At increasing rates, millennials and generation Z see no need to get a drivers license.
The Wall Street Journal has an interesting article that strikes right at the heart of the auto industry:Driving? The Kids Are So Over It.
About a quarter of 16-year-olds had a driver’s license in 2017, a sharp decline from nearly half in 1983, according to an analysis of licensing data by transportation researcher Michael Sivak.
Whereas a driver’s license once was a symbol of freedom, teenagers are reaching their driving age at a time when most have access to ride-hailing services such as Uber and Lyft to shuttle them around town. At the same time, social media and video chat let them hang out with friends without actually leaving the house. When they reach their 20s, more are moving to big cities with mass transit, where owning a car is neither necessary nor practical. And of those who do buy a car, many more than in older generations opt for a used one, according to J.D. Power.
A new mind-set among many Generation Zers—roughly those born after 1997—is confounding parents and stumping auto makers at a time when new-vehicle sales in the U.S. are slowing. J.D. Power estimates that Gen Zers will purchase about 120,000 fewer new vehicles this year compared with millennials in 2004, when they were the new generation of drivers—or 488,198 vehicles versus 607,329 then.
“That freedom of getting your own wheels and a license—and that being the most important thing in life—is gone,” said Brent Wall, owner of All Star Driver Education in Michigan, a chain of drivers’-ed schools. He said the average age of students in his class is rising. “It used to be the day they turned 14 years and eight months, everybody was lining up at the door. Now I’m starting to see more 15- and 16-year-olds in class.” He frequently hears from parents that they’re the ones pushing their children to enroll.
Cooling on Cars
Cost vs Convenience
Cost is an issue. Detroit is busy churning out SUVs that cost well over $30,000. The cost of insurance is rising.
One can forgo a car but not a place to live. Housing costs have risen far more than the stated rate of inflation.
Death of the SUV
So who has been buying all those large SUVs? Retiring boomers and those flush with assets from the latest Fed-sponsored bubble.
Boomers won’t live forever. Nor will the stock market bubble. And just around the corner are fleets of driverless cars and a wave of new services around those cars.
Attitudes
At the heart of this shift is huge change in attitude about cars and housing coupled with amazing technological advances.
Millennials and Generation Z saw what happened in the the Great Financial crisis and the first few years of the rebound. They saw their parents arguing over debt in fear of losing their house. They do not want to fall into the same trap.
We boomers did not have social media outlets when we were in high school and college. Nor did we have cell phones. If you wanted to do something you had to drive or get your parents to take you.
I spent countless hours as a high-schooler, even on weekdays, just driving around going nowhere. Gas was 20 cents a gallon.
The Future
The auto industry will soon not look like what it does today. Cars will be smaller, lighter, electric, and self-driving. Boomers will be gone. Those living in big cities will not need to own a car at all, and most won’t.
Boomers are the primary force keeping the current auto trends alive. Demographically-speaking, it won’t last.
Expect massive change within a decade, on multiple fronts, including outright ownership.
via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2XvBl8A Tyler Durden
One day following last Thursday’s bombshell Mueller report — or rather we should say the report which ended three years of nonstop ‘Russiagate’ hysteria with a not-so-dramatic whimper— the Russian embassy in the US issued its own scathing report, calling the collusion conspiracy which Mueller’s team sought to uncover “hollow and laughable”.
The Russian embassy also said it was “no surprise” that the investigation delivered “no tangible result” in its own massive 120-page study, released online Friday, even the title of which pulled no punches —The Russiagate Hysteria: A Case of Severe Russiaphobia.
Image via AFP
The publication blasted a list of “groundless accusations” repeated since Trump’s 2016 election, including allegations of Russian election meddling, the Kremlin’s supposedly being behind the DNC hack, as well as Trump’s working with Russian intelligence.
It concluded in the wake of the Mueller report:
The investigation… didn’t show any real evidence to back up claims of Moscow’s cyberattacks and attempts to “subvert democracy”.
