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Authored by Jim Quinn via The Burning Platform blog,

 

An alternative headline, which would show the true picture, would be:

Number of Black People Not in the Labor Force Reaches an All-Time High

As with the other BLS “data”, it is amazing how when you change the rules everything looks better.

The BLS reported black unemployment at 6.8% in December, an all-time low. That’s kind of funny, considering around 40% of working age black people are not working. These statistics do not include the 2 to 3 million black men sitting in prison.

 

It is easy to lie with statistics.

The 6.8% rate is the lowest, but a little comparison to 2007 reveals the lie. This was before the financial crisis and the need to spin the data in a positive manner.

• The total population of working age black people went up from 27.5 million to 32.5 million, a 5 million increase. The number of employed blacks went from 16.1 million to 18.8 million, a 2.7 million increase. A critical thinking person might question how their unemployment rate could drop from 8.3% to 6.8% in this scenario.
• As usual, the BLS is peddling with a straight face that 2.3 million black Americans have it so good they voluntarily decided to leave the labor force and live off their accumulated wealth. The absurdity of this contention is beyond the pale.
• In 2007 the black participation rate was 63.7%. Today it hovers near an all-time low of 62.1%. It has fallen from 62.3% since Trump ascended to the throne.
• In 2007 the black employment to population ratio was 58.4%. Today it sits at 57.9%. Does this appear to be a positive development?
• It gets even better when you look at 1999 data. The black participation rate was 65.8%, the employment to population ratio was 60.6%, and a much more accurate unemployment rate of 8% was being calculated.
• Using the flawed and manipulated BLS methodology, black unemployment would be 9% to 10% if the participation rate was at 2007 levels. Not exactly an all-time low. Using the 1999 methodology would show an unemployment rate of 12%, almost double the bullshit number being peddled today.

More black people working is a good thing. If Trump has the balls to keep de-funding giveaways to the free shit army, they will be forced to get jobs. That would be a good thing for the black community and the country.

But, lets not pretend black unemployment is currently at all-time lows. It’s a false narrative.

 

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With President Trump lashing out via twitter again this morning at the “Fake Book” – referring, obviously, to Michael Wolff’s “Fire And Fury” – as he departed Camp David, the news coverage of the book’s contents is set to continue into its second week.

I’ve had to put up with the Fake News from the first day I announced that I would be running for President. Now I have to put up with a Fake Book, written by a totally discredited author. Ronald Reagan had the same problem and handled it well. So will I!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 7, 2018

And as the president works the phones, demanding that his political allies help him bury “Sloppy Steve” in retaliation for his former chief strategist’s disloyalty, Bannon is now desperately trying to get back in the president’s good graces.

In recent days, The New York Times  and the Wall Street Journal have run stories about Bannon’s political allies and patrons distancing themselves from the Breitbart executive and former Trump campaign chairman. The billionaire Mercer family told the Times that it has retracted all financial backing for Bannon and that they’re weighing whether to fire Bannon from his role as executive chairman at Breitbart. They reportedly have stopped payment on his personal security detail.

Of course, the climax took place last week when Trump in a statement declared that Bannon had “lost his mind”, meanwhile the White House has maintained that Wolff had little access to the president and that most of the book’s claims are merely gossip.

So with Bannon’s political future in jeopardy, Axios  reports that the famously obstinate political operative is trying to get back on Trump’s good side by drafting an apology letter to be delivered to the president.

In his statement, Bannon praises Donald Trump Jr. (whom he repeatedly mocked and disparaged in Wolff’s book) and laments that his delay in responding may have distracted from the president’s recent “historic” successes. Instead of taking aim at Don Jr. and other Trump family members like son-in-law Jared Kushner, Bannon said his negative comments were aimed at Paul Manafort, who has already been indicted by the Mueller investigation.

“Donald Trump, Jr. is both a patriot and a good man. He has been relentless in his advocacy for his father and the agenda that has helped turn our country around.”

“My support is also unwavering for the president and his agenda — as I have shown daily in my national radio broadcasts, on the pages of Breitbart News and in speeches and appearances from Tokyo and Hong Kong to Arizona and Alabama.”

“President Trump was the only candidate that could have taken on and defeated the Clinton apparatus. I am the only person to date to conduct a global effort to preach the message of Trump and Trumpism; and remain ready to stand in the breech for this president’s efforts to make America great again.”

“My comments about the meeting with Russian nationals came from my life experiences as a Naval officer stationed aboard a destroyer whose main mission was to hunt Soviet submarines to my time at the Pentagon during the Reagan years when our focus was the defeat of ‘the evil empire’ and to making films about Reagan’s war against the Soviets and Hillary Clinton’s involvement in selling uranium to them.”

