Earlier today, we explained why the technical picture for stocks is getting increasingly gloomy, when we noted that with the S&P dropping below 2,750, or a critical selling “trigger” for the trend-following community, CTAs have now started to sell.
And while the fundamentals have been turning increasingly more bearish in recent months (prompting every central bank to turn dovish in recent weeks), with the global economy rapidly slowing with Europe and Japan now effectively in recession, now not even the chartists can find a reason to remain bullish.
Case in point: BMOs chief technical analyst Russ Visch writes that after the “goldilocks” rally officially ended when the S&P failed to breach and hold 2800, “it appears as if the “re-test” phase of the “low, rally re-test” bottoming sequence is now underway in earnest as equity markets sold off sharply yet again yesterday, resulting in the S&P 500…
… and Nasdaq Composite closing below their 200-day moving averages again for the first time in nearly a month.”
With upside momentum broken, Visch says that the next support level from here is now the 50-day moving averages (S&P: 2666, Nasdaq: 7159) although, as the bearish technician has written in the past, he expects “a much deeper retracement than that.“
Additionally, and as Nomura warned previously, next Friday is “quadruple witching”, a day in which all four of the different types of options and futures contracts expire on the same day. This could be lead to even greater turbulence, as historically, markets have been prone to volatile price swings during expiry weeks as investors reposition large options and futures holdings so, as Visch notes, “it could get ugly pretty quickly.“
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2tVmPKF Tyler Durden
With the Italian government seemingly on the verge of collapse every few months, and with tensions between the two parties in the ruling coalition – Five Star and the League, especially as the former has been sliding in the polls at the expense of the latter’s rising popularity – escalating in recent weeks, it was only a matter of time before Italian bondholders had a PTSD flashback to May 2018 when the populist government first stormed on the stage, sending Italian bonds plunging. All that was missing was a catalyst.
Said catalyst emerged as a lingering dispute within Italy’s ruling coalition over the future of a train, or technically a high-speed rail link with France, escalated suddenly on Thursday, once again raising the risk of a government collapse, with the 5-Star chief accusing his partner of acting irresponsibly.
The Alpine rail line has been backed by the ruling League party but is fiercely opposed by its coalition partner, the 5-Star Movement, which argues Italy’s share of the funding would be better spent upgrading existing roads and bridges. And after League leader, the outspoken Matteo Salvini who continues to enjoy rising popularity with every new poll, said in an evening television interview he would not back down and his party would “never sign” a decree to block the project, 5-Star chief Luigi Di Maio accused him of threatening to bring down the government.
While the tensions between Di Maio and Salvini were for the most part contained before closed doors, the animosity between the two “equal” vice premiers erupted in public when Di Maio said in a statement that Salvini “will bear the responsibility before millions of Italians” adding that he considers “this to be irresponsible behavior” adding that he was “stunned by the threat of a government crisis” coming from Salvini.
The TAV project (Treno Alta Velocita) is a joint venture between the Italian and French states to link the cities of Turin and Lyon with a 58-km (36-mile) tunnel through the Alps on which work has already begun. According to Reuters, the EU has pledged to fund up to 40 percent of costs, Italy up to 35 percent and France up to 25 percent.
Earlier on Thursday, Italy’s Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said that recently updated traffic projections for the line warranted a review of the project’s long-term viability and, if necessary, a renegotiation of the way the funding is split. Conte told reporters he had strong personal doubts about the validity of the venture and he would take responsibility for a final decision based on a cost-benefit analysis already carried out by the government.
That analysis, commissioned by Transport Minister Danilo Toninelli, a 5-Star politician, found the TAV was a waste of public money, estimating the economic return would be a negative balance of 7.0 billion-7.8 billion euros ($7.9 billion -$8.8 billion). Conte, who is technically not a member of either party but is closer to 5-Star, called the funding of the TAV “iniquitous” and said he would speak to France and the EU “to share our doubts and perplexities.”
However, as Reuters noted, despite his doubts, Conte acknowledged the ruling coalition remained “deadlocked” over the issue, as a Monday deadline approaches when the tenders must be launched to build or block key parts of the project.
