Category: zerohedge

A videotaped interview of an exiled Saudi prince living in Europe who is calling for regime change in his home country went viral this week. Prince Khaled bin Farhan was exiled from Saudi Arabia and given given political asylum in Germany in 2013, where he’s not infrequently given interviews exposing the inner workings of the royal family, though he himself is distant in the line of succession.

While we don’t expect the West to ever give close US-ally Saudi Arabia the Syria treatment of setting up a government in exile or establishing a “Free Saudi Army” to topple Riyadh, the fascinating interview given this week by the dissident prince included a brazen call for his uncles to take action to depose King Salman and the crown prince and take over the country. 

Speaking to Middle East Eye early this week, Prince Khaled appealed specifically for his relatives Prince Ahmed bin Abdulaziz and Prince Muqrin bin Abdulaziz to mount a coup, saying that “99 percent of the members of the royal family, the security services and the army would stand behind them.” Ahmed bin Abdulaziz was longtime deputy minister of interior from 1975 to 2012 and briefly served as minister of interior in 2012; and Muqrin bin Abdulaziz was briefly named crown prince in 2015 before quickly being replaced, and was head of Saudi intelligence until 2012. 

“There is so much anger within the royal family,” Prince Khaled told Middle East Eye, “I took this information and appeal to my uncles Ahmed and Muqrin, who are the sons of Abdulaziz and are highly educated, well versed and able to change things for the better. I can say that we are all behind them and support them.”

Though it’s unclear how much clout, if any, Prince Khaled actually has inside the kingdom, his interview went viral this week amidst speculation and wild rumors claiming that Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) was injured or killed after not being seen in public since April 21 — the same day gunfire was widely reported near the prince’s residence, which the Saudis blamed on a toy drone breaching the security perimeter.

The Saudis appear to have quieted the stories questioning bin Salman’s whereabouts and status by releasing a official photo of him chairing a meeting of government ministers. Much of the initial sourcing behind claims that the toy drone incident was actually a coup attempt come from both Iranian state media and a mysterious Saudi opposition blogger only known under the pseudonym Mujtahidd.

Prince Khaled, however, said the drone was a cover story which makes no sense: “I personally believe that this was not necessarily an attempt to bring down Mohammed bin Salman but rather an act of protest against him” he explained. 

Khaled further warned of more upheaval to come, referencing MbS’ very first act after coming to power — his  infamous rounding up of close to 400 royals and other prominent officials who were perhaps less than completely loyal, locking them in Riyadh’s Ritz Carlton, with some reportedly tortured and made to hand over their fortunes. 

MbS staying in power will result in a continued “volcano” of instability according to Khaled, who explained: “I would like to say to the Europeans that the situation in Saudi Arabia resembles a volcano that is about to erupt. If it erupts, it will affect not only the situation inside Saudi Arabia or in the Arab region but it will have an effect on you too.”

Referencing the kingdom’s volatile mixture of autocratic rule and Wahhabi clerical establishment, he said Islamic terrorism would explode in the region and throughout the world should a coup be successful coming from outside the royal family: “So, if Saudi Arabia descends into a state of chaos, there will be global chaos, and it [Saudi Arabia] will be a source of terrorism for the entire world as it will support and sustain international terrorism,” Prince Khaled said. Though of course we would add that while the Saudi regime presents itself as ‘firefighter’ of the terrorist scourge, it is in reality the arsonist which uses its Wahhabi militants abroad, especially in places like North African and Syria, as the New York Times has pointed out. 

“I have received a large number of emails from within the police and army in support of my call” – Exiled Prince https://t.co/tGtiIa0oT1

— Middle East Eye (@MiddleEastEye) May 21, 2018

Concerning last November’s supposed ‘anti-corruption purge’ — which aimed at recovering $800 billion in total assets for Saudi state coffers (according to WSJ figures, though the Saudis say they’ve netted $100bn) — Khaled said that while the over 300 detained royals were released, they are no longer free men as they have monitoring devices fitted to their legs, have their cell phones monitored, and are prevented from travel outside the country. 

He said the prolonged detention, which drove world headlines for weeks and months, humiliated the royal family: “It was a shock for the entire family because prominent figures in the family were detained, in a way that held a great deal of humiliation. It was a shock for the entire family. The family is now facing the undermining of its standing in the eyes of the people. And this will inevitably undermine its legitimacy.”

Of MbS’ reform agenda, which includes lifting the ban of women driving and opening cinemas and liberalizing the workplace, Khaled dismissed as the attempt to create a smokescreen to appease the West, hiding the true nature of the Saudi oppressive top-down system, which places absolute powers to appoint judges and government members in the hands of the king. Indeed the continued crackdown and arrests this week of women’s rights activists who campaigned against the ban in the first place seems to confirm this. 

“The make-up of the state will constantly change with the personality of the king,” Prince Khaled said. “Where is the strategic plan for the state? We need to have a clear goal that we’re working towards. And it’s the role of the king to come up with a tactical plan to help us enact these strategies.”

He continued, “But, with the way we’re going, our country will be late reaching them. We’re already late. We use to think that we had financial assets and educated individuals, but unfortunately the situation right now is taking us back years.”

