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President Trump is unveiling his long-planned “Salute to America” tonight, a an Independence Day event which will include a presidential speech, a military parade, and what promises to be an impressive fireworks display donated by the country’s two largest pyrotechnics companies. 

And while we all know Trump loves nothing more than to take shots at political enemies when he’s got the stage, White House deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley told Fox News on Tuesday that “The president is not going to get political.”

The “Salute to America” will include flyovers by the US Navy’s Blue Angels and an Air Force One jet. Trump reportedly pushed for the inclusion of an F-35 stealth fighter and a Marine One helicopter, according to the Washington Post. 

The space immediately around the Lincoln Memorial has been reserved for VIPs and White House guests only, which will include members of the military, government employees, and friends and family of the administration. Up to a dozen top Pentagon officials will attend according to the Defense Department, which was provided 5,000 tickets according to The Hill. 

Watch live: 

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2XoNr2U Tyler Durden

Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTFplan.com,

One Florida Democrat is proving just how far government officials are willing to go to squash free speech. Frederica Wilson says lawmakers should make a law protecting themselves from jokes…and no, this is no joke.

On Tuesday, Wilson went with other members of Congress to tour a detention facility for illegal immigrants. During a press conference following the tour, Wilson made a rather interesting comment. Apparently, she believes anyone who “makes fun of members of Congress” on the Internet “should be prosecuted.”

“Those people who are online, making fun of members of Congress, are a disgrace and there is no need for anyone to think; that is unacceptable. We’re going to shut them down and work with whoever it is to shut them down, and they should be prosecuted.”

“You can not intimidate members of Congress, threaten members of Congress. It is against the law in this United States of America.” – Rep. Frederica Wilson (D-FL)

So much for free speech. The thought police are here and trying desperately to make things worse for us than they were for those living in the Soviet Union. The slaves can’t make fun of the masters without punishment.  This is the future of the democrat party. Moving to prosecute people for voicing their opinions and making jokes is dangerous and it’s a slippery slope. Not only that but it’s arbitrary. Who gets to decide what qualifies as “being made jun of?” Is calling Hillary’s pantsuit ugly now aginst a law and those who say so are going to spend time in jail?  Welcome to the new USSA, where democrats are actively attempting to kill free speech.

Democrat Rep. Frederica Wilson (FL) says that people who are “making fun of members of Congress” online “should be prosecuted” pic.twitter.com/f69KwOeJ0n

— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) July 2, 2019

Censorship is nothing new in the United States. Google and Facebook have been silencing dissent and pushing an agenda for quite some time now.  But this is different, as a person who thinks she has the right to rule over others (two days before Independence Day, mind you) says she has the right to punish you if you make fun of her.  That’s a lot of authority she’s claiming over millions of people.

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2Yu9bfi Tyler Durden

Authored by Nebojsa Malic,

In just a few short years, the woke crusade against “hate” in the US has gone from demanding the removal of Confederate flags and monuments to targeting George Washington, the national anthem and now even the American flag.

Seen in isolation, the decision by Nike to scrap their sneaker design featuring the original flag of the 13 colonies that declared independence from the British crown in 1776 – reportedly at the urging of ex-football player turned social justice commissar Colin Kaepernick – seems like a tempest in a teapot. Seen from another perspective, though, it’s an alarming example of a trend that threatens to unravel the few remaining threads that keep America together.

Kaepernick’s reported reasoning was that the flag is associated with slavery – which indeed existed in the thirteen colonies at the time of their revolt against King George III, and later in what became the United States of America. By that logic, however, any American flag is inappropriate, because even though slavery was abolished in 1865, discriminatory laws persisted until 1964 – over a decade after Hawaii’s statehood brought the number of stars on the flag to 50.

Tell that to the 54th Massachusetts, an all-Black regiment that fought in the Civil War and was memorialized in the movie ‘Glory’. For that matter, tell it to Barack Obama, who flew the original flag at his second inauguration, just six years ago!