And while Conte dismissed media speculation the Alpine rail link could be the issue that finally brings the government down as “absurd” saying that the dispute between the ruling parties was transparent and constructive, others disagree, and on Thursday night, Matteo Salvini who is currently Italy’s most popular politician and many believe can become Italy’s next premier outright without the need for a colaition, said he was ready “to go all the way” on the TAV dispute.
On Friday the spat continued, and the ruling coalition made no progress in defusing the dispute ahead of Monday’s looming deadline.
As Reuters updates, on Friday Salvini walked away from the negotiating table telling reporters he would not reopen discussion until after the weekend, in a move that seemed designed to allow the tenders, due to be opened on Monday, to go ahead.
In turn, a clearly displeased Di Maio said during a news conference that “(Salvini) can’t tell me ‘we’ll see each other on Monday’. This needs to be a weekend of work,” adding that he had asked Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte to do his best to block the tenders.
Some League politicians proposed that the tenders could be launched on schedule but with a clause that they could be revoked depending on the outcome of the coalition dispute. Di Maio rejected this, saying it made no sense to commit money to a project and then discuss whether to go ahead with it.
“Putting the government at risk over the TAV is absurd,” he said, appealing to Salvini to work with him for a deal, however as of this moment, Salvini has clearly refused to engage in negotiations, raising the probability that a government collapse could be imminent, and resulting in another episode of Italian bond volatility as the next Italian government will likely be even more populist than the current iteration.
For now markets, which have generally stopped responding to newsflow and instead are only focused on what central banks do next, have shrugged off the mounting coalition tensions, and on Friday Italian 10-year bond yields were heading for the biggest weekly drop since September, and the spread over German Bunds hovered around 245 basis points, compared with a recent high of 280 on Feb 22, on the back of the ECB’s TLTRO announcement which some have speculated makes the probability of a ruling crisis even greater as the risk of a market crash has been pushed back largely thanks to Draghi’s surprisingly dovish reversal unveiled on Thursday.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2HltAgF Tyler Durden
The College of Charleston professor, a prolific digital-mob leader, has been active in trying to marginalize women who believe that men who identify as women should not be allowed to participate in women’s sports.
As noted by Red State‘s Sister Toldjah this week, McKinnon is claiming that women who want women’s sports to be limited to women are the functional equivalent of racists:
If Sharron Davies, Paula Radcliffe, or Martina Navratilova had said we need to keep black women out of sport to “protect it” and the “integrity of women’s sport”
That would be obviously racist
That’s why it’s obviously transphobic to exclude trans women now
If Sharron Davies, Paula Radcliffe, or Martina Navratilova had said we need to keep black women out of sport to “protect it” and the “integrity of women’s sport”
That would be obviously racist
That’s why it’s obviously transphobic to exclude trans women now
Not “name calling”
— Dr. Rachel McKinnon (@rachelvmckinnon) March 5, 2019
You’ve got to wonder how black women feel about being considered to vengeful white men such as McKinnon.
Toldjah reminds the professor that excluding a race from sports competition is “not even remotely comparable” to segregating the sexes in sporting competitions:
Black athletes were once viewed as inferior based on their race. Men’s and women’s competitions have always been separate because their bodies are different. It’s an indisputable scientific fact. …
This ain’t rocket science, y’all. Female athletes find losing to male athletes in female competition demoralizing, and they have legitimate reasons for feeling that way. Yet they’re being told to shut up, sit back, and take it.
[ZH: But it gets better…]
As BigLeaguePoilitcs.com reports, a British rapper briefly identified as female in order to break a weightlifting record and prove a point about transgender athletes.
“I keep hearing about how biological men don’t have any physical strength advantage over women in 2019… So watch me DESTROY the British Women’s deadlift record without trying. P.S. I identified as a woman whilst lifting the weight. Don’t be a bigot,” Zuby Tweeted, attaching a video of himself breaking the record.
I keep hearing about how biological men don’t have any physical strength advantage over women in 2019…
So watch me DESTROY the British Women’s deadlift record without trying.
The Pentagon is getting close to slamming the door on Turkey regarding the contentious transfer of Lockheed F-35 stealth jets purchased previously by Ankara, an issue debated this week in Congressional hearings. The Department of Defense (DoD) has now offered a stern ultimatum and warning, telling Turkey: don’t expect to receive F-35s if Russia’s anti-air defense system is bought.