Prince Khaled, who the Saudis have reportedly tried to lure back to the kingdom in order to detain and silence, has come under the protection of German intelligence, who have also warned him against any travel outside their borders for fear that Saudi intelligence would kidnap him. 

This is unsurprising given that Khaled has also gone on record to describe MbS as mentally unstable and long suffering from “psychological problems” while revealing embarrassing internal family dynamics from MbS’ youth. “I wouldn’t say he was violent,” Prince Khaled recounted to Middle East Eye, “but when he was younger, in the royal family, he didn’t have status. He was an ordinary member of the family. His brothers had higher positions, and they had a voice within the Saudi ruling elite. Of course, his cousins were older, more experienced, better positioned, more educated and everything else.”

“So I think he developed psychological problems, because one of his cousins whom he arrested, when he would meet him, he [Mohammed bin Salman] would have to ask for an appointment, and maybe the prince would meet him, or maybe not. So this created within him a psychological problem and today he is taking his revenge against his cousins.”

Though it’s impossible to verify many aspects of the exiled prince’s testimony, one thing does seem certain — we are only one year into MbS’ de facto rule (and he’s not even king yet as his aging and ailing father is still on the throne), and yet the “volcano” of instability that Prince Khaled describes has already shown signs it is beginning to erupt. 

via RSS https://ift.tt/2J1dlXo Tyler Durden

Authored by Tom Luongo,

No boom today.  Boom tomorrow.  There’s always a boom tomorrow”

— Susan Ivanova “Babylon 5”

When Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (HKEX) bought the London Metals exchange in 2012 all the speculation was about the effects on gold trading.  The primary reason for buying the LME was to obtain its warehouses and ensure a free flow of metals to points east.

What it also did was give them control over what type and kind of futures contracts could be traded on their exchanges.  No longer would the west control this very important part of the precious and industrial metal supply chain.

Now we’re seeing the next evolution of the power of owning the exchange.   After successfully launching a yuan-denominated gold futures contract last year, the LME is now preparing to issue a range of yuan-denominated metals futures.

In other words… Boom.

First Rule: Do No Harm

When China bought the LME the usual suspects in the contrarian investing community talked about the coming apocalypse for the bullion banks.  It never happened. In fact, China was in a position to help them cap the price of gold and extend the gold bear market for the past six years while it and its strategic partners, namely Russia, accumulated vast quantities of the world’s most important metal.

The Chinese were smart. Take over the LME and, for a while, change nothing. Don’t upset the apple cart and allow markets to operate mostly normally.  Now their ownership of the LME is not an issue.

Until now.  First gold trading in Yuan. Now the rest of the metals.

We’ve all been breathlessly focused on how strong the so-called ‘petroyuan’ oil futures contract has been for the Shanghai Exchange.  It has captured more than 12% of the total oil futures market in just under two months.  That’s incredible.

It tells us there was substantial demand for this product because many in the world were tired of being exposed to U.S. dollar currency risk to buy oil.  Now that business is gone.

Moreover, the more successful the contract becomes the more belligerent the foreign policy rhetoric from the Trump administration on trade and sanctions becomes.

Parallel Escalation

There’s a reason why this Sturm and Drang is coming from the Trump administration on trade and tariffs now.  Trump needs wins on this front for the mid-terms and to counter the very real changes to the world’s financial structure China and Russia are spearheading.

He needs to press what advantages we still have to maintain our position in the world.

However, things like the petroyuan contract, ailing emerging markets enbracing cryptocurrencies (Venezuela and now Argentina), NATO allies siding with Iran (Turkey, the EU) are threatening to unravel everything Trump is trying to accomplish.

So, why is this announcement by the LME such a big event?

The effects are legion:

1. It removes yet another important source of dollar demand from the global financial market.

2. It creates more demand for the Yuan which will feed China’s need to expand its money supply if it’s to liquefy its trade.

3. It helps countries circumvent sanctions by removing its need to hedge in dollars for trade with China.

4. It provides Europe and Russia a new way to avoid tariffs and resist sanctions.

5. It insulates emerging markets from a potential spike in the U.S. dollar as China will allow the Yuan to fall versus the dollar while keeping its overall REER — Real Effective Exchange Rate — relatively stable.

This leads to one conclusion.  This is massive assistance to emerging market companies with big dollar-denominated liabilities.  These are the catalysts to take shake up the world completely.

They will better handle any dollar liquidity crisis by separating its supply-chain management for buying metals in earned yuan while using dollars earned to service dollar-denominated debt.

I’m becoming convinced that Trump is pursuing this kind of trade policy to punish the world for taking advantage of past administrations destruction of the U.S. capital base through Byzantine WTO regulations and lopsided trade deals.

The problem with this approach is that with China’s strategic acquisitions and movements, it can respond with what look like small, inconsequential moves that have out sized repercussions.

China sees what I’m seeing with what’s happening, a massive dollar liquidity crisis and it needs to put in place alternative to keep global trade from collapsing.

And if it is going to rise to challenge the U.S.’s unipolar world, it cannot let that happen.  And the free flow of strategic commodity metals in the face of strong U.S. tariffs is the means by which to ensure that happens.

