Tag: finance

By our count it’s the sixth ‘mystery’ explosion in mere weeks. In the early morning hours of Tuesday two Iranians were killed and three injured in a blast at a factory south of Tehran, IRNA reported.

Like with other recent explosions and fires, including one at Iran’s underground nuclear development Natanz facility, official statements downplayed this latest blast as an accident. “Human error was the cause of the blast in a factory… Two people were killed and three others were injured,” said a local official.   

“The explosion that was caused by some workers’ negligent handling of oxygen tanks…. was so powerful that the walls of a factory nearby were also totally destroyed,” he added.

What is a mystery, however, is the latest spate of “random” explosions and fires at remote Iranian countryside areas and industrial zones known for being weapons and nuclear development sites, as we previously detailed.

Meanwhile, there’s been more and more scrutiny placed on Israel and its main foreign intelligence service Mossad: 

Israel was the culprit behind a fire that caused significant damage to an Iranian uranium enrichment facility, a Middle Eastern intelligence official has claimed.

The unnamed source told The New York Times that a powerful bomb caused the explosion at the Natanz nuclear facility last week.

Declared an accident by Iranian officials, the blast led to significant damage to the facility and could slow the production of centrifuges used to enrich uranium, according to the country’s atomic energy spokesperson.

Several mysterious fires and explosions have broken out at sites in Iran in recent weeks, including explosions at a weapons depot and medical facility, along with a fire at a power station.

The incidents are now coming with such frequency that the question of foreign sabotage is impossible to ignore, also considering Israeli leaders have over the past year vowed they’ll do anything to ensure the Islamic Republic can’t possibly develop a nuke.

“The incidents have sparked speculation that Iran is under attack, with some pointing to arch-foe Israel as the culprit behind the supposed attacks,” the New Arab report continues. Iran has said it will respond if it’s confirmed that Israel or the US are behind it, including via cyber-attacks. “Speaking on condition of anonymity, the Middle Eastern intelligence official told The New York Times that Israel was behind the Natanz blast but not any of the other incident.”

Asia Times has asked: are we witnessing the “the son of Stuxnet?”

Five recent explosions in Iran may have been caused by computer viruses similar to the Stuxnet virus that disabled Iranian centrifuges in 2010.

Two of the blasts took place at power plants, one at a missile research, development and production site, one at a new uranium enrichment centrifuge center, and the last (if it can be considered part of the attacks) in downtown Tehran at a medical facility that could have been a cover for nuclear operations such as a hidden command center.

All of this has prompted a response out of Israel, with Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz on Sunday issuing a partial and somewhat ambiguous denial.

“Not every incident that transpires in Iran necessarily has something to do with us… All those systems are complex, they have very high safety constraints and I’m not sure they always know how to maintain them,” he told Army Radio.

Iran suspects the US and Israel of trying to disrupt its nuke program. https://t.co/G2ueIH4JnV

— CNSNews (@cnsnews) July 6, 2020

“Everyone can be suspicious of us all the time,” Gantz said. “But not every incident that happens in Iran necessarily has something to do with us.”

Recall that just a year ago it was a long hot summer of ‘tanker wars’. And now it seems a sabotage war on Iranian soil, targeting weapons and nuclear development, despite Tehran claiming its nuclear facilities are for peaceful domestic energy purposes. 

Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk,

A Chinese quant-trading firm made 108% this year by selling every stock bought the previous day.

As long as the Fed is willing to promote gambling, guess what? People will gamble. 

Please consider Quant Fund Gains 108% by Dumping China Stocks a Day After Buying

Zhang Ruiqi, the 34-year-old chairman of Shenzhen Qianhai United Fortune Fund Management Co., screens about a dozen mainland-listed stocks every day for their turnover, momentum and volatility. He then does it all over again the following day. That strategy, which he calls the “all-in-all-out” method, helped his flagship $5 million fund gain 108% this year through June, according to data provider Simuwang.com.

“Our strategy allows us to make money from stocks that have the strongest market sentiment on a day-to-day basis — and that has turned out to be overwhelmingly successful so far this year,” said Zhang in a phone interview from his office in Shenzhen.

“As long as the trading volume remains above 400 billion yuan per day, this strategy will still be effective,” said Zhang, noting the upcoming revamp of the Shanghai Composite Index and ChiNext market reforms. “Volumes are unlikely to drop.”

Money’s Cheap, Why Not Gamble?

Hedge funds typically take 20% of the profits. 

