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Somehow, the Liberal Party has managed to minimize the blowback from Justin Trudeau’s ‘blackface’ scandal, and with two weeks to go until election day, is still well within the margin of error in most polls.

But there might be another scandal in the works. According to a report in the Buffalo Chronicle, the party is doing everything in its power to suppress a sex scandal involving Trudeau and the daughter of a wealthy Canadian businessman who Trudeau reportedly may have become involved with when she was a student at West Point Grey Academy, a prestigious private school where Trudeau worked as a substitute teacher in his 20s.

The Chronicle’s sources claim that political observers had been anticipating an expose in Saturday’s Globe and Mail. However, it appears Trudeau and his people have gotten to the woman, and are in the process of negotiating an NDA. The woman is being represented by counsel, and is reportedly being offered monetary compensation.

Trudeau worked as a substitute teacher at the private school from 1999 until an abrupt departure in June 2001. It has long been rumored that Trudeau had improper relations with female students while working at the school, though nothing has ever been substantiated.

The prime minister was briefly embroiled in a sexual harassment scandal after being accused of “groping” a reporter back in 2000. Trudeau swiftly acknowledged that he was wrong and apologized for groping the reporter.

But a sex scandal involving a potentially underage student would likely end his political career.

We’re sure we will find out what excuse the machines made up for this sudden spike in stocks…

But in the meantime, the levels are extremely technical for this ramp…

From pre-payrolls lows to Sunday night lows… now what?

Former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter could be forced to testify if the Senate moves to hold an impeachment trial of President Trump, according to the Washington Times, citing congressional aides “who questioned whether Democrats have thought through the full implications of their impeachment drive.” 

Not only could Mr. Biden be forced to be in D.C. at a critical moment in the presidential campaign, but so could many of his chief rivals — the half-dozen senators also vying for Democrats’ presidential nomination, impeachment experts said.

For that matter, if the House chooses to impeach Mr. Trump on charges stemming from the special counsel’s Russia investigation, aides said it could open the door to witnesses such as fired FBI Agent Peter Strzok or even major figures from the Obama administration.

Mr. Trump could even be present for the entire spectacle. Experts said the Senate would have a hard time refusing him if he demanded to confront the witnesses against him. –Washington Times

If the House votes to impeach – a step which Speaker Nancy Pelosi hasn’t committed to yet, then it would move to the Senate for a formal trial in which a 2/3 majority would be required to convict and formally remove President Trump. They would also get to force the whistleblowers accusing Trump of improper behavior to testify publicly, according to Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. 

Graham also suggested that House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff (D-CA) could become a witness in any impeachment trial for hiding his office’s interactions with one of the whistleblowers.

“I don’t think the Dems have thought this through at all,” one staffer told the Times – which notes that the GOP-dominated Senate would have “full control over what an impeachment trial would look like.”

According to George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley, a Senate trial would largely be defined by what articles the House passes. 

“If Trump is impeached on the Ukrainian call, the Bidens would be fair game, particularly Hunter,” said Turley. “While I do not agree that the evidence supports the allegation against Biden in pushing the termination of the prosecution, there is little question that the Hunter Biden deal smacks of profiteering on his father’s position.”

If House Democrats loop in Russiagate, Turley said things could get even crazier. 

Mr. Turley said that could give Mr. Trump a chance to raise all the lingering questions about decisions made by President Barack Obama’s Justice Department and the FBI. Several ongoing investigations are expected to find major fault with how investigators pursued Mr. Trump, beyond the already embarrassing text exchanges between Mr. Strzok and his paramour, former FBI lawyer Lisa Page.

He said that might explain Mrs. Pelosi’s reluctance to pull the impeachment trigger over the Russia accusations, and her insistence on trying to keep things focused on Ukraine.

“The optics of this Senate trial could be quite grotesque. You could have the Democrats beating Trump with the Ukraine call, you could have Trump beating the Democrats up over Biden,” he said. –Washington Times

According to Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), if the House does impeach Trump, the Senate will be forced to take the matter up, saying “The way that impeachment stops is a Senate majority with me as majority leader.” 

That said, the Examiner suggests that Senate GOP might “allow a spectacle to embarrass Democrats” with how things go. 

“Democrats could object, but they’re in the minority and there’s not a lot they can do about that,” said impeachment expert Michael Gerhardt, a constitutional law professor at the University of North Carolina and author of “Impeachment: What Everyone Needs to Know.”

“I expect it’ll be Sen. McConnell’s show. But the president might well say ‘I want to be there, I want to ask questions.” 

And of course, the best part according to Gerhardt: “It will be televised.” 

Don’t expect any good news next week when the IMF holds its annual meeting and releases its latest World Economic Outlook report due on October 15.

According to the IMF’s new head, Bulgarian Kristalina Georgieva, the monetary fund will again cut its growth forecast for both 2019 and 2020; as a reminder back in July, the IMF again cut its projection for 2019 GDP growth to 3.2% this year and 3.5% next year, its fourth downgrade since last October, and the lowest since the financial crisis amid ever-escalating trade war. In fact, according to Georgieva, who apparently was brought in to take the blame for Lagarde’s disastrous legacy, global trade growth “is close to a standstill”, which last time we checked was 0%.

It means we are about about to have a new entry in the “worst since Lehman” category.