The Critical Shift

The reason why the petroyuan contract was so immediately successful is because China provided traders with a direct path to convertibility into gold.  It de-risked listing because profits wouldn’t be trapped behind China’s capital controls.

This convertibility wouldn’t be worth anything if China didn’t have a steady source of gold streaming in via the LME, however.

China is the world’s largest oil importer. With Trump’s threats to cut everyone off from dollar-funding markets over Iran making the switch, sans real risk, from dollars to yuan was an easy choice to make.

Now let’s bring Europe, Russia and the rest of the world into that realm to coordinate the attacks on the U.S.’s dominance of global financial markets.

The chaos unleashed by the confluence of Italy’s new coalition, a strengthening dollar and trade wars is putting insane pressure on those emerging markets vulnerable to a dollar shock.  Turkey’s lira and debt are under extreme pressure while President Erdogan defies NATO and U.S. foreign policy over Syria, Israel and Iran.

Trump’s near inhuman treatment of Venezuelans over President Maduro’s defiance is frankly, shocking.  This is not an endorsement of either Maduro or Erdogan, but simply a statement of how vicious U.S. foreign policy is right now.

And both Turks and Iranians are taking notes as to what their future holds if they submit to this pressure.  Erdogan, while a lunatic, is right to stay his central bank’s hand on raising interest rates IMF-style.

They are staring massive corporate debt defaults if the Lira continues to spiral down. And that will absolutely blow back on the banks carrying that debt, all $222 billion of it.

This is simply yet another attempt at regime change through hyperinflation that we’ve already tried on Venezuela which didn’t work.

Iraq just thoroughly rebuked U.S. intervention. So did Lebanon.

And Turkey is next on the list, with elections brought forward by Erdogan a year for early in June.  Iran is publicly gaining support as it stands firm.  And Russia is acting like everyone’s friend making deals and honoring them without ever firing a shot or even issuing a threat.

All of this ties back to China’s tacit financial support of these nations currently being attacked by U.S. power brokers through the financial markets trade policy.  As these countries survive the worst of these attacks, as the near-term crises fade, these markets will adjust to a different landscape.

A landscape where the U.S. bullies and no one listens.

*  *  *

To support more work like this and get access to exclusive commentary, stock picks and analysis tailored to your needs join my more than 120 Patrons on Patreon and see if I have what it takes to help you navigate a world going slowly mad. 

via RSS https://ift.tt/2ILzntY Tyler Durden

As anybody who was around for the housing collapse will remember, nothing bursts a bubble in home prices faster than rising mortgage rates. And while US home prices have surpassed their pre-crisis peak, Canadian home prices have risen much more quickly than home prices in the US, and what’s more, they didn’t see nearly as large of a pullback during the crisis.

Instead, they’ve ridden a wave of hot foreign money to all time highs…

…in the process, leaving housing and construction as one of the focal points of the Canadian economy.

But in the latest sign that home prices could be due for a pullback, Royal Bank of Canada and Toronto-Dominion Bank reported that mortgage lending fell sharply during the fiscal second quarter, compared with a year earlier.

However, a spike in business lending has helped soften the blow to the bank’s bottom line.

But yields on 10-year Canadian bonds have moved higher since the end of last quarter, meaning mortgages would be more expensive now than then.

One analyst said it’s good that the banks are finding more business customers, because with the Bank of Canada and the Federal Reserve raising interest rates, Canadian banks shouldn’t rely on growth from the consumer end.

“It’s really a favorable macro-economic environment in Canada and the U.S. right now that’s driving really healthy business demand,” Shannon Stemm, an analyst with Edward Jones & Co., said in a phone interview.

“It’s a smart pivot for some of these banks to really focus in on their efforts on the business side when you think about the looming risks and the fact that they’re potentially not getting credit for the growth on the consumer side.”

Other Canadian banks, including the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, which saw its slowest mortgage loan growth in three years during the last quarter, are bracing for consumer loans to shrink.

And while this could be the start of a badly needed deleveraging, it’s equally likely that this could snowball into a debt crisis. The Bank of Canada has recognized these threats, with Stephen Poloz citing housing prices and personal debts as threats to the economy. But that hasn’t stopped him from hiking rates.

via RSS https://ift.tt/2KSSdju Tyler Durden

Authored by Robert Huebscher via AdvisorPerspectives.com,

Criticism of technical analysis ranges from bemused skepticism to claims of harebrained alchemy. Few investors as well-respected as Jeffrey Gundlach admit to using it. But yesterday, he explained why he relies on technical analysis under certain conditions.

Gundlach is the founder and chief investment officer of Los Angeles-based DoubleLine Capital. He spoke to investors via a conference call at 4:15pm on May 22. The focus of his talk was DoubleLine’s fixed-income closed-end funds, DBL and DSL. There were no slides accompanying his presentation.

Technical analysis will work some of the time and fail some of the time, according to Gundlach. It works when the market’s resistance and support levels are “in sync” with sentiment signals, he said.

“When those things marry together,” Gundlach said, “technical analysis works 70% of the time.”

Gundlach said that he’s been investing professionally for 35 years, and has outperformed the market 75% to 80% of the time. Half of that has been due to technical analysis, and half due to fundamentals and understanding investor psychology and human nature.