“My comments were aimed at Paul Manafort, a seasoned campaign professional with experience and knowledge of how the Russians operate. He should have known they are duplicitous, cunning and not our friends. To reiterate, those comments were not aimed at Don Jr.”

“Everything I have to say about the ridiculous nature of the Russian ‘collusion’ investigation I said on my 60 Minutes interview. There was no collusion and the investigation is a witch hunt.”

“I regret that my delay in responding to the inaccurate reporting regarding Don Jr has diverted attention from the president’s historical accomplishments in the first year of his presidency.”

In the book, Steve Bannon allegedly described Don Jr’s Trump Tower meeting with Russians as “treasonous and unpatriotic” and said he would “crack like an egg” under the pressure of the Russia investigation. Furthermore, Bannon said there’s “zero” chance Trump didn’t know about the meeting and that Trump Jr. probably walked them up to his father’s office.

So what happens next?

Axios  expects Trump Jr. to “graciously accept Bannon’s apology”, but we’re not so sure: Trump is reportedly still working the phones trying to outmaneuver his former employee, and the president who is far more famous for his use of the word “fired” than “re-hired”, certainly isn’t known for having a forgiving temperament.

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As excerpted from the latest Weekend Notes by Eric Peters, CIO of One River Asset Management

“It’s worse than you can imagine. An idiot surrounded by clowns,” wrote Gary Cohn to Lloyd Blankfein, in Michael Wolff’s “Fire and Fury.”

You can’t put the book down. Trump himself listened to it on TV, then hyped it with a cease and desist. Which boosted sales, lifting Q1 GDP to 10%, fueling a record stock rally, and boosting tax revenue enough to fund the $1.5trln tax cut for rich people.

Which is naturally the point. You see, this is not about remembering the forgotten man – baring a violent uprising, he’s forever forgotten. Nor is this about making America great. It’s about making America entertaining.

We’re already great, leading the world in nearly every field worth mentioning. This is about becoming less serious. Some laughs, higher ratings. Don’t believe me?

“My red button is bigger than your red button,” tweeted the commander in chief of mankind’s greatest nuclear arsenal to Little Rocket Man. What leader in world history openly joked about nuclear Armageddon? Case closed.

This is entertainment. It’s about cutting Palestinian and Pakistani aid. Why? Well, America is broke, we don’t care about either, and they both start with P, so why not?

Want to see something really entertaining? A Jerusalem embassy, an Iranian revolution. Pop some corn, turn on the tube. Let’s build a wall and pay for it ourselves. 

Wasn’t that the plan? Can’t quite remember, having too much fun. How about this state tax plan? Screw the Blue!

Oh wait, Democrats are legalizing weed, let’s lock ’em up, start a Red/Blue civil war.

Yeah, let’s have some fun. Kind of like Italy, long after Rome. It’s about Bunga Bunga. It’s about turning off America’s bright light on the hill.

And illustrating how little politics truly matter. How irrelevant politicians are. Once you recognize that we are no longer a serious nation.

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Authored by Sheriff David Clarke via Townhall.com,

When all 164 of Washington D.C. Frank W. Ballou Senior High School’s graduating seniors last year applied for and were accepted to college, the whole community – students, teachers, administrators, parents, and education reformers – had reason to celebrate the achievements of these obviously hard-working graduates. With a graduating class the school system considered “academically disadvantaged,” someone in the school district should have smelled a rat.

After all, 98 percent of Ballou’s 930 students were African-Americans, and two percent were Hispanic/Latino, according to data from the District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS) system. One hundred percent of them were considered “academically disadvantaged” by the system. Kids like this deserve the great opportunity that a high-quality, character-building education can help provide. There was a time when good educators, in fact, would tirelessly fight to give it to them. Those days are apparently over.

 

Sadly, this happy story collapsed in November, when an investigation by WAMU and NPR found that the much-ballyhooed Ballou graduated dozens of these students despite high rates of unexcused absences throughout their senior year. Half of them missed more than three months of school. One in five was absent more than present. When kids don’t show up for class, no learning can take place. And many continue to be perplexed about the growing achievement gap between black and Hispanic kids and their white counterparts. These truancy rates are a big part of the problem.

Some teachers, saying they felt pressure to pass failing students and get them to graduation, cooperated with the investigation. An internal e-mail shows that in April, just two months before the end of the school year, only 57 students were on track to graduate. Many of the others could scarcely read or write.

