Category: zerohedge

Did Maxine Waters’ Office Doxx GOP Senators During Kavanaugh Testimony?

The personal information of Republican Senators Lindsey Graham, Mike Lee and Orrin Hatch was posted to Wikipedia Thursday during the hearing of Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh. 

The information, which included home addresses and phone numbers, was posted to the senators’ respective Wikipedia pages where users are allowed to made edits – all of which are logged by Wikipedia and include the editor’s IP address.

As a result of the information being made public, Sen. Hatch’s wife “has been receiving calls nonstop ON HER BIRTHDAY and their home address was made public,” according to Caleb Hull, director of content at the Republican technology firm Targeted Victory. 

The IP address used to “doxx” the Senators was quickly traced back to the House of Representatives… 

Upon further research, it appears that the IP address traces back to the office of Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA). 

(Archive of IP address tied to Waters staffer Kathleen Sengstock here) 

Waters has come under fire for advocating that her Democratic followers form into mobs and physically confront members of the Trump administration if they see them in public. 

The Democratic rep – who doesn’t live in the district she represents and paid her daughter $750,000 for Democratic fundraising activities, said to a crowd at a “Keep Families Together” rally on Saturday: “If you see anybody from that Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd and you push back on them, and you tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere.“

Waters’ call to action came amid protests at the homes of Department of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen’s house, as well as White House aide Stephen Miller’s apartment, which makes the doxxing of GOP Senators all the more significant – especially if it came from Waters’ office. 

White House spokesman Raj Shah wrote on Twitter that the leaked information was “outrageous.”

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How Executive Order 6102 Doomed America

Authored by Bill Bonner via Bonner & Partners,

Today, we woke up in Buenos Aires with a disagreeable headache… and a depressing hypothesis:

First, it doesn’t matter whether Brett Kavanaugh is on the Supreme Court or not; one more Deep State toad won’t make any difference.

Second, the Supreme Court has been derelict in its duty for the last 80 years.

For years, the Court has looked the other way as the feds robbed one class of citizen (ordinary, working people) and rewarded another (the elite).

Third, as a result, the American empire faces a catastrophic money crisis… probably accompanied by internal schisms, social breakdowns, and dangerous political scuffles.

Let’s begin by looking again at the connection between time and money.

Losing Time

If you work by the hour, the guy with money can buy your time. That’s what it really means to say someone is “rich” – he has more time because he can control not only his own, but yours, too.

The guy who had $1,000 worth of stocks in 1971 could buy approximately 250 of the average working man’s hours. Today, that $1,000 worth of stocks is worth about $28,000… which, at today’s $26-per-hour average, will buy 1,077 hours of the typical working man’s time – four times as much as in 1971.

In other words, compared to the wage earner, the capitalist is four times as rich.

Invert it, and you see about the same thing. A working man would have had to labor for 212 hours to buy the 30 Dow stocks in 1971. Today, his time is much less valuable; he has to sweat for over 1,100 hours to buy the Dow.

That’s why the liberals whine about “inequality”… and probably why Donald J. Trump was elected. Few people may have done the math, but a lot of people suspected a rat.

And they were right.

Many – including the president – pointed their fingers… but at the wrong rat!

They thought it was the foreigners who had done them dirty: the Chinese with their “unfair trade practices” and the Mexicans “pouring across the border, stealing our jobs,” was the jingo.

For their part, investors, the rich, and the cronies and insiders thought they were smart. They earned their wealth fair and square, they believed, by funding America’s enterprises… and by carefully allocating precious capital to worthy businesses run by able corporate champions.

But the fix was in.

Executive Order 6102

How exactly was the fix put in place?

In 1933, the matter first came before the Supreme Court. Franklin Roosevelt’s Executive Order 6102 made it illegal for citizens to own gold, except in the smallest of quantities.

It came to the Supremes in a series of disputes called the “gold clause” cases. “Where in the Constitution did the president get that power?” people wondered.

Back then, some investors recalled that the feds can play fast and loose with the dollar, as Lincoln had during the War Between the States.

Gold clauses in contracts protected them by insisting on gold as a means of settling up. Eliminating the gold clause meant taking away the ability to protect against inflation… and substantially altering the terms of the deal.