Technical analysis and resistance levels were the primary topic in Gundlach’s previous webcast. He said then that if the 30-year Treasury bond breaks through the 3.22% level, it would be a stronger signal of higher rates than if the 10-year yield rises above 3%.

Yesterday, he clarified that call. He said that for the 30-year yield to break the 3.22% level, it would have to close above that on two consecutive days. It closed above 3.22% on May 17 when it hit 3.25%, but the 30-year yield has not yet breached 3.22% on two consecutive closes.

It closed at 3.21% yesterday.

“Don’t get bearish on rates unless 3.22% is breached,” Gundlach warned yesterday.

He said the long bond and technical analysis are what matters. “The last reason to suggest we are in a bond bull market is based on the charts.”

The 10-year yield will be “contained” if 3.22% is not broken on the 30-year, he said. “If it is broken, then the 30-year yield will go to 4%.”

Could the Fed lose control of rates? Gundlach said that could happen only if there is a surprise jump in inflation, such as the CPI going to 3.5%. The yield curve would steepen and the narrative that the Fed lost control would emerge, he said.

Inflation and monetary policy

Inflation will be dependent on higher wages as we head into next year, Gundlach said. Wage inflation “hasn’t happened yet,” he said, and most research says it won’t happen because of automation.

He said the CPI would go to 3% if oil prices move much higher, but then Fed tightening could be a headwind to inflation.

Credit spreads will remain tight until the next recession, according to Gundlach. He said they usually widen six months to two years in advance of a recession. “There is nothing recessionary in the economy now.”

He added that rising rates will not lead to a “meltdown” in credit spreads.

In mid-September of last year, he predicted the best performing sector would be commodities, and yesterday he said he was right. During that period, he said, bonds moved down in price and stocks moved sideways.

“This is not a great entry point for commodities,” he said, “[but] it is an acceptable entry point, and not terrible timing to buy commodities.”

Oil will go to $90/barrel, Gundlach said. WTI crude closed at $72/barrel yesterday. If oil hits $90, he said he would reassess his target price based on economic conditions at that time.

Oil prices will have a negative effect on consumers at the current price level, according to Gundlach. “But it won’t really hurt unless it goes up another $10 or $20/barrel.”

For metal prices to get going, he said, the dollar must weaken. Gold has fallen in dollar terms but has been stable in foreign terms, according to Gundlach. Oil has followed a different pattern and, he said, “is really strong” since it has rallied while the dollar was strong.

Gundlach said the dollar will “run out steam” but may go as high as $95 to $98, based on the DXY. The DXY, the value of the dollar against a trade-weighted basket of currencies, closed at 93.59 yesterday.

“The dollar cannot be labeled as strong,” Gundlach said. “It is only in a countertrend rally.” If the dollar “backs down,” he said that commodities would accelerate higher.

Bitcoin and the mid-term elections

“Bitcoin is a pure play on speculative sentiment,” Gundlach said.

It soars when people are comfortable with speculation, according to Gundlach. But it is falling now and is at approximately $8,000. “If it goes down further, then other risk assets could follow suit.”

Gold prices are not being impaired by cryptocurrencies, he said.

Gundlach offered his predictions for the 2018 mid-term elections.

He said that the Senate will stay Republican and the House will “probably” stay Republican, but they will lose some seats. He said his prediction for the House was “close to a coin flip.”

via RSS https://ift.tt/2Lu2Ni4 Tyler Durden

Donald Trump’s 2020 campaign manager, Brad Parscale, along with Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, have written a letter calling for the CEOs of Facebook and Twitter to address concerns over conservative censorship ahead of the 2020 election, as well as a call for transparency.

The letter comes one day after a judge ruled that President Trump is no longer allowed to block Twitter users – deeming the platform a public forum, and that “the White House acts unlawfully when it excludes people from this forum.” Consequently, will Twitter and Facebook be required to provide protections for conservatives whose voices are being muted? Parscale and McDaniel are now pushing for that, calling out the Silicon Valley behemoths for censorship.

“We recognize that Facebook and Twitter operate in liberal corporate cultures,” the letter reads. “However, rampant political bias is inappropriate for a widely used public forum.”

We won’t tolerate bias toward conservatives or @realDonaldTrump supporters. We’re standing up for you and demanding answers. @GOPChairwoman and I have sent the following letter to @facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and @Twitter’s @jack Dorsey. #StopTheBias pic.twitter.com/Poz0Dne9i7

— Brad Parscale (@parscale) May 24, 2018

The letter notes “In 2016, former Facebook workers reported that they manipulated the “trending” section to exclude news tailored to conservative users, despite those topics trending on their own,” while “A former trending news curator admitted in an interview that nearly all members of the trending news teams identified as liberal… Moreover, some Facebook employees in 2016 reportedly pushed to ban then-candidate Donald Trump’s Facebook posts and label them as hate speech” 

Meanwhile, conservative Twitter users have accused the company of unfairly targeting them, purging thousands of their followers in an attempt to stem “fake news” content, and unnecessarily prompting them to confirm their identity. Twitter claims its tools are free from political bias, but has allegedly targeted predominantly Republicans as part of a “shadow banning” practice, which covertly limits those accounts’ visibility on the platform.