If they can make 100% profits with Other People’s Money (OPM) everyone is happy. If and when these strategies blow up the founders still make their 20%. 

Attract $2 billion with these short term returns and the hedge fund just made $400 million off of OPM with no risk. 

Not Just Quant Funds

I have a friend who is now day trading options, and short term ones at that. He does not know what a straddle is or even what a limit order is. 

Day trading is inaccurate because the size of his account, under $25K, restricts him to a limited number of trades. 

So far, he has done OK with long bets on Apple and Tesla. But how long can this last?

I had a long talk with him this past weekend. He is out of a job and out of money.

No Other Choice

“I have no other choice he told me“. 

He wants to come by this week for me to explain more about options.

This is what the Fed has promoted. 

Capital expenditures, generally known as CapEx, are funds used to acquire, upgrade, and maintain physical assets. We can learn a lot about a company and how it is investing in existing and new fixed assets to sustain or expand its business. More importantly, CapEx is the critical driver of growth in the future.

With that being said, companies globally are slashing capital spending this year as the virus-induced recession has forced management teams to rein in costs. 

Refinitiv data (of nearly 4,000 firms) estimates 2020’s CapEx cut will be on average 12%, much larger than the 11.3% decline during the global financial crisis in 2008-09, or the largest in over a decade. 

“For many firms the near-death experience of the lockdown – where cash flows have simply dried up – will have a long-run effect on their willingness to take risks and invest,” said Keith Wade, the top economist at British asset manager Schroders.

Wade explains weaker business investments are typically associated with slower economic recovery, one that may not resemble Wall Street’s “V” but could look more like an “L” or “U.” 

“Weaker investment will also hamper a recovery in productivity and reinforce the outcome of slower GDP growth,” he said. 

By sector, energy (-25%), consumer discretionary (-23%) and real estate (-20%) had the largest capital expenditure cuts. 

CapEx cut by sector

Refinitiv showed Exxon Mobil and BP Plc, two major multinational oil and gas companies, have already told investors CapEx will be slashed by at least 20% this year.

This all suggests the market is widely misinterpreting the shape of the economic recovery – as it appears a steep reduction in global CapEx could result in a 2H bounce that underwhelms, leading to levels of GDP and earnings in 2021 to be lower than hoped for. 

CapEx serves as a guide, or better yet, a warning that US corporate profits will continue to fall. 

As to what happens next, we’ll let Gary Shilling, the president of A. Gary Shilling & Co., sum up his recent thoughts stated on CNBC, of where he believes Wall Street has the shape of the recovery entirely wrong and what is ahead could be a 1930-style decline in markets. 

CapEx weakness is suggesting the global recovery won’t resemble a “V” this year.

Another month, another double-record auction.

With the US ramping up coupon issuance to fund trillions and trillions in helicopter money deficits, moments ago the US Treasury sold a record $46 billion in 3Y treasuries at a new record low yield of just 0.190%, 9bps below last month’s 0.28% if fractionally tailing the 0.189% When Issued.

The bid to cover came at 2.44, slightly better than the 6-auction average of 2.429 if below June’s 2.55.

The internals were solid with Indirects taking down 54.3%, also above the recent average of 51.1, and above last month’s 53.3, and with Directs taking down 13.3%, or roughly their usual fare of 11.7%, Dealers were left holding 32.4%, slightly below the recent average of 37.2.

Overall, an remarkable auction in just how easy it was for the Treasury to sell another record amount of short-term debt despite a virtually non-existant yield, and in fact, if anything the only thing remarkable is that with yields rapidly approaching negative rates stocks remain so well bid even as the bond market is saying the odds of inflation have never been higher.

Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

A Black Lives Matter-supporting teacher took to Twitter to assert that 2+2 only = 4 because of “western imperialism.”

Yes, really.

Brittany Marshall’s tweet went viral after she claimed during the course of a discussion about racism, “Nope the idea of 2 + 2 equaling 4 is cultural and because of western imperialism/colonization, we think of it as the only way of knowing.”

Marshall, who includes her pronouns in her bio, lists her occupation as “teacher, scholar, social justice change agent” and apparently is studying for a PhD at Rutgers.

People like this are a reason why there’s a need for written instructions on shampoo bottles.

Also, she’s a teacher. pic.twitter.com/yDbi3mU9PH

— Garbage Human (@GarbyJooman2020) July 7, 2020

Her bizarre statement is yet another example of Intersectionality, the pseudo-intellectual garbage feminist notion taught in all major universities that racism and sexism are prevalent throughout all areas of society and are intertwined.