F-35B Stealth fighter jet, file photo
Pentagon spokesman Charles Summers said Friday morning that there will be “grave consequences” if Turkey moves forward in purchasing Russia’s S-400, according to Bloomberg— this after the top US commander in Europe, Army General Curtis Scaparrotti, recommended to Congress this week that delivery to Turkey of Lockheed Martin’s F-35 Joint Strike Fighter should ultimately be cancelled, nothing that the S-400 remains “a problem to all of our aircraft, but specifically the F-35.”
Turkey’s currency fell 1.5 percent this week amid fears relations with Washington could worsen over the standoff. President Erdogan has further missed a “soft deadline” previously set by the US over an offer to buy $3.5 billion Raytheon Co. Patriot missile shield system, as an alternative to the Russian S-400. The Pentagon said the Patriot offer would be impossible should Turkey seek the Russian system.
Failure to receive the F-35s could further impact Turkey’s economy given that a number of Turkish defense technology companies have contracts to build and develop systems and add-ons needed for Turkey to operate the aircraft, such as cockpit displays for the multi-national fighter jet.
However, Erdogan has remained unmoved as the issue has come to a head, repeating during a Turkish TV broadcast interview this week, “this is over” in reference to continued debate. “There can never be a turning back. This would not be ethical, it would be immoral. Nobody should ask us to lick up what we spat,” he said.
Thus far Erdogan has dismissed all Pentagon and US ultimatums. “We are an independent Turkey, we are not slaves,” he said during the interview previously this week.
The advanced Russian-made S-400 air defense system sought by Turkey has been seen as a threat by the United States, given the potential for compromising the F-35 advanced radar evading and electronics capabilities.
The main argument for blocking the F-35 transfer is the fear that Russia would get access to the extremely advanced Joint Strike Fighter stealth aircraft, enabling Moscow to detect and exploit its vulnerabilities. Russia would ultimately learn how the S-400 could take out an F-35.
Also this week the US State Department warned that transferal of S-400 systems could result in far reaching sanctions against Turkey under the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA), despite its NATO status.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2CaUp3L Tyler Durden
Trying to top a market is extraordinarily difficult, and always easier to do in retrospect. But that doesn’t mean that everyone should own every asset in perpetuity. Sometimes the smart thing to do is sell, and one way to know when is by watching those who know more than you.
Back in 2007, just as the real estate market was getting frothy, Sam Zell, one of the greatest property investors of all time, sold his iconic company to Steve Schwarzman’s Blackstone in the largest LBOs in history. A few months later, Schwarzman, an iconic investor himself, took Blackstone public, effectively selling his most prized asset. One year later everything crashed.
This year is shaping up to be the year the shared economy goes public, with IPOs expected from Uber, Lyft, Postmates & AirBnB. One conclusion is that the industry has finally reached maturity. But another one is that the smartest people in Silicon Valley — the founders and early investors in these companies — are all looking to sell the same asset class. Let us consider why.
There are countless arguments as to why these are great companies and everyone should invest in them. But there is also an argument that they are doomed to fail, because the business model of the centrally owned platform, where individuals take all the risk but the platform captures a substantial portion of the upside, is not sustainable.
Silicon Valley adores the risk-taking entrepreneur, and has almost a religious belief in that mythical character’s right to amass wealth should they succeed. How ironic then that most of the unicorns of the past decade were built on the opposite principle. Every Uber driver or AirBnB renter is in-effect running a startup. They have to come up with a plan, invest capital and put in sweat equity. But not only do these entrepreneurs not get to keep all the profits, they get none of the equity.
Even the most cold-hearted capitalist should take issue with Uber taking 25% of every cab fare — not because it violates their moral compass, but rather their business one. One of the fundamental tenets of a good market is an alignment between risk and reward, lest it devolve into rent-seeking. Every time a new driver joins a rideshare service, they take 100% of the risk, having to buy the car, insure it, get a license, etc. If they get into a serious accident on day one, the platform doesn’t lose a penny. So why does it get a substantial cut if they succeed?
This argument doesn’t apply when a platform first launches, because then the creators are also taking substantial risk, arguably even more than the freelancers providing the service. But once a shared-economy platform matures, the dynamics flip, leading to the present world of angry providers and interventionist politicians — not to mention hungry investors.