Though Mueller’s report failed to deliver on much of what the mainstream hyped over the years, it did point to efforts of Russian “interference” in US elections and alleged that Russian military intelligence was complicit in “hacking” the DNC.
“An obvious conclusion is reached – there was no collusion” the English language Russian report asserts.
After three years, more than 8,000 publications in just four main outlets (Washington Post, New York Times, CNN and MSNBC), endless congressional inquiries, 22 months of the work of Robert Mueller that cost taxpayers an estimated $32 million, more than 2,800 subpoenas, 500 witnesses interrogated, and as many search warrants, an obvious conclusion is reached – there was no collusion.
The report also outlines multiple instances where Moscow had “fruitlessly” asked Washington to provide “hard proof” of the allegations, even going so far to offer cooperation in any investigation, but “the US refused every single time.”
During the entirety of the ordeal, the embassy report finds, “All this time, Russia pointed to the obvious made-up nature of these insinuations.”
Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov ripped continued lack of US cooperation related to already agreed upon US-Russia initiatives to foster US-Russian economic and business ties.
#Lavrov: our side submitted proposals and candidates to 🇷🇺🇺🇸 Consultative Business Council; however, no response from American businesses has followed since. There is another political taboo against implementing what the presidents had agreed upon
👉https://t.co/A3zaa0ZhpUpic.twitter.com/hcnlRS4z6E
In the aftermath the embassy called for the US and Moscow to “join efforts to repair the damage to bilateral relations,” and further expressed hope that the “end of the Mueller saga would contribute to further dispelling the smoke and mirrors on this topic.”
Now that Robert Mueller has failed to deliver the verdict that Democrats were hoping for – namely that our President is a traitor who colluded with Russia, it appears that the special counsel has become persona non grata – with House Judiciary Chair Jerrold Nadler angrily demanding that Mueller appear before his committee “as soon as possible” to explain things.
To that end, MSNBC’s Mike Viqueira thought it would be a good idea to play paparazzi and confront Mueller after Easter church services – sticking a microphone in his face as he walked to his car with his wife.
“Well, we understood that Robert Mueller was just across Lafayette Square here from downtown Washington at St. John’s Episcopal Church,” said Viqueira. “He’s been seen there before over the last several weeks attending services. He was there with Mrs. Mueller at the 9:00 a.m. service. We had a camera crew waiting outside. It was, of course, Easter service. And, yes, we did surprise director Mueller upon his exiting of the church.”
Reporter: Sir, could I ask you a couple of questions? Will you testify before Congress, sir?
Mueller: I have no comment.
Reporter: Are you sure about that, sir?
Mueller: No comment.
Reporter: If it were anybody but the president, would Mr. Trump be indicted, sir? Now that you have finished — sir, why didn’t you make a recommendation to Congress one way or the other? Did the attorney general accurately characterize your positions on conspiracy and obstruction, sir?
Watch:
Unhinged Russiagate conspiracy theorists now harassing Robert Mueller at Easter Mass pic.twitter.com/Y1dexzPpmc
Following the encounter, Viqueira told anchor Alex Witt: “I think we can characterize director Mueller’s attitude as tight lipped and perhaps not interested in talking to me. It was after all Easter Sunday and he was after all coming out of Easter services. But nevertheless, that’s the first time we have heard from Bob Mueller in quite some time, even if his only comment was no comment.”
Classy…
via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2KTREe8 Tyler Durden
Last Thursday, we reported that the 75-year-old president – or dictator, according to some – of Sudan, Omar al-Bashir stepped down after ruling the country for 30 years after a lighting fast military coup d’état, which involved very little gunfire or violence. And while as so often happens in Africa – and the rest of the world – after a dictator is toppled, investigations into corruption immediately started, this time they struck gold – both figuratively and literally – almost immediately.