The letter also points out that during congressional testimony, Facebook apologized for suppressing “Diamond & Silk,” two popular Trump supporters with a highly popular YouTube channel, which the platform deemed “unsafe to the community” for no reason.

Parscale and the RNC note that Facebook is “working with a third party to encourage voter registration,” and asks for transparency over how those advertisements are displayed in people’s news feeds. “This is to make sure that the new feature does not become essentially an in-kind contribution to liberal candidates.“

Since Facebook and Twitter are platforms used widely by the majority of voters, we request an explanation about how you will ensure all content is managed equally and fairly. How will you safeguard voters’ access to fair content on your platform? How will you guarantee that conservative voices are no longer censored, and conservative news no longer buried or otherwise hidden?

In an interview with Fox News, RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel and Trump 2020 Campaign Manager Brad Parscale reiterated their concerns over conservative censorship: 

McDaniel: “It’s a legitimate fear. Brad and I hear it all the time as we’re traveling the country. People are very concerned that conservative voices are going to be suppressed on social media. Of course, many of their users are conservatives and so Brad and I feel preemptively, we have to get out ahead of this, talk to Facebook, talk to Twitter, ask them for transparency, let us know what you’re going to do to make sure that every voice has a say on these social media platforms especially before this critical midterm.”

Parscale: “Every day I receive thousands of messages saying, “I’m being shadow-banned.” And what we want to do in this letter is make sure that we understand what’s happening. We want to ask them for transparency. I think the public deserves that transparency and we need to know that conservative voices have a chance to get their message out. This is a big problem.”

Watch:

*****

Mark Zuckerberg
Facebook Headquarters
1 Hacker Way
Menlo Park, CA 94025

Jack Dorsey
Twitter, Inc.
1355 Market St.
San Francisco, CA 94103
 
Dear Mr. Zuckerberg and Mr. Dorsey,
 
We are writing on behalf of the Republican National Committee and President Donald Trump’s 2020 re-election campaign to request information about efforts by Facebook and Twitter to prevent political bias on the social media platforms.
 
Concerns have been raised in recent years about suppression of conservative speech on Facebook and Twitter, including censorship of conservative news stories from news feeds and “trending” news sections. We are alarmed by numerous allegations that Facebook has blocked content from conservative journalists and groups, and Twitter has hidden such content from conservative users’ followers.
 
In 2016, former Facebook workers reported that they manipulated the “trending” section to exclude news tailored to conservative users, despite those topics trending on their own. A former trending news curator admitted in an interview that nearly all members of the trending news teams identified as liberal – and had the authority to approve topics. Moreover, some Facebook employees in 2016 reportedly pushed to ban then-candidate Donald Trump’s Facebook posts and label them as hate speech.
 
During congressional testimony, Facebook apologized for suppression of content from conservative bloggers and personalities, notably “Diamond & Silk,” entertainers who were deemed “unsafe to the community” for no reason. In response to these revelations, Facebook said it will use a new system that ranks news organizations by level of user trust, promoting the highly scored outlets on users’ news feeds while suppressing those with lower scores. We are concerned about potential misuse of this system.
 
Meanwhile, conservative Twitter users have accused the company of unfairly targeting them, purging thousands of their followers in an attempt to stem “fake news” content, and unnecessarily prompting them to confirm their identity. Twitter claims its tools are free from political bias, but has allegedly targeted predominantly Republicans as part of a “shadow banning” practice, which covertly limits those accounts’ visibility on the platform.
 
We recognize that Facebook and Twitter operate in liberal corporate cultures. However, rampant political bias is inappropriate for a widely used public forum. What’s more, the consequences to our democratic society are profound. This is why special attention is necessary to address issues such as Facebook’s use of liberal organizations to fact-check content, the access to user profiles it gives to some employees, and Twitter’s manipulation of content that appears for the site’s users.
 
It has also come to our attention that Facebook is working with a third party to encourage voter registration. Though we agree that this is an admirable task in theory, we ask for transparency over how Facebook determines who sees these advertisements in their news feeds. This is to make sure that the new feature does not become essentially an in-kind contribution to liberal candidates.
 
Since Facebook and Twitter are platforms used widely by the majority of voters, we request an explanation about how you will ensure all content is managed equally and fairly. How will you safeguard voters’ access to fair content on your platform? How will you guarantee that conservative voices are no longer censored, and conservative news no longer buried or otherwise hidden?
 
As you conduct reviews to assess bias against conservative content, we ask for your assurances that transparency, neutrality, and protection of all speech will be core tenets of Facebook and Twitter operations, now and in the future.
 
We ask for your response by June 18, 2018, and look forward to hearing from you.
 
Sincerely,
 
Ronna McDaniel
Chairwoman of the Republican National Committee

Brad Parscale
Campaign Manager for President Trump’s 2020 reelection

via RSS https://ift.tt/2IID3AE Tyler Durden

Authored by Michael Snyder via The American Dream blog,

The worst drought to hit the Southwest in decades continues to grow even worse, and many are already comparing this current crisis to the Dust Bowl days of the 1930s.

Agricultural production is way down, major rivers are running dry, and horses are dropping dead from a lack of water.