That Betsy Ross flag sure fell out of fashion quickly. (Photo: 2nd Obama inaugural, 2013) pic.twitter.com/8xg8xCPLXb

— David Martosko (@dmartosko) July 3, 2019

Of course, everything is fine when Obama does it, from flying the Betsy Ross flag to running detention centers for illegal immigrants. They were magically transformed into a “symbol of hate” and “concentration camps” as soon as the Bad Orange Man – otherwise known as President Donald Trump – took over, however. 

Cue the liberal “explainer” site Vox, which ignored Kaepernick’s reported reasoning about the flag to argue that the real problem was its use “as a symbol of white supremacy” since 2008, as a “racist” reaction to Obama’s election. 

According to Vox, Philadelphia seamstress Betsy Ross had nothing to do with that flag anyway, the whole story was apocryphal and made up. Sure, and George Washington never chopped down a cherry tree, but he’s still revered as the Founding Father of America, right?

Republican politicians say Nike’s decision not to release a shoe with a Revolutionary War-era flag is an affront to history and Betsy Ross.

Here’s the thing: Ross’s involvement in designing any version of the American flag has been debunked by historians. https://t.co/DgSzA5DUrK

— Vox (@voxdotcom) July 3, 2019

Of course not. Earlier this week, the San Francisco, California school board decided to remove a ‘racist’ mural of Washington that showed slaves in chains and dead bodies of Native Americans. Ironically, the mural itself was a social justice statement of its time – it was painted in 1936 by George Arnautoff, a Communist artist who studied under Diego Rivera, and wanted to depict Washington without any of the patriotic romanticism. Today, however, being woke means going all Taliban on art from the past.

The US national anthem has not been safe from scrutiny, either. Back in 2017, the statue of Francis Scott Key – who wrote the lyrics to the “Star-spangled Banner” – was defaced in Baltimore, after the liberal publication Salon denounced the anthem and Key himself as racist. 

Incidentally, Kaepernick became famous – and a “moral authority,” according to Vox – when he began to kneel during the anthem at football games, saying he was protesting police violence against African-Americans. 

Would “God Bless America” be safe? Not a chance. In April, sports teams rushed to banish any mention of Kate Smith –  for whom Irving Berlin wrote the song and who performed it for years at sporting events – because several songs she recorded in the 1930s “contain offensive lyrics.” Smith’s statue outside the Philadelphia Flyers arena was covered with a black tarp and then removed entirely, just like her recording of “God Bless America” was erased from the repertoire.

This is the same arena, by the way, where the Democrats held their convention in 2016 and anointed Hillary Clinton as their candidate. Somehow, Smith’s songs from the 1930s didn’t bother anyone then.

Woke warriors have also targeted the Pledge of Allegiance. Written in 1892 by a socialist, Francis Bellamy, as part of a marketing ploy to sell American flags, the Pledge has since become a secular ritual, involving school children swearing (or not) to the flag “and the republic for which it stands.” 

So if the pledge is oppression, the flag is racist, George Washington is racist, Betsy Ross didn’t exist, the anthem is racist, “God Bless America” is racist by association… where does that leave the US? Is it at least the “greatest country in the world” as its politicians – of both parties – so often declare? Actually, no, according to the New York Times.

The myth of America as the greatest nation on earth is at best outdated and at worst, wildly inaccurate. If you look at data, the U.S. is really just O.K. pic.twitter.com/pFrWBH0Zfl

— New York Times Opinion (@nytopinion) July 2, 2019

It’s a myth “at best outdated and at worst, wildly inaccurate,” says the nation’s paper of record in an opinion video released on the eve of July 4 celebrations. 

So as you see, this is about more than just sneakers – or even vapid virtue-signaling. This is about people who insist on being the arbiters of morality, and “canceling” anyone who dares to think otherwise; who hate the Bad Orange Man so much that they are willing to destroy the country he presides over; who chant “no fascist USA” and “no USA at all” – but then blame Russia for “sowing discord,” in order to cover up their tracks.

Happy birthday, America, wherever you are.

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2xt84k1 Tyler Durden

A hilarious thread has emerged from the ‘resistance’ media, which is now suggesting that President Trump paused $300 million in new China tariffs last week to help out…

…a fireworks company. 