In this case, Marshall appears to be arguing that maths itself is racist, an argument that has been made by numerous social justice warriors down the years, some of whom question why ‘Western Math’ is in common use and not other methods such as the way Aborigines count (maybe because we’re western and not Aborigine).

The notion that 2+2 might not = 4 is of course lifted from George Orwell’s 1984, when the one party state was able to torture dissidents into believing it could equal 5.

Respondents to the tweet expressed their varied opinions.

“Unfortunately it’s nothing new,” remarked one. “There are videos circulating showing black students promoting to stop science because it represents white supremacy. They would prefer magic and voodoo.”

“Scary thing is, this person is a teacher probably preaching the same nonsense to our children,” said another.

*  *  *

My voice is being silenced by free speech-hating Silicon Valley behemoths who want me disappeared forever. It is CRUCIAL that you support me. Please sign up for the free newsletter here. Donate to me on SubscribeStar here. Support my sponsor – Turbo Force – a supercharged boost of clean energy without the comedown.

One week ago, when looking at the growing divergence between the number of new coronavirus cases in the US and shrinking number of fatalities, we referred to Nordea’s strategist Andreas Steno Larsen, who observed that “we are entering “crunch time” on fatalities since they should start to rise in early July given the lead/lag structure versus new cases.”

As Larsen further predicted, “if fatalities don’t spike early in July, then people will conclude that it’s probably spreading amongst a part of the population that is not as sensitive, or that it is a resulted of increased testing or that the virus has become less deadly as we move into the summer months. Governors in Texas, California and Florida seem to have concluded that the below correlation holds, but the jury is still out.”

His conclusion was that “the next 6-10 days will be crucial.”

Well, one week later, we decided to follow up on the current status and… there is still no spike in fatalities at either the federal level…

​​

… or even state level as can be seen in the Florida cases vs deaths chart below:

​​

Meanwhile, as cases appear to be plateauing in several states, not only are deaths not inflecting higher but are at the lowest level since March.

So were most experts wrong that the surge in cases would also lead to a spike in deaths?

While we are debating that question, here’s another one: back in late March and early April, consensus emerged that unless the first coronavirus wave is contained, it would result in an even more acute and deadly second wave. Why? Because both professional and armchair epidemiologists were using the Spanish flu as a case study as shown in the following chart from JPMorgan.

Now, according to Deutsche Bank, it appears that this comparison to the 1918 Spanish Flu may have also been terribly wrong.

As DB’s Jim Reid writes, one paper that influenced market thinking in the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic looked at the effect of non-pharmaceutical interventions like social distancing and school closures during the Spanish flu (link here). The paper found that the US cities that implemented these measures tended to have better economic outcomes over the medium term. This offered historical support to the argument that there wasn’t such a big trade-off between economic activity and public health, because you needed to suppress the virus to enable consumers to be more confident and for businesses to operate as normal.

However, a major difference between Spanish flu and Covid-19 is the age distribution of fatalities, as shown in the chart below.

For Covid-19, the elderly have been overwhelmingly the worst hit. For the Spanish flu of 1918, the young working-age population were severely affected too. In fact, the death rate from pneumonia and influenza that year among 25-34 year olds in the United States was more than 50% higher than that for 65-74 year olds, “a remarkable difference to Covid-19.”

This, as the strategist then notes, therefore begs the question of how history will judge the lockdown response to Covid-19, given its much more limited impact on workers in the economy. In short, we have an interesting situation at the moment, where rapidly rising cases in the US are slowing reopenings (negative) but the death rate is falling (positive).

Here are some further observations conducted by another DB strategist, Francis Yared, which suggest that the second wave is far less serious than the media is making it out to be.

Conclusion: The overall mortality rate as measured by weekly deaths/ weekly new cases (2 weeks lead) is about 1/3rd of the level observed in the second half of April

Analysis: We calculate (1) the hospitalization rate as currently hospitalized (weekly average) / new cases (weekly sum, 1 week lead) and (2) the hospitalization mortality rate as Deaths (weekly sum) /currently hospitalized (weekly average, 1 week lead). The latter is a normalization of last week’s calculation from daily deaths to weekly deaths. We focus on weekly averages and weekly lags as the time spent in hospital is about 1 week and to smooth the volatility due to week-end effects.