The epicenter of this drought is where the states of Utah, Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico all come together, but it is also devastating areas of north Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas as well.  Portions of seven states are already at the highest level of drought on the scale that scientists use, and summer won’t even start for about another two months. 

If we don’t start seeing some significant rainfall, it won’t be too long before massive dust storms start devastating the entire region.  The mainstream media is finally beginning to wake up and start reporting on this crisis, and some reporters are choosing to make a direct comparison between this drought and the Dust Bowl conditions during the Great Depression…

Drought conditions are so severe across much of the Southwest that they rival those during the disastrous Dust Bowl period of the 1930s, when severe dust storms killed livestock and caused crops to fail.

Oklahoma State Climatologist Gary McManus said some climatological stations in the western part of his state have recorded less than 2 inches of rain since October.

“Some of those stations are pegging the driest 7-to-8 months on record for those locations,” McManus said.

If you are not familiar with the Dust Bowl period, you should be able to find a good documentary online to watch.  It was one of the most painful periods in American history, and we could be right on the verge of a repeat.

Those that have followed my work for an extended period of time know that I have been warning about a return of Dust Bowl conditions, and now it is actually happening.  The flow of the Colorado River is way, way down, and in some areas the Rio Grande has already dried up completely…

The drought has hit the Colorado River hard. Forecasters say the river will carry only about 43 percent of its average amount of water this year into Lake Powell, one of two big reservoirs on the system.

In New Mexico, stretches of the Rio Grande — another one of North America’s longest rivers — have already gone dry as biologists have been forced to scoop up as many endangered Rio Grande silvery minnows as possible so they can be moved upstream.

As urban populations have surged, the Southwest has already been dealing with unprecedented water stress, and now this crisis is going to take things to an entirely new level.

Meanwhile, this drought has been hitting farms really hard.  Winter wheat production in some areas will be about half of what it was last year, and this summer some wheat farmers may have to abandon their fields entirely…

Yield potential for hard red winter wheat in southwest Kansas and northwestern Oklahoma is roughly half that of a year ago as exceptional drought conditions take a toll on the crop, scouts on an annual tour said on Wednesday.

Some farmers may be forced to abandon their wheat fields due to blisteringly dry growing conditions, adding to woes for those already suffering from declining global demand for U.S. wheat, scouts on the Wheat Quality Council tour said.

The United States has fallen to the No. 2 world exporter, behind top shipper Russia, and U.S. farmers this season planted the fewest wheat acres in a century. Kansas is the top wheat- growing U.S. state and Oklahoma is the fifth-largest producer.

Somewhere around 60 percent of all winter wheat in Texas is being graded “poor” or “very poor”, and Kansas is on pace to have its smallest winter wheat crop in nearly 30 years.

So what is going to happen this summer if we don’t see some substantial rainfall?

Many fear the worst.  In fact, one top expert is warning that agricultural losses in the state of Texas alone this year will be in the “billions”…

Home to one of the nation’s most fertile farming areas—crop production in the Texas region alone generates about $12 billion in economic activity—observers say the drought could punish the agricultural sector, affecting everything from cotton to cattle to farming-equipment sales.

“It’s going to be in the billions in terms of crop loss,” said Darren Hudson, director of the International Center for Agricultural Competitiveness at Texas Tech University in Lubbock.

A lot of people don’t get too emotional about crops dying, but when horses start dropping dead that is another thing entirely.

At the top of this article I told you that horses have been dropping dead in the Southwest from a lack of water, and it isn’t just a few.

In fact, one media outlet recently reported the discovery of almost 200 dead horses around a dried up watering hole…

Off a northern Arizona highway surrounded by pastel-colored desert is one of the starkest examples of drought’s grip on the American Southwest: Nearly 200 dead horses surrounded by cracked earth, swirling dust and a ribbon of water that couldn’t quench their thirst. Flesh exposed and in various stages of decomposition, the carcasses form a circle around a dry watering hole sunken in the landscape, CBS affiliate KPHO-TV reports.

And please keep in mind that this is just May.

What are things going to look like once we get to July and August?

This is what a severe drought looks like.  We haven’t seen anything like this since the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, and to be honest the Southwest is completely unprepared for what is about to happen.

Let us pray that rain comes soon, because without sufficient precipitation things could go from bad to worse very rapidly.

via RSS https://ift.tt/2GMuIGt Tyler Durden

The GOP is now “getting the cooperation necessary” to satisfy their demands for classified materials from the Department of Justice (DOJ) concerning the early stages of the FBI’s counterintelligence operation against the Trump campaign, according to House Speaker Paul Ryan.

According to –Bloomberg, lawmakers met with DOJ officials twice on Thursday, acquiescing to demands from President Trump following revelations that the FBI enlisted confidential informant Stefan Halper to infiltrate the Trump campaign as part of an espionage operation. 

Ryan spoke as Justice Department officials held two meetings with lawmakers on Thursday, succumbing to demands from President Donald Trump after revelations that the FBI had a confidential informant make contact with officials on Trump’s presidential campaign in 2016.