According to Sky News, after investigators launched a probe for money laundering into ousted president Omar al Bashir’s regime, they found large sums of foreign currency at his home. Specifically, military intelligence found cash worth 6 million euros stuffed in suitcases, as well as 351,000 US dollars. They also uncovered five million Sudanese pounds (£80,000).
A judicial source told Reuters that “the chief public prosecutor… ordered the [former] president detained and quickly questioned in preparation to put him on trial.”
Bashir, who was toppled on April 11 in a military coup following months of protests against his 30-year rule, is currently held inside the high-security Kobar prison in Sudan’s capital, Khartoum. He was detained at a presidential residence prior to being put behind bars.
The reason why Bashir was hoping to flee the country, cash patiently waiting in suitcases, is that he is wanted by the International Criminal Court in The Hague for crimes against humanity, murder, extermination, torture and rape – among other crimes – in the Darfur region in the 2000s. Once the 75-year-old president is convicted, he will almost certainly spend the rest of his life behind bars.
An estimated 300,000 people died during a military campaign to end an insurgency there over a decade ago. As Sky notes, During his decades in power, Bashir often played up his humble beginnings as the child of a poor farming family in a remote village.
Meanwhile, despite the ouster of al Bashir, protests across Sudan have continued.
Sudan protests continue. Photo: SkyNews
via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2UNI2pN Tyler Durden
George Monbiot and the climate change heart of darkness
George Monbiot appeared recently on Frankie Boyle’s far-left political chat show, “New World Order.” A columnist and environmental activist, Monbiot explained how we have to save the planet. And boy, does Monbiot have some ideas.
The easy things we need to change, Monbiot said, are to end air travel flying and cease consumption of meat. If that doesn’t sound easy to you, then you’re not alone. Indeed, those ideas are so destructive of modern life, economics, and the pursuit of happiness, that they could justifiably be regarded as insane.
But Monbiot was just getting started. Next up, he took us down the intellectual river, into the heart of activist darkness.
“We have to overthrow this system which is eating the planet: perpetual growth,” Monbiot declared. And the writer pulled no punches. Annual economic growth targets of 3% represent “madness,” he said. The columnist reached his crescendo.
“We can’t do it by just pitting around at the margins of the problem; we’ve got to go straight to the heart of capitalism and overthrow it.“
The morons in Boyle’s audience lapped this up.
In a way, I’m glad Monbiot said what he did. With this interview, Boyle, a terrorist sympathizer and champagne socialist, unwittingly gave us a rare window into the malicious faux-humanitarianism that motivates many climate change ideologues. I don’t exaggerate when I say it’s malicious.
The free market system has, since the 1980s, lifted billions of people out of poverty worldwide, exceeding all of the achievements of all the nonprofits in history. Monbiot and his comrades, in seeking to overthrow the modern way of life, are proud servants of moral darkness. They seek to impose socialism, communism, or some other defective ideology precisely because these will limit economic growth and human flourishing.
History proves that capitalism uniquely serves a growing and broadly shared prosperity, new innovations for health, technology, and science, and sustaining democratic government.
There may also be a moral imperative to adopt reasonable climate change policies — it’s something I’m quite willing to accept. But we must call out the intellectual and moral deceptions offered by people like Monbiot. Failing to do so, we entertain the growing chance of a poorer, less happy, and morally darker world.
via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2XteWsA Tyler Durden
Amidst all of the controversy and volatility involving Tesla this year, one of the silver linings for Elon Musk was his recent successful Falcon 9 crew launch , but it now looks as though that project may have literally “gone up in smoke.”
On Friday, a test version of the company’s Crew Dragon suffered what SpaceX is calling an “anomaly” at the company’s facility at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.
BREAKING: #SpaceX Crew Dragon suffered an anomaly during test fire today, according to 45th Space Wing. Smoke could be seen on the beaches.