All of which means the graduation jubilation in June was not, in any way, justified. Put bluntly, Ballou’s administrators and some teachers cooked the books, used taxpayer money to commit fraud, and above all harmed poor black youths and their futures the most. Quite an indictment.

Perhaps even more alarmingly, NPR’s report led teachers from around the country to share similar situations in many other districts. This is a nationwide academic scandal in K-12 urban school districts, not to mention the serious disciplinary issues they have.

As I recall, when the multinational energy corporation Enron cooked the books and committed private-sector fraud that hurt mostly white-collar investors, people were actually indicted and in some cases sentenced to prison for crimes. Shareholders sued. That scandal ended with Enron closing its doors for good. And even that wasn’t considered sufficient accountability in the private sector: the fraud also essentially ended the life of Arthur Andersen, the distinguished accounting firm Enron had used.

I hope the same kind of attention will be paid to the Ballou scandal. So far, it’s being taken with apparent seriousness. In late November, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser and DCPS Chancellor Antwan Wilson announced two investigations arising out of the Ballou deceit. One will be conducted by D.C. State Superintendent of Education Hanseul Kang and is slated for completion later this month. Another will be led by two deputy DCPS chancellors who are examining the problem system-wide. I hold out little hope that anything more will come out of this than for the school district to attribute the problem to a lack of teacher training or a misunderstanding with no intent to deceive.

The D.C. Council’s education committee held a lengthy hearing on the matter in mid-December, and Ballou principal Yetunde Reeves has been reassigned, pending the outcome. That is likely the worst of what will happen to her, because the teaching establishment tends to punish only by reassignment.

Two things were left out of the story. First, where were the parents? They had to have some inkling that their son or daughter was not attending school regularly and certainly were not learning. They have a duty to see that their child shows up to school everyday in a state of readiness to learn. Second, what colleges accepted the kids who can’t read or write? They should be outed.

Whoever is responsible for perpetrating, encouraging, or tolerating this Ballou fraud should be held as accountable as those who were behind the Enron scandal. Having helped to deny real opportunity to mostly poor black kids who deserved it, the fraudsters should receive what every such crook deserves. Jail.

But that will require major change in America’s schools. Today, Enron’s cheating is a felony. Teachers’ cheating is job security.

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President Donald Trump’s Saturday morning tweet storm has been the dominant news story in the US over the weekend. And with the White House staff still in disarray following the publication of Michael Wolff’s “Fire and Fury” book, senior aide Stephen Miller took to the Sunday shows, appearing on “State of the Union” With Jake Tapper to rebut CNN’s questions about Trump’s fitness for office and some of the claims in Wolff’s book about former Chief Strategist Stephen Bannon’s role in the administration.

But the mood on camera quickly turned caustic, as Tapper accused Miller of cynically repeating talking points crafted to placate the president, while ignoring questions about the claims raised in Wolff’s book.

Miller responded by lashing out at CNN for inaccuracies of its coverage of the president, and accused it of failing to represent the perspective of the American voters who voted for Trump.

Tapper replied with more jokes about Miller performing for an audience of one.

“I’m sure he’s watching and he’s happy that you said that,” Tapper said

 

WATCH: Jake Tapper just abruptly cut off Steve Miller on CNN #SOTU after calling him obsequious and saying he “wasted enough of our viewers’ time.” Miller kept avoiding questions, repeating himself and belittling CNN’s coverage. Trump tweeted minutes later. http://pic.twitter.com/f6V3w3s7uV

— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) January 7, 2018

 

After Miller refused to answer questions about Bannon’s influence on the administration, Tapper cut off his guest and accused him of wasting his audience’s time.

“There’s one viewer you care about. You’re being obsequious and you’re being a factotum in order to please him – and I think you’re wasting my viewers time. Thank you Stephen.”

Tapper then abruptly launched into a teaser for an upcoming piece about Attorney General Jeff Sessions before the camera cut away.

* * *

For what it’s worth, Trump tweeted his approval after Miller’s performance, writing that “Jake Tapper of Fake News CNN just got destroyed in his interview with Stephen Miller of the Trump Administration. Watch the hatred and unfairness of this CNN flunky!”

 

Jake Tapper of Fake News CNN just got destroyed in his interview with Stephen Miller of the Trump Administration. Watch the hatred and unfairness of this CNN flunky!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 7, 2018

 

 

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In a move that will certainly not end well for investors, the New York Stock Exchange has asked the SEC to approve five ETFs including 2x leveraged and inverse flavors, linked to Bitcoin futures – which launched in December on the CME amd Cboe, according to a Thursday filing, which is in line with what we said mentioned in August, “we suspect a Bitcoin Futures ETF may actually occur before a Bitcoin ETF.” 