But the Supremes went along with it. Colleague Dan Denning tells the tale:

…First, let me quote a few brief passages from [Justice James] McReynolds’ dissent. They capture the spirit of his objection and the relationship between sound money and political liberty. McReynolds writes that:

“Just men regard repudiation and spoliation of citizens by their sovereign with abhorrence; but we are asked to affirm that the Constitution has granted power to accomplish both. No definite delegation of such power exists; and we cannot believe the farseeing framers, who labored with hope of establishing justice and securing the blessings of liberty, intended that the expected government should have authority to annihilate its own obligations and destroy the very rights which they were endeavoring to protect. Not only is there no permission for such actions; they are inhibited. And no plenitude of words can conform them to our charter.”

McReynolds went on to make the point that when you buy a bond or make a loan, “the creditor agrees to accept and the debtor undertakes to return the thing loaned or its equivalent.” Because Roosevelt’s Executive Order meant companies could be paid back in depreciated dollars instead of gold coin or gold equal to the value of the original loan, McReynolds recognized that this was a de facto default.

The gold clause guaranteeing creditors be paid back in gold or something of equal value, “prevents the borrower from availing itself of a possibility of discharge of the debt in depreciated currency.”

Congress went along with it, too. And then, still in the minority, McReynolds saw the handwriting on the wall. The feds themselves might be the main beneficiaries. Congress would be able to borrow… and then wipe out its own debt by inflation:

“We are dealing here with a debased standard, adopted with the definite purpose to destroy obligations. Such arbitrary and oppressive action is not within any congressional power heretofore recognized. The authority of Congress to create legal tender obligations in times of peace is derived from the power to borrow money; this cannot be extended to embrace the destruction of all credits. […]

For the government to say we have violated our contract, but have escaped the consequences through our own statute, would be monstrous. In matters of contractual obligation, the government cannot legislate so as to excuse itself. […]

Whatever may be the situation now confronting us, it is the outcome of attempts to destroy lawful undertakings by legislative action; and this we think the Court should disapprove of in no uncertain terms. […]

Loss of reputation for honorable dealing will bring us unending humiliation, the impending legal and moral chaos is appalling.”

Humiliation Afoot

With the gold clause out of the way, the coast was clear. The feds floated out one program after another, meddling in every aspect of human life.

There was now a third party in almost every transaction – the federal regulator.

By the 1950s, the fake wars had begun, too – major wars – with no declaration or funding from Congress.

By the 1960s, the Johnson team had a full-scale war in Vietnam (a country with no capacity or intention to harm the U.S.).

In addition, it launched a War on Poverty, too… intended to create a Great Society, where the lambs would lie down with the wolves and fruit would hang from every ghetto palm.

But humiliation was afoot. It was soon clear that the feds were going to run out of money.

And this time, it was the Nixon team that shirked its duty. Rather than admit that it had overspent, Nixon repudiated the last link with real money and the ability of foreign governments to exchange their dollars for gold at the promised rate.

Now, the feds had gone Full Paper. Their money was nothing but pieces of paper backed by what was soon to be the world’s biggest debtor.

And now, there was nothing stopping them… There was nothing to stop the chaos McReynolds foresaw…

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“The Situation Is Chaotic” – Hundreds Dead, Dozens Missing After Devastating Tsunami Hammers Indonesia

Communications were down across the Indonesia island of Sulawesi on Saturday after a powerful 7.5 magnitude earthquake and subsequent tsunami decimated communities across central Sulawesi, leaving scores dead and hundreds of buildings destroyed in the city of Palu and the surrounding area. 

According to Agence France-Presse, at least 384 people died in the city of Palu, which was among the hardest-hit cities in the disaster. At least 540 have been injured, and 29 are listed as missing. The death toll is expected to swell since tens of thousands of Indonesians were visiting the city for a festival. Officials warned that the death toll was likely to rise as many more remote towns in the region have proven difficult to reach, including the city of Donggala. A landmark city bridge was among the list of destroyed music in Palu as waves up to 10 feet high swept across the city.

Bridge

The quake struck near central Sulawesi at a depth of 10 kilometers just before 1100 GMT, early in the evening local time. Such shallow quakes tend to be more destructive according to Philippine Star. It was more powerful than a series of tremblors that struck the island of Lombok and neighboring Sumbawa in July and August, leaving hundreds dead and tens of thousands displaced.

One

Photos and video of the earthquake, tsunami and their aftermath depicted piles of debris where buildings once stood, and corpses strewn across the ground.

Philippines

One particularly gruesome photo showed a man carrying the muddy corpse of a small child.

“I just ran when I saw the waves hitting homes on the coastline,” said Palu resident Rusidanto, who like many Indonesians goes by one name.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo told the press that the military was being called in to help search-and-rescue teams save victims and find bodies.

