

Horowitz was appointed head of the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) in April, 2012 – after the Obama administration hobbled the OIG’s investigative powers in 2011 during the “Fast and Furious” scandal. The changes forced the various Inspectors General for all government agencies to request information while conducting investigations, as opposed to the authority to demand it. This allowed Holder (and other agency heads) to bog down OIG requests in bureaucratic red tape, and in some cases, deny them outright. 

What did Horowitz do? As one twitter commentators puts it, he went to war

In March of 2015, Horowitz’s office prepared a report for Congress  titled Open and Unimplemented IG Recommendations. It laid the Obama Admin bare before Congress – illustrating among other things how the administration was wasting tens-of-billions of dollars by ignoring the recommendations made by the OIG.

After several attempts by congress to restore the OIG’s investigative powers, Rep. Jason Chaffetz successfully introduced H.R.6450 – the Inspector General Empowerment Act of 2016 – signed by a defeated lame duck President Obama into law on December 16th, 2016cementing an alliance between Horrowitz and both houses of Congress. 

1) Due to the Inspector General Empowerment Act of 2016, the OIG has access to all of the information that the target agency possesses. This not only includes their internal documentation and data, but also that which the agency externally collected and documented.

TrumpSoldier (@DaveNYviii) January 3, 2018

See here for a complete overview of the OIG’s new and restored powers. And while the public won’t get to see classified details of the OIG report, Mr. Horowitz is also big on public disclosure: 

Horowitz’s efforts to roll back Eric Holder’s restrictions on the OIG sealed the working relationship between Congress and the Inspector General’s ofice, and they most certainly appear to be on the same page. Moreover, FBI Director Christopher Wray seems to be on the same page as well. Click here and keep scrolling for that and more insight into what’s going on behind the scenes. 

Here’s a preview: 

 

Which brings us back to the OIG report expected by Congress a week from Monday.

On January 12 of last year, Inspector Horowitz announced an OIG investigation based on “requests from numerous Chairmen and Ranking Members of Congressional oversight committees, various organizations (such as Judicial Watch?), and members of the public.” 

The initial focus ranged from the FBI’s handling of the Clinton email investigation, to whether or not Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe should have been recused from the investigation (ostensibly over $700,000 his wife’s campaign took from Clinton crony Terry McAuliffe around the time of the email investigation), to potential collusion with the Clinton campaign and the timing of various FOIA releases. 

On July 27, 2017 the House Judiciary Committee called on the DOJ to appoint a Special Counsel, detailing their concerns in 14 questions pertaining to “actions taken by previously public figures like Attorney General Loretta Lynch, FBI Director James Comey, and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.” 

The questions range from Loretta Lynch directing Mr. Comey to mislead the American people on the nature of the Clinton investigation, Secretary Clinton’s mishandling of classified information and the (mis)handling of her email investigation by the FBI, the DOJ’s failure to empanel a grand jury to investigate Clinton, and questions about the Clinton Foundation, Uranium One, and whether the FBI relied on the “Trump-Russia” dossier created by Fusion GPS. 

On September 26, 2017, The House Judiciary Committee repeated their call to the DOJ for a special counsel, pointing out that former FBI Director James Comey lied to Congress when he said that he decided not to recommend criminal charges against Hillary Clinton until after she was interviewed, when in fact Comey had drafted her exoneration before said interview. 

And now, the OIG report can tie all of this together – as it will solidify requests by Congressional committees, while also satisfying a legal requirement for the Department of Justice to impartially appoint a Special Counsel.

As illustrated below by TrumpSoldier, the report will go from the Office of the Inspector General to both investigative committees of Congress, along with Attorney General Jeff Sessions, and is expected within weeks.

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DOJ Flowchart, Courtesy @DaveNYviii

Once congress has reviewed the OIG report, the House and Senate Judiciary Committees will use it to supplement their investigations, which will result in hearings with the end goal of requesting or demanding a Special Counsel investigation. The DOJ can appoint a Special Counsel at any point, or wait for Congress to demand one. If a request for a Special Counsel is ignored, Congress can pass legislation to force an the appointment. 

And while the DOJ could act on the OIG report and investigate / prosecute themselves without a Special Counsel, it is highly unlikely that Congress would stand for that given the subjects of the investigation. 

After the report’s completion, the DOJ will weigh in on it. Their comments are key. As TrumpSoldier points out in his analysis, the DOJ can take various actions regarding “Policy, personnel, procedures, and re-opening of investigations. In short, just about everything (Immunity agreements can also be rescinded).” 

Meanwhile, recent events appear to correspond with bullet points in both the original OIG investigation letter and the 7/27/2017 letter forwarded to the Inspector General: 

With the wheels set in motion last week seemingly align with Congressional requests and the OIG mandate, and the upcoming OIG report likely to serve as a foundational opinion, the DOJ will finally be empowered to move forward with an impartially appointed Special Counsel.

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