House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes has subpoenaed the Justice Department and FBI for secret information about the informant. Critics, including top congressional Democrats, argue that Republicans want to use the information to undercut the Russia investigation, which is now being led by Special Counsel Robert Mueller. –Bloomberg

Following the second briefing, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), the top-ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee told reporters that there is “no evidence to support any allegation the FBI or any intelligence agency planted a spy in the Trump campaign.”  Perhaps that’s because nobody is claiming they did…

Halper, who was paid handsomely by the Obama Department of Defense, infiltrated the campaign from the outside, gaining the trust of aides George Papadopoulos and Carter Page, then conning them into believing he was interested in legitimate business – including offering Papadopoulos $3,000 to travel to London and work on a foreign policy paper. 

President Trump has referred to the scandal as “SPYGATE” – tweeting several times about the FBI’s informant, Halper, and how much he was paid by the previous administration.

SPYGATE could be one of the biggest political scandals in history!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 23, 2018

If the person placed very early into my campaign wasn’t a SPY put there by the previous Administration for political purposes, how come such a seemingly massive amount of money was paid for services rendered – many times higher than normal…

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 23, 2018

White House Chief of Staff John Kelly along with Emmet Flood, as White House attorney working on the Russia probe, made several remarks before departing the two DOJ/DNI briefings. 

They spoke “to relay the president’s desire for as much openness as possible under the law,” White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement. “They also conveyed the president’s understanding of the need to protect human intelligence services and the importance of communication between the branches of government.”

Senator Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, said “there’s never been a Gang of 8 meeting with a White House presence.” He was referring to a group of eight bipartisan congressional leaders who receive briefings on the nation’s most sensitive intelligence. -Bloomberg

 “I look forward to the prompt completion of the intelligence committee’s oversight work in this area now that they are getting the cooperation necessary for them to complete their work while protecting sources and methods,” Ryan said.

via RSS https://ift.tt/2x97jPL Tyler Durden

Submitted by Matt P. by The Political Insider,

Most people didn’t know what a “bump stock” was before the massacre in Las Vegas last year, where a gunman opened fire on a crowd of concertgoers at the Route 91 Harvest music festival.

It was revealed that the shooter had used bump stocks to make his semi-automatic weapons fire at a rate more resembling automatic fire. Automatic weapons have been banned in America since 1934, and many have called for a ban on bump stocks as a result.

There was some discussion of doing so at a federal level, but like every other potential gun control measure, it ended up going nowhere. Instead, a few States have decided to ban them on their own. New Jersey and Massachusetts are among them, banning bump stock purchases, and requiring all outstanding bump stocks to be turned in. The gun accessory isn’t all too common, and there are only 8,500 bump stocks in Massachusetts, and 5,600 in New Jersey.

The problem for regulators is that there isn’t a record of who owns them, so they’ve had to rely on citizens voluntarily turning in their bump stocks to comply with the law.

Massachusetts and New Jersey are both heavily liberal States, and yet virtually nobody turned in their bump stocks. Only three people did in Massachusetts, while a total of zero did in New Jersey.

Bump stock bans are currently awaiting governor’s signatures in Hawaii and Connecticut, and Delaware and Rhode Island are set to ban them soon too. A gun control proponent may argue that despite the impossibility of confiscating all the current bump stocks in circulation, a ban on sales prevents the supply from growing.

Regardless, the real lesson here is that any gun confiscation schemes the Left may cook up would never be obeyed if attempted. If gun owners in far-left States won’t even turn in a gun accessory, what could of gun control measure would owners comply with?

Probably none.

via RSS https://ift.tt/2x5QJQK Tyler Durden

It appears that Trump “jilted North Korean lover” approach may have been just what the doctor ordered.

Literally minutes after we said that most experts expected a violent, angry outburst from North Korea’s president in response to Trump’s unexpected cancellation of the Singapore June 12 summit, such as this comment from Senator Jack Reed…

Spoke w/ @BloombergTV’s @kevcirilli about Pres Trump pulling out of planned nuclear summit w/ North Korea & how if Pres Trump had taken a more considered approach to Mr. Kim’s initial offer for a summit, we wouldn’t be in this position.https://t.co/vY7HOiFYXf

— Senator Jack Reed (@SenJackReed) May 24, 2018

… North Korea has come crawling back, virtually begging for a meeting.

In a statement issued by state-run Korean Central News Agency, citing Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan, North Korea announced it was willing to sit with the U.S. “whenever, however” through any method to try to resolve the outstanding issues.

Gwan said that whereas President Trump’s announcement to one-sidedly cancel the planned summit is unexpected and very regrettable, North Korea remains unchanged in its aim to do everything possible for the peace and stability of Korean peninsula and humanity, and noted that President Trump’s decision to cancel the summit is “not what the world wants” and the summit is necessary to resolve the current hostile bilatereal relationship.