Indonesia

Two

A spokesman for the government’s disaster recovery agency told reporters that telecommunications were damaged by the quake and a subsequent storm, adding that the government hoped international satellites would be able to provide backup.

“We hope there will be international satellites crossing over Indonesia that can capture images and provide them to us so we can use the images to prepare humanitarian aid,” the spokesman said.

People living hundreds of miles from the quake’s epicenter said they felt the quake, which followed a smaller jolt that killed at least one person.

The Palu airport was closed after the tsunami and was expected to stay closed for at least 24 hours, increasing the difficulty of relief efforts. The Friday quake was felt as far south as Makassar, the island’s largest city, and on nearby Kalimantan, situated on the Indonesian portion of Borneo.

Four

Notably, the first quake hit just as evening prayers were about to begin in the world’s biggest Muslim majority country. They also took place on the holiest day of the week, when mosques are especially busy.

Officials described to destruction to the BBC.

“Many bodies were found along the shoreline because of the tsunami, but the numbers are still unknown,” Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, a spokesman for the agency, told Reuters.

“When the threat arose yesterday, people were still doing their activities on the beach and did not immediately run and they became victims,” he told a news briefing.

“The tsunami didn’t come by itself – it dragged cars, logs, houses – it hit everything on land.”

[…]

“The situation is chaotic, people are running on the streets and buildings collapsed. There is a ship washed ashore,” said Dwikorita Karnawati, head of Indonesia’s meteorology and geophysics agency.

Indonesia is one of the world’s most “disaster-prone” nations thanks to its location straddling the Pacific Ring of Fire, a region that includes frequent quakes and volcanic eruptions. The ring circles almost the entire Pacific rim, and is home to more than half of the world’s active volcanoes above sea level. A deadly quake and tsunami in 2004 killed nearly a quarter of a million people, including nearly 120,000 in Indonesia.

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Of Stocks & SCOTUS: The Perils Of Memory

Authored by Nicholas Colas via DataTrekResearch.com,

We have been thinking a lot about human memory over the last few days. Part of that is some lingering thought about the 10-year Lehman bankruptcy anniversary earlier this month. Another is the fact that Monday will be the one-year mark for DataTrek publishing these notes. And, of course, the Supreme Court nomination hearings today put human memory in a starring role.

The science of memory shows this subject is much more complex than most of us realize. One classic example:

  • Daniel Kahneman, who won a Nobel Prize for Prospect Theory, once did an experiment with subjects who were undergoing a colonoscopy.
  • Some patients received the standard exam, which featured an especially painful part near the end of the procedure. This is one reason colonoscopies had a bad rap for so long.
  • Others had their procedure altered so the last part was not so painful.
  • The latter remembered the whole event as being much less painful than those where the last bits were especially difficult. Same procedure, but entirely different memories based on whether the last slice of time was easy or hard.
  • As an aside, we’ve watched Kahneman’s TED talk more times than we can remember. It is worth a look if you haven’t seen it.

The researcher we follow most closely on the topic of memory is American academic Elizabeth Loftus of UC Irvine. One of her specialties is how eyewitness testimony in criminal cases can be incorrect, leading to false convictions. The crossover to the stresses of investing and how those affect our memories is what drew us first to her work. Here is a sample:

  • Loftus’ basic mental framework on how memory works is that it resembles a Wikipedia page more than an immutable record of the past. Over time, we can edit a given memory “page” and (importantly) others can also edit that page as well.
  • Language has a profound impact on memory. Some of her early work involved showing subjects video of simulated car accidents. When she posed the question “How fast were the cars going when they smashed into each other?” subjects reported witnessing much higher speeds than when the query was “…when the cars hit each other”. “Smashed” versus “hit” made a big difference.
  • Stress doesn’t make memories less subject to manipulation. In a study where US military personnel were subject to harsh interrogation techniques for training purposes, researchers could feed these individuals suggestive information that led them to misidentify their interrogators later on.
  • It is possible to implant powerful false memories in adults that go back to early childhood. Loftus’ studies show about 25% of subjects can be convinced of prior traumatic events that never actually occurred.
  • Her TED talk is also worth a look or a read (transcript included in this link).

As far as investing goes, all this is important because memory is the foundation upon which we build expectations. But how we remember events – even ones fraught with emotion and stress – are not always faithful representations of what actually occurred. Moreover, since thousands of market participants collectively decide daily prices, there are just as many memories at work.