“On April 20, an anomaly occurred at Cape Canaveral AFS during Dragon 2 static test fire. Anomaly was contained and no injuries.” pic.twitter.com/If5rdeGRXO
Large plumes of smoke were seen emanating from the area, according to Space.com. We can’t help but wonder what the fossil fuel burning equivalent would be for the amount of smoke that made its way into the atmosphere as a result, especially given the fact that Crew Dragon’s engines burn “fairly toxic compounds”, according to ARSTechnica, that include “hypergolic propellants—monomethylhydrazine” and “nitrogen tetroxide”.
SpaceX said of the issue: “Earlier today, SpaceX conducted a series of engine tests on a Crew Dragon test vehicle on our test stand at Landing Zone 1 in Cape Canaveral, Florida. The initial tests completed successfully but the final test resulted in an anomaly on the test stand.”
This video, alleged, but not yet confirmed to be the “anomaly”, has been making its rounds on Twitter. If it is confirmed to be the Dragon 2, it is obvious that nothing about the initial tests could reasonably be referred to as “successful.”
Shown below, four pairs of SuperDraco engines power the Crew Dragon’s escape system. SpaceX has been developing SuperDraco thrusters for the better part of a decade to enable human flights on board Dragon, according to ARSTechnica. But this recent incident will have NASA scrutinizing these thrusters closely.
Similar escape system issues have precluded Boeing from rescheduling a test flight that occurred last summer:
Escape systems have previously caused problems as part of NASA’s Commercial Crew program, which has provided funds to private companies for access to low Earth orbit. In June 2018, as Boeing prepared its Starliner spacecraft for a test of its emergency escape system, a propellant leak occurred near the end of an engine test firing and seriously damaged the service module. Boeing had intended to complete the test of its abort system last summer but has yet to reschedule the flight 10 months later, apparently due to complications from this accident.
Boeing is also in competition with SpaceX for NASA’s business. And that’s not the only “race” taking place, as SpaceX continues to try and tap new lines of investor cash it fund its operations. The goal of the Crew Dragon capsule is to eventually ferry NASA astronauts to and from the International Space Station – but the timeline on that goal may have just been pushed much further into the future as a NASA probe into the venture is all but assured.
We can’t help but think that this setback may have SpaceX investors re-thinking exactly how much money they want to dump into Musk’s science experiments without a return on invested capital.
via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2IMsSd2 Tyler Durden
Canada’s federal government wants cigarettes to self-extinguish when we stop smoking them, believing this will reduce incidents of death and injury from fires caused by careless smoking. Thus, since 2005 the government has mandated the use of reduced ignition propensity (RIP) materials in the manufacture of all cigarettes. However, the government’s high cigarette taxes prompt many smokers to buy non-RIP contraband cigarettes, which, as it turns out, may actually be the safer product.
RIP-Cigarettes Counterproductive?
Jack Burt, acting deputy chief of the London, Ontario Fire Department said , “In the 10 years after Canada enforced the rule on self-extinguishing cigarettes, there was a 30 per cent drop in fire deaths associated with cigarette smoke.” Curiously, the same figure was touted by the World Health Organization (WHO), which tells us: “A 2013 report by the United States National Fire Protection Association suggests that the adoption of the RIP standard by US states appears to be the “principal reason for a 30% decline in smoking material fire deaths from 2003 to 2011.”
However, results of a study by the US Consumer Product Safety Commission “suggest that it is premature to conclude that use of the RIP cigarette alone will greatly reduce the threat of unintentional fires ignited by cigarettes involving mattresses or soft furnishings …” Similarly, an analysis by Injury Prevention notes that “Technical tests show little to no difference between fire safe [RIP] or conventional cigarettes in realistic settings.”
In fact, RIP regulations may even be counterproductive due to side effects of the product, as well as how smokers use the product. In New York, where RIP laws took effect in 2004, smoking-related fire statistics show that “The frequency of a smoker’s home catching on fire has actually increased since the law went into effect.” But if RIP cigarettes increase the likelihood of a fire, why are there fewer fires? Simple. Fewer people are smoking.