The solution is to realign the incentive structure — giving the doers more equity and a say in governance. Maintaining a platform, even after maturity, takes work, and there is some risk. So the founders should still get a cut of the profits, but they should share more of the upside. The recent announcement by Uber and Lyft to give shares to some drivers proves that even they are realizing the current structure is not sustainable. But that’s just a temporary fix, and doesn’t address the drivers of tomorrow. A better solution is to disintermediate the platforms altogether.
Of all the businesses in the crosshairs of blockchain disruption, shared-economy platforms might be the most susceptible. A decentralized platform flattens the shareholder, decision-maker and driver into one. The driver who takes the most risk and does the most work earns the most tokens, giving them greater participation in governance and future growth.
Compare that to today’s model — which includes platforms like YouTube and Facebook — where the opposite is true. The content creators that do all the work get little, and shareholders don’t have as much say as founders. Is it any wonder that these companies are seemingly spiraling out of control and governments all over the world are cracking down? Bad things happen when risk and reward are misaligned.
A lot of this might sound implausible, especially to skeptics of blockchain or decentralization. But it wasn’t that long ago when the success of today’s centralized platforms also seemed implausible. Uber destroyed the century-old model of taxis anyway. New technologies always enable new business models, and while the internet enabled one, blockchain enables another. If decentralization wasn’t a threat, why are all the incumbents looking to sell?
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2TmxVYl Tyler Durden
Update: House Democrats voted Friday to defend localities that allow illegal immigrants to vote in their elections, turning back a GOP attempt to discourage the practice. As The Washington Times reports, the vote marks a stunning reversal from just six months ago, when the chamber – then under GOP control – voted to decry illegal immigrant voting.
“We are prepared to open up the political process and let all of the people come in,” Rep. John Lewis, a Georgia Democrat and hero of the civil rights movement, told colleagues as he led opposition to the GOP measure.
Texas Republican. Rep. Dan Crenshaw raged:
“It sounds like I’m making it up. What kind of government would cancel the vote of its own citizens, and replace it with noncitizens?”
* * *
As we detailed earlier, using carefully chosen words in what appears an attempt to hide the truth, House Speaker Rep. Nancy Pelosi admitted this week at a news conference on voting rights with Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas) in Austin, Texas on Tuesday, that Democrats want illegal immigrants to be able to come into the nation freely, across their open borders, in order to rig elections for the Democrats.
As CNSnews.com reports, Speaker Pelosi spoke on the importance of passing H.R. 1, the “For the People Act of 2019,” “to lay the foundation to pass the Voting Rights Act, strengthened after the actions of the Supreme Court, which significantly weakened it,” she said.
Specifically, Pelosi said immigrants “make America more American,” and we should not be “suppressing the vote of our newcomers to America.”
“So, when we talk about newcomers, we have to recognize the constant reinvigoration of America that they are, that we all have been – our families,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi said.
“And that, unless you’re blessed to be Native American – which is a blessing in itself that we respect – but that constant reinvigoration of hope, determination, optimism, courage, to make the future better for the next generation, those are American traits. And these newcomers make America more American. And we want them, when they come here, to be fully part of our system. And that means not suppressing the vote of our newcomers to America.”
She then quoted former President Reagan out of context to support her argument:
“In the campaign, the candidate that I, the president that I quoted the most was Ronald Reagan. Does that surprise you? Maybe. But Ronald Reagan said this: ‘This is the last speech I will make as President of the United States. And I have a message I want to communicate to the country I love.’ He went on to talk about the Statue of Liberty and what it means to the world – that beacon of hope, what it means to people who have come here and seen that statue welcoming them – he said, our ancestors, our grandparents, our parents.”
Additionally, we note that friend-of-AOC, Rep. Ayanna Pressley may have outdone Pelosi with her latest stunt, an attempt to lower the federal voting age to 16.
“I am honored & excited to be introducing my very 1st amendment on the House floor, an amendment to #HR1, the #ForthePeopleAct. My amendment will lower the voting age from 18 to 16, allowing our youth to have a seat at the table of democracy. #16toVote,” she said.
I am honored & excited to be introducing my very 1st amendment on the House floor, an amendment to #HR1, the #ForthePeopleAct. My amendment will lower the voting age from 18 to 16, allowing our youth to have a seat at the table of democracy. #16toVotepic.twitter.com/67IzCtUh8k
Former Fox News co-President and White House Communications Director Bill Shine has resigned from his West Wing job, according to a statement from Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
He is leaving to work on the president’s 2020 reelection campaign, Shine said in a statement.