Furthermore, North Korea appears to be backtracking on the recent diplomatic escalation and has effectively apologized, stating that “its previous remarks regarding the U.S.-North Korea summit had been in protest against strong US remarks towards North.“

While we await the full KCNA statement, here are the key bullet points courtesy of Reuters and Bloomberg:

• NORTH KOREA SAYS TRUMP’S SUMMIT CANCELLATION IS UNEXPECTED
• NORTH KOREA SAYS IT’S WILLING TO MEET WITH U.S. AT ANY TIME
• NORTH KOREA SAYS IT IS STILL WILLING TO RESOLVE ISSUES WITH UNITED STATES WHENEVER, HOWEVER
• NORTH KOREA SAYS U.S.-N.KOREA SUMMIT IS NECESSARY TO RESOLVE CURRENT HOSTILE BILATERAL RELATIONSHIP
• NORTH KOREA SAYS IT HAD WISHED `TRUMP MODEL’ COULD RESOLVE ISSUES
• NORTH KOREA SAYS IT HAD HOPED FOR ISSUES REGARDING N.KOREA TO BE RESOLVED “TRUMP-STYLE”
• NORTH KOREA SAYS NO CHANGE IN N. KOREA’S WILL TO DO BEST FOR PEACE
• NORTH KOREA SAYS ITS PREVIOUS REMARKS REGARDING U.S.-N.KOREA SUMMIT HAD BEEN IN PROTEST AGAINST STRONG U.S. REMARKS TOWARDS NORTH
• N.KOREA HAS WILLINGNESS TO GIVE CHANCE, TIME TO U.S.
• NORTH KOREA HAS WILLINGNESS TO GIVE CHANCE, TIME TO U.S.

And the punchline:

• NORTH KOREA SAYS CURRENT SITUATION REFLECTS DESPARATE NEED FOR SUMMIT

Or, to summarize North Korea’s response to Trump’s “dear John” letter:

North Korea right now pic.twitter.com/viFR0KHZa4

— Quoth the Raven (@QTRResearch) May 24, 2018

And now the ball is in Trump’s court.

via RSS https://ift.tt/2KU2iga Tyler Durden

A group of US Air Force air men who were part of an elite squad responsible for safeguarding America’s nuclear weapons have been busted for using and distributing the hallucinogen LSD and other drugs, according to the Associated Press, which published details from several courts martial involving members of the purported ring.

Though most of the conspirators got off with a slap on the wrist, news of the drug ring, which was busted at F.E. Warren Air Force Base back in March 2016, is still cause for alarm.

“Although this sounds like something from a movie, it isn’t,” said Capt. Charles Grimsley, the lead prosecutor of one of several courts martial.

At times, the AP report reads like an advertisement for LSD, or “Acid” as it’s more popularly known. During one courts martial, the air man on trial described their experiences using the drug. One described “bad trips” that led to intense feelings of paranoia. Others described pleasurable sounds, colors and sensations.

“Minutes felt like hours, colors seemed more vibrant and clear,” Morrison testified. “In general, I felt more alive.” He said he had used LSD in high school, which could have disqualified him from Air Force service; he said that his recruiter told him he should lie about it and that lying about prior drug use was “normal” in the Air Force.

Ultimately, the group was undone by a questionable Snapchat post that piqued the interest of Air Force investigators. Investigators first approached Nickolos A Harris, who eventually took the fall as the ring leader because most of the activity centered around his apartment. Harris was also responsible for procuring most of the drugs from civilians in the Denver, Colo. area.

Harris confessed to his crimes when summoned for questioning by the Air Force Office of Special Investigations, then struck a deal where he ratted on 10 other airmen to whom he had sold the drug. Harris was eventually sentenced to five months confinement, as well as 15 days hard labor. However, thanks to his cooperation, he managed to avoid a punitive discharge – though he did pay a more than $5,000 fine in the form of forgone wages.

Airman 1st Class Nickolos A. Harris, said to be the leader of the drug ring, testified that he had no trouble getting LSD and other drugs from civilian sources. He pleaded guilty to using and distributing LSD and using ecstasy, cocaine and marijuana.

He acknowledged using LSD eight times and distributing LSD multiple times to fellow airmen at parties in Denver and other locations from spring 2015 to early 2016.

“I absolutely just loved altering my mind,” he told the military judge, blaming his decisions to use hallucinogens and other drugs on his addictive personality.

Most of the air men involved were from two security units at FE Warren: The 790th Missile Security Forces Squad and the 90th Security Forces Squad. Members of the ring would meet at Harris’s apartment, where they would indulge in drug use. Ironically, Harris had two rules: No social media and “no bad trips.”

For the inexperienced members of the drug ring, Harris, the ringleader, had set out several “rules” for LSD use at a gathering of several airmen in a Cheyenne apartment in late 2015 that was recorded on video. Rule No. 1: “No social media at all.” He added: “No bad trips. Everybody’s happy right now. Let’s keep it that way.”

But social media proved their undoing. In March 2016, one member posted a Snapchat video of himself smoking marijuana, setting Air Force investigators on their trail

The men acknowledged that, by taking the drugs, they had put their country in danger. Air man Kyle Morrison, another member of the ring, acknowledged during his court martial that he wouldn’t have been able to carry out his duties if called upon to do so while under the influence of LSD. Though it’s unclear if any of the ring ever ingested the drugs shortly before reporting for duty. Some members of the ring also indulged in smoking marijuana and using cocaine.

Disciplinary actions were taken against 14 air men, while two were acquitted during their courts martial. Three suspects weren’t charged.

via RSS https://ift.tt/2s6rPM7 Tyler Durden