Summing up, we take these lessons to heart in a few different ways that might also be useful to you:

  • Since language matters to memory formulation and subsequent recalibration, we are always mindful that exaggerated descriptive words – written or spoken – can alter memory.
  • Stress doesn’t imprint memory any more reliably than when things are calm. Editing down the line can still happen.
  • We try to check our memories, especially when we are “sure” of prior events. It is one reason we always have a data section in these notes. It forces us to go back and reassess what we think we remember.
  • In the end, we think of memory as a mix of fact and all the things that have happened since a given event. Our memories may be mostly accurate, mostly not, or somewhere in between. Fact-checking them when necessary is the only constant.

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Here Is The Strategy Musk Will Use To Defend Against The SEC

In a decision that stunned the more hardened market cynics, last week the Securities and Exchange Commission filed a lawsuit against Elon Musk, alleging that the Tesla CEO committed securities fraud when he Tweeted that he had “funding secured” for a bid to take his company private at $420 per share. Just as striking was that Musk decided in the 11th hour not to settle this lawsuit with the SEC, leaving some analysts mystified as to why Musk would want to spend the time, money and resources to fight the agency, who has a 94.7% success rate in market manipulation cases, according to Vertical Group’s Gordon Johnson.

This defiance left many wondering what Musk’s “genius” line of thinking was in believing that his actions may have been acceptable. Apparently, Musk thought a couple of conversations “verbal commitment” with Saudi nationals that supposedly culminated more than a week prior to his Tweet – and resulted in no tangible numbers or defined terms for a proposed deal – was enough to state to his 22 million Twitter followers that a go-private deal was then only contingent on a shareholder vote. 

Overnight, the Wall Street Journal gave us our first look into the thought process of the CEO, and a glimpse into what Musk’s defense strategy will look like.

The article astonishingly states that Musk believes the SEC’s “reasoning is flawed” in thinking that a written agreement and fixed price were necessary to get a proposed $70 billion plus go-private deal done. The deal would have been the largest buyout in history. Musk also reportedly didn’t think that regulators were taking into account that Saudi businesses have a history of using “verbal agreements in principle”. 

Perhaps this defense may hold some water for his original tweet, where he stated that he was “considering” taking the company private. 

But to follow up with a claim that the only reason the deal wasn’t certain was because it was “contingent on a shareholder vote”, indicating that every other aspect of what would have been the largest buyout in history was already in place, is where Musk’s reasoning will be severely challenged – especially with the Saudis themselves later making it clear that no formal deal had been agreed on – and not just on social media and the public comment circuit:

… from William McGaw:

Elon Musk to analyst: “Boring, bonehead questions are not cool. Next?”

Boring, bonehead answers to securities fraud allegations are also not cool. Next?

… from Jeffrey Dugas:

Musk can claim he “believed” anything he wants. I can claim that I “believed” my income was not taxable last year, but that’s not going to stop the IRS from coming after me for not filing a return. After the fact claims of “belief”, without any corroboration from another party with which he had a “verbal” agreement mean nothing. It will good to see Musk in the dock. This will be a teachable moment for an arrogant one who thinks his droppings do not stink.

… from Kevin Dretzka:

Try taking an oral “agreement” to your banker and getting a $10 cash advance secured by the  the oral agreement.   He is a genius, you know.

It sounds like the serial scammer has finally run out of get-out-of-jail cards.

… from Chris Petruzzi:

Apparently, Musk has no emails, no text message, etc. which would corroborate his story.   I find it difficult to believe that a  $50 billion+ deal could be made without even any contemporaneous notes on Musk’s computer.  

… from Vamshi Yamsani:

isn’t this the same person who had ‘sources’ claiming VW was interested in Tesla’s go-private act? VW completely denied having anything to do with it only a few days later. Why should we believe this person now? And then, “verbal agreement” for 70 Billion dollars!? Okay

… from Mitchell Kleinman:

Read the complaint.  It is astoundingly damning and shows a disregard of most principals of corporate governance and securities laws.  Paragraph 30 details all of the things Musk had both time to do and should have done between his last meeting with the sovereign fund and his tweet.  He simply did none of them.

… from Yiuri Vizitei:

He got caught trying to punish the shorts. Period. And then he had the hubris to act like he is above the law. There is a reason why most founders make terrible CEOs. The qualities which make great founders make for terrible CEOs. Particularly of  public companies. In a “normal” situation, he would have been long retired and speaking on the TED circuit. But the investors bought his cult of personality and now pay the price for that mistake.