From 2001 to 2015, the smoking rate in Canada dropped by 31.7% (see here and here ). Thus, the credit attributed to the government’s RIP regulation appears to be completely overstated. This is not surprising. Governments love to claim credit for events they had nothing to do with.
The Government’s Perspective
In Canada, the government apparently believes in the life saving benefits of its RIP regulation, which was enacted because the government says it “is responsible for helping the people of Canada maintain and improve their health.” But if the government is so concerned about our health, why does it impose onerous taxes on RIP cigarettes, thus pushing many smokers into the supposedly unhealthy non-RIP black market?
The stock answer from politicians and bureaucrats to such logical questions is that they are burdened by the thankless and daunting task of balancing priorities. The political rationale would go something like this: “RIP cigarettes are purchased by a majority of smokers, and high tobacco taxes are turning smokers into ex-smokers. Taxation and regulation have proven to be highly effective.” However, as with the RIP regulation, taxation also appears to be ineffective.
Tobacco Taxes do Not Achieve the Government’s Goal
The government says “Tobacco taxation is known to be one of the most effective ways to reduce smoking, and to keep tobacco products out of the hands of young people.” Wrong on both counts, as a Financial Post article explains :
Since the sale of contraband tobacco products is illegal, the vendors of such tobacco pay no heed to restrictions on the age of purchasers. So, unsurprisingly, contraband has become a popular source of tobacco consumption for minors.
According to Health Canada [a government agency], 35% of Canadians smoked in 1985. That fell to just over 30% by the early 1990s and has continued to fall almost every year since then regardless of the tobacco tax rate. In fact, the rate of decline in smoking in the eight years following the 1994 tax cut was greater than the decline in the eight years after taxes were raised in 2002.
The government’s own statistics refute its claim that tobacco taxation is an effective way to reduce smoking, yet the taxes remain as a smokescreen to raise revenue for the government.
Conclusion
The efficacy of RIP regulations is very much in doubt, with evidence suggesting they may even be counterproductive. Furthermore, aside from smoking-related-fires, the manner in which RIP cigarettes are manufactured and smoked may actually pose greater risks to the health of smokers as compared to non-RIP cigarettes.
Vaping products are a much healthier alternative for smokers and far less likely to be the source of unintended fires, as compared to RIP and non-RIP cigarettes. However, Ginette Petitpas Taylor, Canada’s Minister of Health, said “We’re .. placing restrictions on the promotion of vaping products while allowing adults to legally access them as a less harmful alternative to cigarettes …” So, having acknowledged that cigarettes are more harmful to our health than vaping, the government somehow feels it is prudent to prevent vendors of vaping products from persuading cigarette smokers to kick the habit.
Politicians and bureaucrats appear to be more dangerous to our health than smoking.
via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2IIH46U Tyler Durden
According to exit polls, millions of voters – weary of war and economic hardship – have thoroughly rebuked the incumbent elites, overwhelmingly voting for 41-year-old TV comedian Volodymyr Zelenskii in Ukraine’s presidential election today.
“I voted for Zelenskii because everything he said is true,” said Viktoriia Bengalska, a 45-year-old secretary in Kiev.
“It’s impossible to survive on this salary, prices have increased like crazy, and we were promised something totally different.”
With no political record (aside from playing the president on TV), Zelenskii crushed President Petro Poroshenko, who was running for his second five-year term, with 73% of the vote.
The comedian had been a heavy favorite ahead of today’s election according to polls.
“To all Ukrainians, no matter where you are, I promise that I will never let you down,” Zelensky said after the results came in.
“Though I’m still not president, I can say as a Ukrainian citizen to all the countries of the former Soviet Union: Look at us. Everything is possible.”
As The Washington Post notes, Zelenskii’s apparent victory is the latest in the global trend of political outsiders harnessing TV and social media to out-muscle the unpopular establishment.