The five “derivative of derivative” funds are as follows: 

• Direxion Daily Bitcoin 1.25X Bull Shares
• Direxion Daily Bitcoin 1.5X Bull Shares
• Direxion Daily Bitcoin 2X Bull Shares
• Direxion Daily Bitcoin 1X Bear Shares
• Direxion Daily Bitcoin 2X Bear Shares

The target Bitcoin benchmark will be calculated as the last sale price published by the CME or CBOE on or before 11:00 a.m. EST, and “should not be expected to track the performance of the target bencvhmark for any period longer than one business day.” 

Additionally, while each Fund will seek daily correlation to the target benchmark, it should not be expected to track dollar for dollar the spot price of bitcoin because the Fund will invest in Bitcoin Futures Contracts rather than directly in bitcoin, and the spot price movements of bitcoin may not correspond directly to price movements of the Bitcoin Futures Contracts

This means that a 1 percent gain in the price of bitcoin futures would result in a gain of between 1.25% and 2% for the bulish funds, and a 1-2% loss on bear shares, although due to the theta associated with the inherent leverage, the securities will ultimately see their value evaporate over time. 

Of course, as the filing explicitly warns, “the funds are not intended for long-term investing.” Which means hang on to your hats as the world’s most volatile asset (besides electricity) becomes even more volatile.

While no official tickers have been proposed, some have already floated suggestions:

hope they get good ticker names like the other Direxion ETFs. I propose
1X Bull = $HODL
2X Bull = $MOON
2X Bear = $REKT

— ant123 (@antron_iii) January 7, 2018

Just like with the underlying futures, during periods of extreme volatility, the NYSE will halt trading in the ETFs pursuant to existing rules that govern listed securities, as well as “during the day in which interruption to the dissemination of the IFV or the value of the Bitcoin Futures Contract occurs. If the interruption to the dissemination of the IFV or the value of the Bitcoin Futures Contract persists past the trading day in which it occurred, the Exchange will halt trading.”

Assuming SEC approval, the five new ETFs will trade on the NYSE’s Arca, a secondary marketplace. The exchange said the products would “enhance competition among market participants, to the benefit of investors and the marketplace,” according to Business Insider. 

This filing by the NYSE is the latest indication that Wall Street (*cough* Jamie Dimon) is coming to grips with the fact that they can’t simply wish Bitcoin out of existence.

In June, the CTFC approved Bitcoin options, issuing a license to LedgerX allowing it to create the first swap-execution facility for the clearing and settlement of bitcoin options, a decision that will likely attract more traditional hedge funds and CTAs to trade crypto.

In early August, chatter over Bitcoin ETF approval heated up – with analyst Spencer Bogart putting the odds of Bitcoin ETF approval at 75% within 18 months. 

Things have changed. My odds of Bitcoin ETF approval within 18 months are WAY up.

Spencer Bogart (@CremeDeLaCrypto) August 2, 2017

In September, we reported that JP Morgan was buying Bitcoin ETFs in Europe on behalf of clients, using the Nasdaq’s Bitcoin “Tracker One” ETN launched in 2015 – despite CEO Jamie Dimon calling it “a fraud” for stupid people, such as his daughter. 

“It’s a fraud. It’s making stupid people, such as my daughter, feel like they’re geniuses. It’s going to get somebody killed. I’ll fire anyone who touches it.”

Then in November, French asset manager Tobam created the first bitcoin-linked mutual fund, “an unregulated Alternative Investment Fund,” described as “the first of its kind in Europe” to allow qualified and institutional investors wanting to gain an exposure to the cryptocurrency to benefit from TOBAMs top-of-the league research and IT systems to track the value of investing in the Bitcoin.

Silicon Valley has been gearing up for Bitcoin as well, with companies such as Twitter founder Jack Dorsey’s credit card processing venture, Square, announced that they were exploring adding Bitcoin  to their platform – causing the cryptocurrency to surge in response. 

…Weve found that [customers] are interested in using the Cash App to buy Bitcoin, the company said in a statement.

We’re exploring how Square can make this experience faster and easier, and have rolled out this feature to a small number of Cash App customers. We believe cryptocurrency can greatly impact the ability of individuals to participate in the global financial system and we’re excited to learn more here.