This latest MSM ‘gotcha’ was cooked up by ABC‘s Devin Dwyer and Stephanie Ebbs, who wrote: 

President Donald Trump‘s Fourth of July celebration will feature $750,000 of donated fireworks from an Ohio retailer who has lobbied the White House against expanded tariffs on Chinese imports.

And last week, the same day the donation was announced, the company — Phantom Fireworks of Youngstown, Ohio — got what it wanted: Trump decided to hold off on his threatened $300 billion in tariffs on Chinese goods, which include fireworks. –ABC

Dun dun dun… 

So, after weeks of Trump and US Trade Representative Lighthizer intimating that the US were interested in restarting trade talks, Trump pulls an olive branch out of his ass and suspends the next round of tariffs affecting a wide spectrum of industries – because a fireworks company that lobbied the White House also donated $750,000 for the Independence Day celebration in Washington D.C. 

According to APA data, nearly all fireworks sold in the US are made in China to the whopping tune of $1.3 billion annually. And while the fireworks industry wrote an open letter opposing the tariffs, the notion that one company bribed the Trump administration into altering a major geopolitical strategy strains credulity, to put it mildly.

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2XNZ1Jc Tyler Durden

Authored by Daniel Greenfield via Sultan Knish blog,

The 2020 Democrat primaries are underway with candidate after candidate promising a nation, not of free people, but of free things.

Free college, free health care and free everything else. Even for illegal aliens.

Of course there’s a price to pay.

You get free health care by giving up the freedom to pick your own health care. You get free education, but the indoctrination is the price.

The Fourth to many is Fireworks Day. Every country has its fireworks days and this is the day that this one chooses to light up the night sky. The day means nothing to them because though they are surrounded by free things, they aren’t free.

The difference between freedom and free things has been progressively erased so that many think that the American Revolution was fought because the British weren’t providing affordable health coverage to the colonies. If only they knew about the NHS, they would vote to go back.

All that the Crown really wanted was for the colonists to pay their “fair share”, a share that was determined thousands of miles away. All that the colonists wanted was the rights of Englishmen that they believed they were entitled to. After a great deal of bloodshed, the colonists won the right to be Americans instead—an odd series of consonants and vowels having to do with an Italian explorer but meaning free and limited government.

There is a big difference between a free country and a country of free things. You can have one or the other, but you can’t have both. A free country isn’t obsessed with free riders, only a country of free things obsesses with making everyone pay their fair share for the benefit of the people who want the free things. The rugged individualism of Colonial America has given way to stifling crowds, co-dependent on each other, lined shoulder to shoulder, clutching at each other’s wallets, crying, “Take from him and give to me.”

We are a nation overflowing with the right to things paid for with other people’s money. A nation where the government gives you food, housing and education; while Walmart gives you cheap products made in China, that used to be made in America, back when people were able to afford health care, housing and food without having to pick each other’s pockets.

The fireworks that shoot up in a wonderland of blue and red, silver and gold, are a faint echo of the real thing, the gunpowder that blasted back and forth between the lines of government troops, their Hessian mercenaries and the rebel colonists who chose to ride free, rather than bend their necks to the plans of an expanding empire. The faint smell of gunpowder and the dark shapes of the barges only mime the war that was fought here.

Did so many men risk their lives just to end up with a system that made the one they escaped seem positively libertarian by comparison? If they had known that they were going to end up with the NHS, death panels that will eventually adopt some version of the Liverpool Care Pathway’s euthanasia protocol, and a co-dependent system where everyone is looted for the greater good of the looters—they might have stayed home on their farms, sadly watching the fighting from a distance.

JFK’s famous line, “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country” was always a hollow lie. Half the country is expected to ask what their country can do for them, while the other half is expected to ask what they can do for their country. This simmering civil war is often pegged as a class war, but it isn’t about class. There are billionaires and paupers on both sides, and the divide cuts across the Middle Class, dividing those who derive their income from private business from those who receive it from government and government-subsidized employment.