“Zelenskii doesn’t have experience, and Putin is a very dangerous adversary,” said Volodymyr Fesenko, a political analyst in Kiev.
Option A: Zelenskii will rapidly and energetically resume all the rabid russophobic policies of his predecessor. The topics of the Donbass and Crimea will be front and center of Ukie propaganda. At this point, Russia might as well recognize the outcome of the election (I don’t see a point in pretending that Zelenskii did not “kinda” get a popular mandate) and, in the same breath, recognize the two Novorussian Republics and let them conduct a referendum on their future.
Option B: Zelenskii will rapidly and energetically try to stop (or, at least, “freeze”) the conflict with Russia and with the Donbass. If he does that, the Kremlin will see that Zelenskii is trying to cut his losses and gain political credibility by stopping the war in the Donbass and the (utterly stupid and self-defeating) confrontation with Russia. At this point, Russia is likely not only to recognize the outcome of the election, but also serve as a mediator between the Novorussians and the Zelenskii government in Kiev to offer some kind of compromise centered around a de facto independence of the two republics combined with some kind of de jure (only!) Ukrainian sovereignty over these republics, even if only symbolical.
At least so far, all the signs are that Zelenskii will go with Option A and resume Poro’s anti-russian policies which, considering that Zelenskii is a puppet of Kolomoiskii, who himself is a puppet of the AngloZionist Empire (with, in his case, the stress of the “Zionist” part of the name) certainly makes sense.
Finally, we give the last word to Zelenskii: “I’m not a politician…I’m just a simple person who came to break the system.”
via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2VWGfvb Tyler Durden
Oh dear. People are embracing the bubble and, as it happens in every bubble, fantastical narratives are emerging to justify the valuations and the price momentum as folks cannot square reality with non stop levitation in equity prices. Never mind that the final price spurt in any bubble is the most dangerous and most deceiving.
And with these fantastical narratives suddenly debt no longer matters because MMT. Inflation is declared dead as central bankers keep missing their inflation targets yet consumers are well aware of inflation in their daily lives, and yield curves no longer matter because they are simply a play thing of central bankers who can now prevent recessions forever:
“The Fed has the power to “prevent or quickly undo” an unwanted inversion, the BofA economists said.”
If debt doesn’t matter, inflation doesn’t exist, and yield curve inversions can be prevented by an all powerful Fed we must truly live in a world of milk and honey.
After all:
United States weekly jobless claims just hit a 50 year low. The economy is doing GREAT!
Things are so awesome we are experiencing some of the loosest financial conditions in history:
And global liquidity keeps running at record levels:
No wonder stocks are celebrating and flirting with record highs, indeed record highs are already seen printed on tech and consumer discretionary:
No wonder investors are chasing after money losing IPOs like it’s 1999:
And are piling in their cash after a 24% rally off the lows:
After all Q1 GDP is flying higher to unforeseen levels.
The Atlanta Fed’s GDP forecasting model, always having an adventurous relationship with reality, is now forecasting a 2.8% GDP print for Q1, following a 0.4% projection just 6 weeks ago:
Looks like Alan Greenspan is right. Get a big rally in $SPX and suddenly your GDP looks much better.
Yes, things are truly awesome except that they are not, but rather there’s a big mismatch in everything. Amongst all this awesomeness the Fed has halted all rate hikes and doesn’t forecast one until sometime in 2020.
Here with unemployment at 3.8% and unemployment claims at 50 year lows:
The Fed funds rate has never been this low into an expansion cycle this long. Not even close.
Things are so awesome the Fed couldn’t even manage a rate level half that of previous cycles before succumbing the market pressures in December and, by doing so, they may have ended up blowing this bubble even larger.
There’s so much money desperately seeking yield it’s apparently akin to an out of body experience. Yes, people say the darnedest things during bubbles.