Last month, Craigslist also got in on the normalization of cryptocurrencies, adding the ability for sellers to advertise the fact that they accept digital currency:

In November, the world’s largest online seller of gold, Apmex, began accepting Bitcoin. From the company’s statement: 

For more than 15 years, APMEX has been an industry leader and along the way has adapted to the growing needs of our customer base. As bitcoin becomes more popular and widely accepted as payment, we are thrilled to welcome the use of this cryptocurrency for buying Gold, Silver and other Precious Metals by integrating BitPay into our website.

Given what appears to be an unstoppable attraction to the Blockchain, Wall Street’s eventual acceptance of cryptocurrencies was a foregone conclusion, despite even Jamie Dimon’s opinion. Meanwhile, traders are firing up their engines as the market cap of the cryptocurrency space hits new all time highs every single day.

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US and Russian aircraft have reported dozens of run-ins and close calls in the airspace around Syria and the Baltic States as tensions between President Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin have persisted despite the two leaders’ ostensibly amicable relationship. And in a bid to show the world the extent to which the relationship has deteriorated, US Air Forces Europe has released previously unseen video of two intercepts of Russian fighters that occurred last fall over the Baltic, ABC  reports.

The videos were released as part of an effort to highlight the US military’s participation in the NATO Air Policing mission in the Baltics. Naturally, reminding the US’s partners in NATO of the crucial role played by the US military fits with Trump’s rhetoric urging other NATO members to help offset some of the US’s economic burden. The US is among the NATO member countries that routinely rotate aircraft and personnel to the Baltic countries on short deployments.

These aircraft are meant to intercept Russian planes that fly into the airspace around the Baltic Sea without filing a flight plan, don’t communicate civilian air traffic controllers or don’t turn on the transponders that identify them as belonging to the Russian military.

“Such aircraft create unsafe environments including air-to-air mishaps or these actions may indicate hostile acts such as hijackings,” says a factsheet about the mission posted on a NATO website. “Air Policing responses seek to ensure the safety of the airspace and its users.”

For the last four months, the 493rd Fighter Squadron has been in Lithuania leading the NATO policing mission. It has conducted about 30 intercepts of Russian aircraft. The videos shows two intercepts of Russian fighters on Nov. 23 and Dec. 13 that occurred in the international airspace above the Baltic Sea. In each case two F-15’s intercepted two Russian Navy Su-30s.

A US Air Forces Europe press release said both intercepts were initiated “because the Russian aircraft did not broadcast the appropriate codes required by air traffic control and had no flight plan on file.”

Lt. Col. Cody Blake, the commander of the 493rd squadron says the intercepts “don’t happen on a day to day basis but it is a routine thing.” adding “they’re always conducted in a safe and professional manner.” Blake said the intercepts ensure the sovereignty of the airspace of Baltic countries.

US military and defense officials regularly state that the majority of air encounters with Russian aircraft are safe and professional, although it is the “unsafe and unprofessional” encounters that regularly make the news. In those cases it’s less about how close the aircraft come to each other than the flight behavior demonstrated by Russian pilots towards American aircraft, or vice versa of course.

The Air Force’s video release also includes behind the scenes footage shot in 2014 that shows pilots quickly putting on their gear on short notice to scramble for an intercept.

The Baltic States have become one of the key battleground regions in Russia’s push against NATO expansion and as the Kremlin seeks to expand its own sphere of influence to encompass former constituent states of the Soviet Union. In September, Russia and neighboring Belarus conducted the Zapad military exercises, dubbed “the biggest display of military since the cold war”. NATO has repeatedly criticized Russia for holding these exercises, which resemble a rehearsal for war with the treaty organization. Russia has also recently tested ICBMs which it says could evade anti-ballistic missile systems in Eastern Europe and South Korea.

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A man has died after he was injured in an explosion near a Stockholm subway station on Sunday that recalls the coordinated attacks in Brussels nearly two years ago.

According to local media reports, the explosion occurred late on Sunday morning outside the Vårby Gård station, injuring a man in his sixties and a 45-year-old woman. The man died at the hospital Sunday afternoon, local time.

“There was something on the ground that the man picked up, and then it exploded,” Sven-Erik Olsson of the Stockholm police told the TT news agency.

 

Local police say it’s unlikely that the dead man was deliberately targeted by the bombers, who left the explosives outside the station.

The Aftonbladet newspaper reported that the blast was from was a hand grenade, though police have yet to confirm whether this is true.

 

The subway station and the nearby square have since been closed to the public as police and bomb squads investigate the scene.

 

The Vårby Gård station is on the Red Line (Röda linjen) on the way to Norsberg in Stockholm’s south west.

 

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