The Fourth of July is Independence Day, but every other day is Co-Dependence Day, the days we celebrate our integration, our volunteerism and our compliance with a vast system which makes everyone dependent on the government and which makes the government dependent on everyone who still works for someone other than the government—including the freest of free riders, who work for themselves. Empires function by draining every drop from their possessions to cover their costs. The British Crown tried to drain America to pay down its debt, resulting in growing protests from the population and eventually a revolution. Now the Empire of Co-Dependency is draining its independent subjects for the benefit of its dependent subjects and the dependency infrastructure that employs its numberless bureaucrats who govern it all.

The American Revolution was not a struggle for another nation, one of many, but for a free nation. It was not split off to accommodate the national strivings of an ethnic group or their historical destiny. Its guiding idea, like its national holiday, was independence, but independence means very little unless it reaches the individual.

A nation where everyone is part of one great co-dependent community, a centrally planned marketplace that can only be balanced if everyone is forced to buy what they are told to buy, is not a free nation. It will not even be independent for long. The logic of co-dependence is to expand that dependency beyond the borders and make the region and then every part the world dependent on one another to balance out the numbers.

The new Crown is not a person, it is an idea. The throne at whose foot a formerly free people kneel is the golden seat of the welfare state. While the fireworks light up the sky, a counterrevolution undid the revolution. There is a new king and his face is on every magazine cover in the land. His bounty is a jagged bear trap that turns everyone into a ward of the state at their own expense.

As the last wave of fireworks die out, the shooting stars sinking to earth and vanishing into the darkness, the light of Independence Day fades and the crowds slowly trudge away from the brief spectacle, past the lines of police barricades, through narrow streets, past government buildings, back to their co-dependent lives in a co-dependent nation where the will of the people and the rights of the individual matter less than the latest proposal to solve the problems of their independence by making the country a more dependent place.

A few hundred years ago in these streets, men and women celebrated the end of tyranny, and in its darkest hour, lines of grim men marched along the waterfront up to the highest point on the island to mount a final defense. Sometimes the older buildings still wear their shadows on their brick walls and by the golden light of the fireworks you can almost see them, shadows moving in the darkness, their footsteps taking them north, a faint song on their lips, muskets in their hands, their lives lost and gained in defense of their freedom. 

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2JpP2k3 Tyler Durden

Democratic presidential candidates have “unworkable” and “unwise” immigration policies, according to Obama administration Homeland Security chief Jeh Johnson.

“That is tantamount to declaring publicly that we have open borders,” Johnson told the Washington Post on Tuesday, referring to a push to decriminalize illegal immigration. “That is unworkable, unwise and does not have the support of a majority of American people or the Congress, and if we had such a policy, instead of 100,000 apprehensions a month, it will be multiples of that.”

Johnson’s comments follow sharp criticism of the 2020 Democratic contenders, who all raised their hands during the second night of debates when asked if illegal immigrants should receive taxpayer-funded health insurance (let’s not forget that Obamacare penalized American citizens who weren’t covered). 

On Tuesday, Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) said he would “virtually eliminate immigration detention” by executive order. During last week’s debate, presidential candidate Julián Castro proposed decriminalizing illegal border crossings — a position other Democrats in the race rapidly adopted. –Washington Post

Meanwhile, Johnson on Friday pointed out that the “cages” housing detained migrants weren’t built by President Trump, noting “Chain link barriers, partitions, fences, cages, whatever you want to call them, were not invented on January 20, 2017, OK?” 

“But during that 72 hour period, when you have something that is a multiple, like four times of what you’re accustomed to in the existing infrastructure, you’ve got to find places quickly to put kids. You cant just dump 7-year-old kids on the streets of McAllen or El Paso. And so these facilities were erected …they put those chain link partitions up so you could segregate young women from young men, kids from adults, until they were either released or transferred to HHS.” (via Daily Caller). 

Obama-Biden DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson drops a truth bomb on today’s Democrats: “Chain link barriers, partitions, fences, cages, whatever you want to call them, were not invented on January 20, 2017, OK?” pic.twitter.com/uzyL8pzdtM

— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) July 1, 2019

 

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2xuE9Ib Tyler Durden

Blain’s Morning Porridge, submitted by Bill Blain of Shard Capital

“I know of no country in which there is so little independence of mind and real freedom of discussion as in America.”