Another big mismatch of course are markets themselves. If debt, yield curves and inflation don’t matter then one would think all ships would benefit from the rising tide in everything. But this does not appear to be the case:
Small caps are below their February highs and the banking sector is below its March highs. I suppose the financial sector and small caps no longer matter either. But unless these sectors can play catch up in a hurry this may all end up prove to be a fallacy.
And while consumer discretionary stocks are flying to new all time highs they can’t help hide the reality that nearly half of all Americans are financially (what’s the technical term?) totally screwed:
“About 42 percent of Americans have less than $10,000 saved for when they retire, according to a study by GoBankingRates”.
This is how awesome things are:
They either don’t make enough money, are struggling to pay bills, their jobs don’t offer retirement plans or they blew their savings due to an emergency.
Good thing inflation is dead. Yes, that’s sarcasm.
I could expand on the subject, but I trust everyone gets a sense of the mismatch in fantastical narratives, the price action in markets and the reality on the ground. If the economy is as great as markets indicate the Fed should have no problems raising rates. If the signals parts of markets send is false and the rally construct is simply based on cheap money, buybacks and a dovish Fed, then the Fed itself may have ignited the final bubble run. Out of sheer desperation no less. Scared of the bubble bursting they inflated it even further. Well done.
Yet for all the melt-up talk markets in reality have stalled. Last week $SPX closed down 2 handles on the week although hot pockets such as tech have moved on to higher prices. As markets are now close to all time human history highs on the heels of a dovish Fed new highs seem a lay up to embrace the bubble in full, but technical concerns keep mounting. It is these signals that leave room for an entirely different reality to emerge.
For a discussion of the technicals please see the video below:
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via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2Xw2gkK Tyler Durden
As we now shift from the “witch hunt” against Trump to ‘investigating the investigators’ who spied on him – remember this; Donald Trump was supposed to lose the 2016 election by almost all accounts. And had Hillary won, as expected, none of this would have seen the light of day.
We wouldn’t know that a Clinton-linked operative, Joseph Mifsud, seeded Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos with the rumor that Russia had ‘Dirt’ on Hillary Clinton – which would later be coaxed out of Papadopoulos by a Clinton-linked Australian ambassador, Alexander Downer, and that this apparent ‘setup’ would be the genesis of the FBI’s “operation crossfire hurricane” operation against the Trump campaign.
We wouldn’t know about the role of Fusion GPS – the opposition research firm hired by Hillary Clinton’s campaign to commission the Steele dossier. Fusion is also linked to the infamous Trump Tower meeting, and hired Nellie Ohr – the CIA-linked wife of the DOJ’s then-#4 employee, Bruce Ohr. Nellie fed her husband Bruce intelligence she had gathered against Trump while working for Fusion GPS, according to transcripts of her closed-door Congressional testimony.
And if not for reporting by the Daily Caller‘s Chuck Ross and others, we wouldn’t know that the FBI sent a longtime spook, Stefan Halper, to infiltrate and spy on the Trump campaign – after the Obama DOJ paid him over $400,000 right before the 2016 US election (out of more than $1 million he received while Obama was president).
According to the New York Times, the tables are turning, starting with the Steele Dossier.
[T]he release on Thursday of the report by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, underscored what had grown clearer for months — that while many Trump aides had welcomed contacts with the Russians, some of the most sensational claims in the dossier appeared to be false, and others were impossible to prove. Mr. Mueller’s report contained over a dozen passing references to the document’s claims but no overall assessment of why so much did not check out.
While Congressional Republicans have vowed to investigate, the DOJ’s Inspector General is considering whether the FBI improperly relied on the dossier when they used it to apply for a surveillance warrant on Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. The IG also wants to know about Steele’s sources and whether the FBI disclosed any doubts as to the veracity of the dossier.
Attorney General Barr, meanwhile, said he will review the FBI’s conduct in the Russia investigation after saying the agency spied on the Trump campaign.