From William Bair:

Words fail me as I read that headline.  If that was truly Elon Musk’s belief, then he is not the appropriate person to serve as CEO of a public company

And from R Boxwell:

He’s like the Trump of Silicon Valley — can’t this guy shut up?

As a back up defense, Musk has also stated that he personally could’ve led the go private transaction by using his shares of SpaceX, if he had gotten some of Tesla’s larger shareholders behind him.

Musk spent a day in August giving testimony to the Securities and Exchange Commission in San Francisco. According to sources cited by the Journal, the SEC believed that based on this testimony and the additional evidence that they had an “open and shut” case showing that Musk had violated securities laws.

Meanwhile, we also learned that the settlement that Musk turned down was reportedly for a two year bar as chairman of the company which would have reportedly allowed him to continue as CEO. He also would’ve paid a fine “in the millions of dollars”. The deal had reportedly already been approved by the commissioners of the SEC before Musk backed out at the last minute.

Former SEC chairman Richard Breeden said on CNBC last week that Musk backing out of this settlement would likely be seen as “another reckless act”. 

After Musk made it clear to the SEC that he didn’t want to settle, lawyers were forced to pull together their complaint and file it later that day.

In the complaint, several other fascinating details were revealed, such as the fact that Musk thought $420 per share would be a “standard” premium for a go-private offer. He arrived at the number $420 because of its association with marijuana culture and because he thought it would “impress his girlfriend.”

Even Musk told the SEC that during his July 31 meeting between him and the Saudi nationals, the last meeting before Musk’s tweet, that he did not discuss any of his assumptions related such a go-private deal with the representatives of the fund.

This left the SEC no choice but to file the complaint, which now seeks to remove him from his role as both chairman and CEO.

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You Gave Facebook Your Number For Security. They Used It For Ads

By Gennie Gebhart, Associate Director of Research, Electronic Frontier Foundation

Add “a phone number I never gave Facebook for targeted advertising” to the list of deceptive and invasive ways Facebook makes money off your personal information. Contrary to user expectations and Facebook representatives’ own previous statements, the company has been using contact information that users explicitly provided for security purposes—or that users never provided at all—for targeted advertising.

A group of academic researchers from Northeastern University and Princeton University, along with Gizmodo reporters, have used real-world tests to demonstrate how Facebook’s latest deceptive practice works. They found that Facebook harvests user phone numbers for targeted advertising in two disturbing ways: two-factor authentication (2FA) phone numbers, and “shadow” contact information.

Two-Factor Authentication Is Not The Problem

First, when a user gives Facebook their number for security purposes—to set up 2FA, or to receive alerts about new logins to their account—that phone number can become fair game for advertisers within weeks. (This is not the first time Facebook has misused 2FA phone numbers.)

But the important message for users is: this is not a reason to turn off or avoid 2FA. The problem is not with two-factor authentication. It’s not even a problem with the inherent weaknesses of SMS-based 2FA in particular. Instead, this is a problem with how Facebook has handled users’ information and violated their reasonable security and privacy expectations.

There are many types of 2FA. SMS-based 2FA requires a phone number, so you can receive a text with a “second factor” code when you log in. Other types of 2FA—like authenticator apps and hardware tokens—do not require a phone number to work. However, until just four months ago, Facebook required users to enter a phone number to turn on any type of 2FA, even though it offers its authenticator as a more secure alternative. Other companies—Google notable among them—also still follow that outdated practice.

Even with the welcome move to no longer require phone numbers for 2FA, Facebook still has work to do here. This finding has not only validated users who are suspicious of Facebook’s repeated claims that we have “complete control” over our own information, but has also seriously damaged users’ trust in a foundational security practice.

Until Facebook and other companies do better, users who need privacy and security most—especially those for whom using an authenticator app or hardware key is not feasible—will be forced into a corner.

Shadow Contact Information

Second, Facebook is also grabbing your contact information from your friends. Kash Hill of Gizmodo provides an example:

…if User A, whom we’ll call Anna, shares her contacts with Facebook, including a previously unknown phone number for User B, whom we’ll call Ben, advertisers will be able to target Ben with an ad using that phone number, which I call “shadow contact information,” about a month later.

This means that, even if you never directly handed a particular phone number over to Facebook, advertisers may nevertheless be able to associate it with your account based on your friends’ phone books.

Even worse, none of this is accessible or transparent to users. You can’t find such “shadow” contact information in the “contact and basic info” section of your profile; users in Europe can’t even get their hands on it despite explicit requirements under the GDPR that a company give users a “right to know” what information it has on them.