“Serving President Trump and this country has been the most rewarding experience of my entire life. To be a small part of all this President has done for the American people has truly been an honor. I’m looking forward to working on President Trump’s reelection campaign and spending more time with my family.”
The move sets up Shine, an acolyte of former Fox chief Roger Ailes, who was forced out of the network during the sexual harassment imbroglio that ultimately brought down host Bill O’Reilly and Ailes, to be one of the key people in the campaign staff, which is beginning to take shape.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2TDdN3o Tyler Durden
Earlier this week we noted that according to Charlie McElligott’s quant model, we were just days away from a critical CTA “sell trigger“, which as we followed up was triggered in the Russell 2000 the very next day, sending small caps sharply lower. It now appears that after being marginal buyers for the past month, CTAs selling has spread to the broader market as well.
Having failed for the past 3 weeks to break decisively above the “quad top” level of 2,800, US equity markets have declined significantly, losing much of their upward “goldilocks rally” momentum. Nomura believes the current correction in the US stock market is due to either: 1) Technical-based trend followers rapidly cutting their “loss-making” long positions on major US equity futures market, or 2) Some major positive factors that have supported financial market conditions on the fundamentals side, eg hopes of a US-China trade agreement and major central banks’ dovish shift have continued, and because some medium and long-term investors are looking for opportunities to buy-on-dips in the US equity market.
Looking at the market, Nomura’s “other” quant team, headed by Masanari Takada, believes the former factor is dominating trends, in other words CTAs have started selling.
Elaborating on that point, Takada writes that the S&P500 has finally breached the “trigger level” of the CTA’s cost breakeven ~2,750 level such that CTAs are liquidating their existing long positions, accelerating stock selling and cutting their “loss-making” positions. CTAs have behaved similarly on the NASDAQ-100 futures market as the NASDAQ-composite index has slipped below the ~7,460 level, which was the CTAs’ breakeven cost.
What happens next? Confirming what McElligott said previously, Takada says that going forward, systematic trend-followers will be forced to clear most of their long positions, so mechanical stock-selling pressure is likely to increase. However, and as McElligott also noted yesterday, as the current pace of CTAs unwinding their long positions is faster than past average patterns, this is likely to encourage some other “contrarian” type fast-money to buy in the falling market, as such systematic selling pressure generally softens around late March.
For now, however, investors that have maintained a bullish stance on US and global equity markets based on fundamentals, are likely to have a reality-check as a result of “cooling” equity market sentiment. During this period, Nomura warns that “there is a risk that Street expectations will become more pessimistic as a backlash from the risk market rally of the past two months.”
Meanwhile, even as CTAs start selling, the most concerning development for equity bulls according to Nomura is that global equity sentiment has fallen into negative territory again. The current market adjustment is also considered a “cooling-down period” from its elated period, so it has desirable aspects too. However, if more negative factors and headlines such as US-China trade talks break down, the yield curve inverts further, and there is an increasing likelihood of President Trump being impeached, investors will be less willing to take on equity market risk.
In fact, global macro HFs focusing more on fundamentals seem to have strengthened their cautious stances while accumulating short positions on US equities and long positions on long-term UST bonds for now.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2NQjYeY Tyler Durden
In its lede editorial Wednesday, The New York Times called upon Congress to amend the National Emergency Act to “erect a wall against any President, not just Mr. Trump, who insists on creating emergencies where none exist.”
Trump “took advantage” of a “loophole” in the NEA, said The Times, to declare “a crisis at the border, contrary to all evidence.”
The Times news desk, however, apparently failed to alert the editorial page on what the top story would be that day.
“Record Numbers Crossing to U.S., Deluging Agents” was the page-one headline. The Times quoted Kevin K. McAleenan, commissioner of Customs and Border Protection:
“The system is well beyond capacity, and remains at the breaking point. … This is … a border security and a humanitarian crisis.”
Reporter Caitlin Dickerson explained what is behind CPB’s alarm:
“The number of migrant families crossing the Southwest border has once again broken records, with unauthorized entries nearly double what they were a year ago.”