By now it is no secret to anyone that everyone – global institutions, economists and investors – have blamed the U.S.-China tariff war as the main reason for slowing global growth (and catalyst behind upcoming QE). The trade tensions have partly caused manufacturing to tumble and weakened investment, creating a “serious risk” of spillover to other areas of the economy like services and consumption, Georgieva said on Tuesday according to Bloomberg.

“The global economy is now in a synchronized slowdown,” she said, noting that the fund estimates that 90% of of the world is seeing slower growth. This is a huge change to the global economy from two years ago, when growth was accelerating across three-quarters of the globe in a synchronized upswing.

To be sure, the IMF – as usual – is among the last to recognize what was already obvious to its peers. The OECD cuts its own forecast last month; on Monday, World Bank President David Malpass said that the lender is also preparing to downgrade its assessment from a projection of 2.6% it made in June.

As one would expect, the IMF’s admission of the sad state of affairs is not without a hidden motive,  in this case getting Germany to issue more debt and prop up Europe’s flailing economy.

A deeper slowdown would require more fiscal support, Georgieva said. “If the global economy slows more sharply than expected, a coordinated fiscal response may be needed,” she said. “We are not there” but it’s better to be too early with it than late.

“Monetary and financial policies cannot do the job alone. Fiscal policy must play a central role,” she said.

Of course, the IMF was quick to blame Trump and Brexit for the slowdown: “Uncertainty — driven by trade but also by Brexit, and geopolitical tensions — is holding back economic potential,” Georgieva said. Not only that, but the economic rifts could “last a generation” with possible shifts such as broken supply changes and siloed trade.

What it failed to mention is that the real reason for the economic slowdown has nothing to do with Trump however, and everything to do with China’s untenable debt load and Beijing’s resulting inability to boost the credit impulse which on every prior occasions succeeded in pushing the world away from the verge of recession. Well, not this time.

We will spare readers the obvious commentary of what would happen to the world’s ability to generate another credit impulse if the developed economies actually followed the IMF’s advice, and issue even more debt.

As we predicted in the wake of the White House’s late Sunday announcement that “Turkey will soon be moving forward with its long-planned operation into Northern Syria” and that American troops will withdraw from the “immediate area” — this will ensure that the United States’ Kurdish proxies in Syria, now in Erdogan’s cross hairs, will quickly do a deal with “the devil we know” — that is, come under the protection of Assad and the Syrian Army.

On Monday the commander of the US trained and armed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), Mazlum Abdi, indicated just that in a bombshell statement. “We are considering a partnership with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, with the aim of fighting Turkish forces,” he said.

“This is one of the options we have on the table,” the top SDF commander added. In the statement he further called on the American people to put pressure on President Donald Trump to stay the course in northeast Syria. 

No doubt this is sure to get the immediate attention of the top Pentagon brass, given current and former defense officials (in both the Obama and Trump administrations) have routinely said that among US goals in Syria is ensuring Syria’s Kurdish militias do not seek rapprochement with Damascus. 

In most places were the Kurdish YPG/SDF are dominant, they simply inherited control of territory which the Syrian Army had in 2013 and 2014 rapidly withdrew from amid an intense al-Qaeda/ISIS onslaught. Thus throughout the war in many local areas along the Euphrates Kurdish and pro-Assad forces have entered into pragmatic and tacit cooperation, despite being official “enemies” based on Kurdish-US partnership. 

Of the possible looming US troops withdrawal, or at least a withdraw from crucial border posts in the north, Abdi said in an interview with NBC News: “Frankly, this makes us disappointed. The decision harms Syrian trust in the United States and the credibility of the United States.”

The Commander-in-Chief of the Syrian Democratic Armed Forces, Mazlum Abdi: “We are considering a partnership with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, with the aim of fighting Turkish forces.”#Twitterkurds #Rojava #SDF #SAA #Turkey #TSK pic.twitter.com/gARn4Rdom0

— Rojava Network (@RojavaNetwork) October 8, 2019

The SDF commander also addressed the question of the thousands of ISIS prisoners currently in Kurdish SDF custody: “Monitoring ISIS prisoners imprisoned in Syria is a ‘second priority’ now that the United States has paved the way for a Turkish attack that is likely to target our forces along the border,” Abdi explained.

Concerning talks with Damascus, which have actually been quietly occurring off and on for months (possibly years), the Syrian Kurdish parties are no longer negotiating from a position of strength, and will have little choice but the cede much of their prior autonomy to the Syrian state once protective US forces finally exit.

A separate top Syrian Kurdish official Badran Jia Kurd, told Reuters:

“If America vacates the area and especially the border area for certain we, as a self administration and as the SDF, will be forced to study all the available options.”

“At that time we may hold talks with Damascus or the Russian side to fill the void or block the Turkish attack, so this may develop and there could be meetings and contacts in case of a vacuum,” he added.

Of course, the future fate of Syria’s key oil and gas fields — the vast majority of which are located precisely in current Syrian Kurdish/US-backed SDF zones — will be an interesting question. Damascus may ultimately lose a major chunk of its sovereign territory along the northern border to the Turks for a long time to come, but may regain its domestic energy resources once again. 

But if past Trump administration unpredictability on Syria is any sign, the entire situation could be reversed just as quickly as this week’s events have been initiated.