As Facebook attempts to salvage its reputation among users in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, it needs to put its money where its mouth is. Wiping 2FA numbers and “shadow” contact data from non-essential use would be a good start.

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Belgium Sues Google For Refusing To Blur Military Sites On ‘Street View’, ‘Maps’

Google has brushed aside consumers’ complaints about its lack of transparency surrounding what personal data it collects (including users’ location) and how it monetizes that data. And apparently, the company is subjecting foreign governments to the same treatment.

As Reuters reported Friday, Google’s steadfast refusals to blur satellite images of sensitive military sites has provoked the Belgian defense ministry into suing the US tech giant and Alphabet subsidiary. This despite the fact that Google has complied with similar requests from other governments pertaining to the exposure of sensitive sites via its Google Earth, Google Maps and Google Street View. For example, the company has blurred French sites.

“The Ministry of Defence will sue Google,” the spokeswoman said, without giving further details.

In response to the lawsuit threats, Google claimed that it has been working with the Belgian government for more than two years to address sensitive sites that have been flagged. Though this dubious claim begs the question: How long does it really take to blur out a few military bases on Google maps?

“It’s a shame the Belgium Department of Defense have decided to take this decision,” said Michiel Sallaets, a spokesman for Google in Belgium.

“We have been working closely with them for more than two years, making changes to our maps where asked and legal.”

As RT points out, these unblurred targets could make it easier for terrorists to carry out attacks against key infrastructure. Some of the bases that can be viewed in granular detail host US Air Force assets, as well as US nuclear weapons.

“…The military fears that the unblurred maps would make things easier for terrorists planning attacks on the sites. For example, Kleine Brogel Air Base was among the planned targets of Tunisian jihadist Nizar Trabelsi, who was associated with Al-Qaeda. The facility, which is currently home to the United States Air Force (USAF), reportedly stores US nuclear weapons and the site is clearly visible on Google Maps.”

Kleine Brogel Air Base can be seen below:

Maps

Florennes Air Base, where the US has stationed F-16 Fighting Falcons, can also be viewed easily.

Two

A national crisis center in the heart of Brussels where the country responds to terror threats like the 2016 bombing at the Brussels airport and metro.

Three

The plotters of the 2016 airport bombing had reportedly planned to attack Brussels nuclear power stations, which could provoke an unmitigated disaster as intense radiation is unleashed on the country’s residents.

Those sites could also be vulnerable.

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Welcome To Sanctuary Sweden!

Authored by Judith Bergman via The Gatestone Institute,

  • Feras, an illegal alien to begin with, and a convicted felon, was allowed to stay in Sweden for the sole reason that he committed a violent hate crime against Swedish Jews. This despite the fact that Sweden had rejected his asylum request, and he therefore lacked any legal right to stay in the country.

  • The precedent that this case establishes is highly disturbing: If you commit crimes against Jews that can “be perceived as a serious political crime directed against other Jews,” then you might be eligible for asylum in Sweden. The rights of Sweden’s vulnerable Jews have apparently ceased to matter.

  • In Sweden, and perhaps other places as well, it appears that that the “human rights” of foreign aspiring murderers are more important than the human rights of law-abiding citizens.

The synagogue in Gothenburg, Sweden, which was firebombed on December 9, 2017. (Image source: Lintoncat/Wikimedia Commons)

Are you in a European country illegally, flouting your deportation order and committing arson? No problem. If the country to which you are to be returned might conceivably harm you, instead you are welcome to stay in Sweden, commit more crimes and harm Swedes.

A Swedish Court of Appeal recently overturned the deportation ruling against one of three convicted perpetrators of an arson attack against the synagogue of Gothenburg in December 2017, on the grounds that it would be in contravention of his “fundamental human rights”.

The 22-year old Arab man from Gaza, known as Feras, was in Sweden illegally when he committed the attack. His asylum request had been rejected by the Swedish Migration Agency (Migrationsverket); he had apparently been told to leave the country, but he did not. For reasons that are unclear, he was not held for deportation, but still walking around freely in Sweden.

Feras used that freedom to participate in an attack on the Gothenburg synagogue. Approximately 10-15 other young men, of whom only three were charged, joinedhim. It seems that while young Jews were gathered for a party in an adjacent building, Feras and his friends threw burning objects at cars parked inside the synagogue fence. No one was hurt and the fires were quickly extinguished by rain, leaving only marginal material damage. The court therefore refused to categorize the crime as attempted murder, as the prosecution had requested. Both the lower court and the Court of Appeal did find, however, that the arson attack constituted an anti-Semitic hate crime.