Doubts over the dossier
The FBI’s scramble to vet the dossier’s claims are well known. According to an April, 2017 NYT report, the FBI agreed to pay Steele $50,000 for “solid corroboration” of his claims. Steele was apparently unable to produce satisfactory evidence – and was ultimately not paid for his efforts:
Mr. Steele met his F.B.I. contact in Rome in early October, bringing a stack of new intelligence reports. One, dated Sept. 14, said that Mr. Putin was facing “fallout” over his apparent involvement in the D.N.C. hack and was receiving “conflicting advice” on what to do.
The agent said that if Mr. Steele could get solid corroboration of his reports, the F.B.I. would pay him $50,000 for his efforts, according to two people familiar with the offer. Ultimately, he was not paid. –NYT
Still, the FBI used the dossier to obtain the FISA warrant on Page – while the document itself was heavily shopped around to various media outlets. The late Sen. John McCain provided a copy to Former FBI Director James Comey, who already had a version, and briefed President Trump on the salacious document. Comey’s briefing to Trump was then used by CNN and BuzzFeed to justify reporting on and publishing the dossier following the election.
Let’s not forget that in October, 2016, both Hillary Clinton and her campaign chairman John Podesta promoted the conspiracy theory that a secret Russian server was communicating with Trump Tower.
Computer scientists have apparently uncovered a covert server linking the Trump Organization to a Russian-based bank. pic.twitter.com/8f8n9xMzUU
The report was debunked after internet sleuths traced the IP address to a marketing server located outside Philadelphia, leading Alfa Bank executives to file a lawsuit against Fusion GPS in October 2017, claiming their reputations were harmed by the Steele Dossier.
And who placed the Trump-Alfa theory with various media outlets? None other than former FBI counterintelligence officer and Dianne Feinstein aide Dan Jones – who is currently working with Fusion GPS and Steele to continue their Trump-Russia investigation funded in part by George Soros.
Dan Jones, George Soros, Glenn Simpson
Russian tricks?
The Times notes that Steele “has not ruled out” that he may have been fed Russian disinformation while assembling his dossier.
That would mean that in addition to carrying out an effective attack on the Clinton campaign, Russian spymasters hedged their bets and placed a few land mines under Mr. Trump’s presidency as well.
Oleg D. Kalugin, a former K.G.B. general who now lives outside Washington, saw that as plausible. “Russia has huge experience in spreading false information,” he said. –NYT
In short, Steele is being given an ‘out’ with this admission.
A lawyer for Fusion GPS, Joshua Levy, says that the Mueller report substantiated the “core reporting” in the Steele memos – namely that “Trump campaign figures were secretly meeting Kremlin figures,” and that Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, had directed “a covert operation to elect Donald J. Trump.”
Of course, when one stops painting with broad brush strokes, it’s clear that the dossier was fabricated bullshit.
The dossier tantalized Mr. Trump’s opponents with a worst-case account of the president’s conduct. And for those trying to make sense of the Trump-Russia saga, the dossier infused the quest for understanding with urgency.
In blunt prose, it suggested that a foreign power had fully compromised the man who would become the next president of the United States.
The Russians, it asserted, had tried winning over Mr. Trump with real estate deals in Moscow — which he had not taken up — and set him up with prostitutes in a Moscow hotel in 2013, filming the proceedings for future exploitation. A handful of aides were described as conspiring with the Russians at every turn.
Mr. Trump, it said, had moles inside the D.N.C. The memos claimed that he and the Kremlin had been exchanging intelligence for eight years and were using Romanian hackers against the Democrats, and that Russian pensioners in the United States were running a covert communications network. –NYT
And after a nearly two-year investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller and roughly 40 FBI agents and other specialists, no evidence was found to support the dossier’s wild claims of “DNC moles, Romanian hackers, Russian pensioners, or years of Trump-Putin intelligence trading,” as the Times puts it.
Now that the shoe is on the other foot, and key Democrats backing away from talks of impeachment, let’s see if lady justice will follow the rest of us down the rabbit hole.
via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2Ds1eP0 Tyler Durden