She continued,
“More than 76,000 migrants crossed the border without authorization in February, an 11-year high … newcomers continue to arrive, sometimes by the busload, at the rate of 2,200 a day.”
Only if one believes in open borders is this not an emergency, not a crisis. Consider the budgetary impact alone of this invasion.
The majority of migrants breaching the border are from Mexico and Central and South America. Most do not read, write or speak our English language, are not college graduates and arrive with few skills.
Almost all will enter the half of the U.S. population that consumes more in social benefits during their lifetime than they will ever pay in taxes.
With the U.S. debt over 100 percent of gross domestic product and the deficit running at nearly 5 percent of GDP, at full employment, the burden the migrant millions are imposing upon our social welfare state will one day collapse the system. For these folks are coming to a country where education K-12 is free and where, if the Democrats take over, pre-K though college will be free.
These folks will be eligible for city, county, state and federal programs that provide free or subsidized food, rent, housing and health care.
All were enacted for the benefit of U.S. citizens. Uninvited, the Third World is coming to partake of and enjoy them.
With 328 million people here now, approaching twice the number as in 1960, how many more can we take in before government sinks under the weight of its beneficiaries?
And there is a larger issue.
If, as appears probable, President Trump is not going to be able to build his wall and all the security measures taken in this century have proved inadequate to stanch the invasion of America, how does the invasion end?
Or is this the endless invasion, where the future is decided on our 1,900-mile border with Mexico and we, as the last superpower, are a pitiful, helpless giant too morally paralyzed to stop it?
The resolution and determination of Third World peoples to come to America, even if they have to break our laws to get in and stay, is proven.
And if there is no matching national will to halt the invasion, and no truly effective means that would be acceptable to our elites, the migrants are never going to stop coming. And why should they?
Politically, this invasion means the inevitable death of the national Republican Party, as peoples of color, who vote 70-90 percent Democratic in presidential elections, become the new majority of 21st-century America.
The bell will toll for the Grand Old Party when Texas votes like California in some presidential election. That is game, set, match.
What is remarkable is how our cultural elites are giddily embracing what most of the advanced world is recoiling from.
The Times that berates Trump for trying to secure the border with his wall constantly bewails the rise of ethnic nationalism, populism, tribalism and “illiberal democracies” in Europe. But the rising “isms” of the new Europe are driven by popular fear and loathing of the very future The Times cannot wait to embrace.
Japan’s population of 127 million, the second oldest on Earth, has begun to shrink. But there seems to be no desire in Japan to import millions of East or South Asians or Africans to replace the vanishing Japanese.
Does China look upon its diversity as its greatest strength?
Hardly. Beijing is repopulating Tibet with Han Chinese, and has set up “re-education camps” to de-program Uighur Muslims and Kazakhs in the west so they sever their birth attachments to their ethnicity and faith and convert into good communists.
In the U.S., the ball is now in Trump’s court.
If he cannot get a Democratic House to fund his wall and the forces now on the border are being overwhelmed by the migrants, as CPB reports, how does he propose to halt the invasion?
And if he does not stop it, who will? And what does failure mean for America’s future as one nation and one people?
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2XKZv00 Tyler Durden
With markets are headed for their worst week of the year, President Trump obviously would like to shift the narrative away from this morning’s surprisingly weak jobs report and China trade deal uncertainty, and back to the Democrats’ skullduggery.
So the master of distraction has pulled out another one of his legendary diversions: Following reports that Michael Cohen’s attorney asked Trump’s legal team about the possibility of a pardon after reportedly being instructed to do so by his client (which would suggest that Cohen lied to Congress last week when he said he had never asked for a pardon), President Trump tweeted Friday morning that he refused the “bad lawyer and fraudster” when he asked him for a pardon directly.
That. means, as Trump pointed out, that Cohen lied to Congress again.
Bad lawyer and fraudster Michael Cohen said under sworn testimony that he never asked for a Pardon. His lawyers totally contradicted him. He lied! Additionally, he directly asked me for a pardon. I said NO. He lied again! He also badly wanted to work at the White House. He lied!
Trump didn’t offer any details about when this request was made, or even when he spoke to Cohen last. As for why Trump waited until now, a week and a half after the hearing, for this big revelation – well, that’s also unclear.
But the tweet certainly grabbed our attention.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2EJkiZ3 Tyler Durden