Previously, the lower court had convicted Feras of “grossly unlawful threats and attempted serious damage” and had sentenced him to two years in prison and subsequent deportation. The Court of Appeal nevertheless said that Feras “…committed grossly unlawful threats with the intention of violating members of the Jewish congregation, but that the act can also be perceived as a serious political crime directed against other Jews.”

“Given the possible interest of Israel in the matter and the insecure situation prevailing at the border crossings to Gaza and the West Bank and in the areas themselves, the Court of Appeals considers there is reasonable reason to fear that NN’s fundamental human rights would not be safeguarded if he were expelled to Palestine. The Court of Appeal therefore rejects the prosecutor’s request for deportation…”

The court also referred to reports concerning human rights and democracy in Israel and “Palestine” by Sweden’s Foreign Ministry.

The court, in other words, speculated that because Feras tried to burn Jews, which “can also be perceived as a serious political crime directed against other Jews,” Israel has a security interest in questioning him. For that reason alone — with no evidence or details set forth — returning him to the region of Israel and Gaza would supposedly be in contravention of his “fundamental human rights”.

The Court of Appeals’ ruling meant that Feras, an illegal alien to begin with, and a convicted felon, was allowed to stay in Sweden for the sole reason that he committed a violent hate crime against Swedish Jews. This despite the fact that Sweden had rejected his asylum request, and he therefore lacked any legal right to stay in the country. After he finishes serving his two years in prison, he will be out, and free possibly to commit new hate crimes against Jewish citizens in Sweden.

The precedent that this case establishes — if the case is not appealed and reversed by the Supreme Court — is disturbing: If you commit crimes against Jews that can “be perceived as a serious political crime directed against other Jews,” then you might be eligible for asylum in Sweden. The rights of Sweden’s vulnerable Jews have apparently ceased to matter.

Actually, no Swedish citizens’ rights appear to matter in the Swedish court system anymore. In 2017, a report showed that 75% of foreigners who were sentenced to prison and subsequent deportation for serious crimes were nevertheless set free after serving their sentences and allowed to stay in Sweden for a variety of reasons. In the years 2000-2014, Swedish courts did not even sentence to be deported 20% of convicted foreign rapists, who were registered to the same address in Sweden. For pedophile rapists the number was even lower: 17%. According to more recent statistics, 9 out of 10 convicted foreigners in Sweden are not deported.

The problem extends to terrorists as well. In 2017, for example, a Syrian who arrived in Sweden as a “refugee” in 2015 was acquitted in court of attacking Shia Muslims with firebombs. However, having said in monitored conversations that he saw himself as a jihadist who wanted to become a martyr, and considering that he had been in touch with ISIS, Swedish intelligence evidently deemed him too dangerous to stay in Sweden. The immigration authorities sought to have him deported to Syria, but they did not succeed. It seems the law does not permit his deportation to Syria: he risked being arrested or executed there. Instead, he was also released to walk freely around in Malmö.

In Sweden, and perhaps other places as well, it appears that that the “human rights” of foreign aspiring murderers are more important than the human rights of law-abiding citizens.

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EU, UK, Russia, & China Join Together To Dodge US Sanctions On Iran

Authored by Peter Korzun via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

The UN General Assembly (UNGA) in New York is a place where world leaders are able to hold important meetings behind closed doors. Russia, China, the UK, Germany, France, and the EU seized that opportunity on Sept. 24 to achieve a real milestone.

The EU, Russia, China, and Iran will create a special purpose vehicle (SPV), a “financially independent sovereign channel,” to bypass US sanctions against Tehran and breathe life into the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which is in jeopardy. “Mindful of the urgency and the need for tangible results, the participants welcomed practical proposals to maintain and develop payment channels, notably the initiative to establish a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) to facilitate payments related to Iran’s exports, including oil,” they announced in a joint statement. The countries are still working out the technical details. If their plan succeeds, this will deliver a blow to the dollar and a boost to the euro.

The move is being made in order to save the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. According to Federica Mogherini, High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, the SPV will facilitate payments for Iran’s exports, such as oil, and imports so that companies can do business with Tehran as usual. The vehicle will be available not just to EU firms but to others as well. A round of US sanctions aimed at ending Iranian oil exports is to take effect on November 5. Iran is the world’s seventh-largest oil producer. Its oil sector accounts for 70% of the country’s exports. Tehran has warned the EU that it should find new ways of trading with Iran prior to that date, in order to preserve the JCPOA.