Happy birthday America! This morning’s intro-quote is over 170 years old – and I could only use it on a day when all good Americans will be on holiday. Extra points to anyone who can name the author sans Google.

Interesting markets y’day. European bonds were off to the races, perceiving new ECB head Christine Legarde as QE lower-for-longer dove who will continue to ease, ease and ease like Draghi. Bunds at -0.40%! Even Italian 2-year notes dipped below zero percent as the EU dropped threats to take action against the deficit. Some day we shall shake our heads in disbelief at that price…

In the States, the Dow hit a new high, and Trump tweeted it as a personal triumph. He is not so stupid as to mistake the stock market as a proxy for economic health – but he is making idiots of the American people by telling them it is. To keep up the illusion, he’s nominated new names to the Fed likely to toe his dovish line. Much comment on the private networks y’day about Trump’s latest nominations to the board – Judy Shelton being a particularly intriguing choice as Fed critic and gold standard advocate. For the Fed to lose credibility doesn’t just need Powell to surrender – packing the board will be just as effective.

The bottom line is financial assets remain absolutely distorted by QE asset inflation. While its been great news for the market, the real economy remains deflated. That’s what Jerome Powell and Christine Lagarde should be thinking about as they play with the monetary policy toolbox.

Meanwhile, back in the real world, the chance of achieving real returns are getting more and more difficult. I had the same conversation with 3 different fund managers yesterday. They all went along the lines of:

Bill: “Hi! What’s up, what you looking at..?”

Fund Manger: “Well I’ve got to buy assets, but yields are too low, spreads are too tight and market so thin. Any ideas?”

B: “Excellent, we need to talk about some of my alternative investments- what about something you can fully due diligence with a proper risk/return profile 8% return and secured on solid performing aircraft assets used by decent credit airlines? Or, how about a 10% convertible based on monetising proven technology with a definite Green angle?”

FM: “Sound great, but are you reading the headlines? We can’t even think about buying illiquid assets these days…”

For the bulk of public funds, pension and insurance managers – the real money market – the doors on risk assets have been slammed shut. The well-publicised Illiquid asset problems at GAM, Woodford and  H2O has triggered all kinds of market over-reaction. All around the market Funds that have been carefully investing “patient capital” in smart alternative real assets are being told by their management to hold back from further investments, and pile into liquidity instead. Why? Because a couple of funds got it wrong? Because senior management fear regulatory backlash and client fury if they are caught making similar mistakes.

It doesn’t help that there is so much corporate dross around. Here in the UK the papers are full of stories of Funding Circle’s mounting financial woes, and comparing it to Lendy (which went bust after it’s naïve lending strategy imploded.) While the FT reports one successful student accommodation provider buying another from a major Canadian investor, it also carries the sad tale of another that funded itself from retail promising a 10% return on properties – the receivers are now chasing the individual investors for ground rents and service charges on empty student rooms. Don’t get me started about “mini-bonds” and London Capital and Finance – they give the bond market a bad name.

It’s a two-way street. There are bad investments and there are bad investors. If you are invested in risky buy higher yielding instruments – be very aware of the risks, which includes being locked in if the market turns. Don’t try to pretend otherwise. Also be aware that when markets lock – as they did for financials during the crisis – nearly every bond asset ended up performing as expect and repaid. Sure a few struggled, but generally investors that had invested well and diligently got their money and interest back when markets reopened.  

Unfortunately, it’s equally clear regulators are terribly excited about an opportunity to throw themselves into the market and chuck some more rules into the equation.  Their plan will no doubt be even stricter investment parameters dictating how liquid portfolios should be – without considering the consequences. Basically, regulators will regulate to protect investors from their decisions to invest.. You can’t regulate against stupidity – which is basically the root cause of 90% of fund collapses!  