The SPV proposes to set up a multinational, European, state-backed financial intermediary to work with companies interested in trading with Iran. Payments will be made in currencies other than the dollar and remain outside the reach of those global money-transfer systems under US control. In August, the EU passed a blocking statute to guarantee the immunity of European companies from American punitive measures. It empowers EU firms to seek compensation from the United States Treasury for its attempts to impose extra-territorial sanctions. No doubt the move will further damage the already strained US-EU relationship. It might be helpful to create a special EU company for oil exports from Iran.

Just hours after the joint statement on the SPV, US President Trump defended his unilateral action against Iran in his UNGA address. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo condemned the EU initiative, stating:

“This is one of the most counterproductive measures imaginable for regional global peace and security.”

To wit, the EU, Russia, and China have banded together in open defiance against unilateral steps taken by the US. Moscow and Beijing are in talks on how to combine their efforts to fend off the negative impacts of US trade tariffs and sanctions. A planned Sept 24-25 visit by Chinese Vice-Premier Liu, who was coming to the United States for trade talks, was cancelled as a result of the discord and President Trump added more fuel to the fire on Sept. 24 by imposing 10% tariffs on almost half of all goods the US imports from China. “We have far more bullets,” the president said before the Chinese official’s planned visit. “We’re going to go US$200 billion and 25 per cent Chinese made goods. And we will come back with more.” The US has recently imposed sanctions on China to punish it for the purchase of Russian S-400 air-defense systems and combat planes. Beijing refused to back down. It is also adamant in its desire to continue buying Iran’s oil.

It is true, the plan to skirt the sanctions might fall short of expectations. It could fail as US pressure mounts. A number of economic giants, including Total, Peugeot, Allianz, Renault, Siemens, Daimler, Volvo, and Vitol Group have already left Iran as its economy plummets, with the rial losing two-thirds of its value since the first American sanctions took effect in May. The Iranian currency dropped to a record low against the US dollar this September.

What really matters is the fact that the leading nations of the EU have joined the global heavyweights — Russia and China — in open defiance of the United States.

This is a milestone event.

It’s hard to underestimate its importance. Certainly, it’s too early to say that the UK and other EU member states are doing a sharp pivot toward the countries that oppose the US globally, but this is a start – a first step down that path. This would all have seemed unimaginable just a couple of years ago – the West and the East in the same boat, trying to stand up to the American bully!

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NJ Pension Fund Could Dump $44 Million Nike Stake Over Kaepernick Ads

Even as Nike stock has outperformed its benchmarks so far this year, contributing to a badly needed 9% return last year for New Jersey’s $78 billion public worker pension fund, the board supervising the fund is considering dumping its roughly $44 million stake at the behest of representatives of the state’s retired police and firefighters, who have complained that the company’s Colin Kaepernick ad campaign is deeply offensive.

New Jersey’s pension fund is among the worst-funded in the country (you can catch up on our analysis of its ongoing troubles here). Its finances are in such dire straights that even though Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy allocated $3.2 billion to the fund as part of his budget for the 2018 fiscal year – the state’s largest contribution in ages – that amount is only 60% of the full amount called for by the actuaries.

Pensions

Still, NJ.com reported that Marty Barrett, a representative of retired police officers and firefighters, asked the State Investment Council to consider divesting from its Nike holdings because of the ad – a request that was readily honored, with the board voting unanimously to review its holdings, which include 311,500 equity shares valued at $26 million and 20 million principal valued at $18 million.

As Bloomberg pointed out earlier this month, four other public pension funds that manage police pensions (in Colorado, Wisconsin, Ohio and Oregon) also own Nike stock.

Pensions

Barrett declared during his presentation to the council that Nike made “one of the worst business decisions of all time” when it created the ad campaign.

Nike’s use of the sports figure, whose protests of police brutality during the National Anthem drew controversy, has triggered boycotts of the brand.

Barrett said Thursday that Kaepernick’s protest disrespects members of the military and first responders who were killed on 9/11.

Nike “made one of the worst business decisions of all time” in making Kaepernick the face of its ad campaign, Barrett said.

Perhaps unsurprisingly for a blue state, New Jersey’s SIC has divested stakes in gun manufacturers and private-prison companies following pressure from left-wing groups.

But will they grant the same courtesy to police and firefighters that they did to high school students and the Latin American community? Of course, the fund’s decision to dump the stake could also dampen Nike’s banner performance this year. And once the first domino falls, others could soon follow.

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