I can’t comment on the reasons funds found themselves in trouble by investing in deeply illiquid assets. Perhaps it’s the attraction of an above market coupon, or the promise of stellar returns, or not seeing past an apparent guarantee. But every case of an investor buying an asset and then discovering it is not what they thought they were buying is an example of failed due diligence and bad decisions. It happens. I’ve seen some very clever investors buy some incredibly stupid things and walk away smarter people.  

All of which means investors are wracking their brains to work out how to generate any returns. If they buy liquidity – then they get effectively zero returns, and will be utterly reliant on Global Central  Banks continuing to ease rates to boost bond and stock prices… further hiking financial asset inflation. If you were smart enough to have bought Treasuries or European bonds back in January, you would now be sitting on huge gains as yield tightened.

But the brutal reality is no one is going to get their pension paid if European bonds carry negative yields and Treasuries just a smidge more. If you buy Treasuries, then you pretty much know they will remain a liquid investment in all circumstances. But, are regulators now going to classify corporate bonds and anything outside the FTSE or DOW as illiquid? Because that is what will happen when a market crunch comes. Markets will freeze, and just about every corporate bond on the planet will likely be “locked”.

Which will be the moment for smart money to post ridiculously low bids and start scooping bargains, secure in the knowledge the market is never as bad as it looks. It happened in 2007/9 and it will happen again.

Even better are the opportunities currently available in the alternatives space – since so many funds are now running scared on liquidity, it’s an opportunity for smart money to step in and buy. Although we advise clients alternatives will be highly illiquid, we are also talking to many accounts and generating secondary interest in even the most complex asset classes – which means there are buyers out there waiting to buy at the right price.

Now… what shall I do for the rest of this Independence Day? Who is up for lunch?

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/308iMsz Tyler Durden

Just as Californians were out celebrating July 4th with parades and were firing up grills for barbecues, the largest earthquake in three decades rocked the southern part of the state, registered at 6.4 magnitude. 

The quake lasted for about 30 seconds centered in the San Bernadino’s area’s Searles Valley, but also could be felt on Los Angeles, about 100 miles away. According to the LA Times: 

The 10:33 a.m. quake was centered in the Searles Valley, a remote area of San Bernardino County about 100 miles from Los Angeles.

The quake was the largest in Southern California since the 1994 6.6 Northridge quake, which killed dozens and caused billions of dollars in damage. But the Northridge quake hit in the center of a populated area, while Thursday’s quake was located far from the metropolitan Los Angeles area.

Local reports from the L.A. area suggest it was “slow and steady” and reports of major home damage have emerged within the direct vicinity of the earthquake’s center. 

The aftershocks which reached the LA metropolitan area were felt by people for an extended time but were not reported as violent or causing severe damage to homes.

WHOAAAAA THATS THE BIGGEST LA EARTHQUAKE IN A WHILE!!! pic.twitter.com/i5CDwT5nEm

— Kevín (@KevOnStage) July 4, 2019

However, the emergency lines were flooded. “We are very much aware of the significant earthquake that just occurred in Southern California. Please DO NOT call 9-1-1 unless there are injuries or other dangerous conditions. Don’t call for questions please,” the LAPD said in a statement.

Earthquake in Los Angeles.. about 20 seconds of continuous shaking in Studio City. #Didyoufeelit #EarthQuake #LA pic.twitter.com/UujjDf21md

— Gadi Schwartz (@GadiNBC) July 4, 2019

Local reports say over 30 aftershocks were felt across southern California in the aftermath. 

#Update: Just in – Incredible video alleged from the #earthquake in a liquor store in #Ridgecrest in #California, just a few miles from the epicentre… pic.twitter.com/gQvqd5J5Bl

— Sotiri Dimpinoudis (@sotiridi) July 4, 2019

According to CBS Los Angeles: 

The earthquake was followed by multiple aftershocks in the Ridgecrest and Searles Valley areas, measuring anywhere from magnitude 2.9 to 4.2.

The quake was felt all across the Southland, as far south as Orange County, according to USGS.

According to earthquake expert Dr. Lucy Jones, CalTech received a 48 second warning that the quake was coming, she said at a news conference in Pasadena.

Live Feed:

developing…

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2RRqDrA Tyler Durden