Results:

• The hospitalization rate has declined to ~20% by 10-15pp since the second half of April. This may be due to (a) increased testing and better quality of the tests capturing milder cases and (b) self-selection of the population taking risks (e.g. average age of new cases declining)
• The hospitalization mortality rate halved to ~10% (last week’s results scaled from daily to weekly deaths) since the second half of April.
• The overall mortality rate (deaths over lagged new cases) is the product of the previous two calculations. Since the second half of April, it has declined by about 2/3rd from 6.5% to 2%.
• For the three largest states with hospitalization data CA/NY/TX, the respective current levels are as follows. Hospitalization rate: 18.1%, 18.7%, 19.4%. Hospitalization mortality rate: 7.8%, 6.9%, 5.2%. Overall mortality rate: 1.7%, 1.5%, 1.0%.

Meanwhile daily tests in the US hit a new all time high every single day.

As DB concludes, “this may eventually give us more faith that we are now better at living with the virus.”

Authored by Lance Roberts via RealInvestmentAdvice.com,

Over the last quarter, the “Death of Fundamentals” has become apparent as investors ignore earnings to chase market momentum. However, throughout history, such large divergences between fundamentals and price have resulted in low future returns.

This time is unlikely to be different.

Biggest Decline In Earnings…Ever

As discussed previously: 

“During the second quarter, analysts lowered earnings estimates for companies in the S&P 500 for the quarter. The Q2 bottom-up EPS estimate (which is an aggregation of the median Q2 EPS estimates for all the companies in the index,) declined by 37.0% (to $23.25 from $36.93) during this period. How significant is a 37.0% decrease in the bottom-up EPS estimate during a quarter? How does this decrease compare to recent quarters?

During the past five years (20 quarters), the average decline in the bottom-up EPS estimate has been 3.2%. Over the past ten years, (40 quarters), the average decline in the bottom-up EPS estimate has been 3.4%. During the past fifteen years, (60 quarters), the average decline in the bottom-up EPS estimate has been 4.6%. Thus, the decline in the bottom-up EPS estimate recorded during the second quarter was much larger than the 5-year average, the 10-year average, and the 15-year average. 

In fact, this marked the largest decline in the quarterly EPS estimate during a quarter since FactSet began tracking this data in Q1 2002. The previous record was -34.3%, which occurred in Q4 2008.” – FactSet

Wishing For A Hockey Stick

The chart above is telling. Investors continue to bet on a “hockey stick” recovery in earnings to justify overpaying for stocks with the highest price momentum. As discussed in “The Bullish Test Comes:” 

“Such makes the mantra of using 24-month estimates to justify paying exceedingly high valuations today, even riskier.”

Importantly, earnings estimates did not decline due to just the onset of the “pandemic.” Earnings began to decline in earnest in late 2018 as economic growth had started to weaken. 

As we warned in mid-2019, the inversion of the yield curve had also set the stage for an economic contraction:

“Despite commentary to the contrary, the yield curve is a ‘leading indicator’ of what is happening in the economy currently, as opposed to economic data, which is ‘lagging’ and subject to massive revisions.”

All that was needed was an unexpected, exogenous catalyst to trigger the actual event. 

The important point is that investors have been overpaying for earnings by more than 2.5x since the peak in earnings in 2018. Slower economic and wage growth and a widening of the “wealth gap,” has stalled revenue growth. Such has forced companies to engage in a wide variety of accounting “gimmickry” to manufacture earnings to support higher asset prices.

Overpaying For Value

Since 2009, investors have bid up stock prices by more than 368%. Yet, cumulative operating earnings and revenue have only grown by 93% and 50%, respectively.

Even if the expected “hockey stick recovery” in earnings occurs, earnings will only return to the same level as they were in 2018.

If we assume analysts are correct, and historically they overly estimate by 33%, investors have vastly overpaid for earnings. Such has historically guaranteed investors disappointing investment outcomes.

However, as we enter “earnings season,” we are again seeing analysts and companies adjusting their numbers to win the “beat the estimate” game. Such is why I call it “Millennial Soccer.” Earnings season is now a “game” where no one keeps score, the media cheers, and everyone gets a “participation trophy” just to show up.

Wall Street Analysis Isn’t For You

When it comes to earnings season, the media will be complicit in pushing Wall Street’s recommendations. However, those “buy, sell and hold” recommendations aren’t for you. Those recommendations are the “bait” to camouflage the “hook.”

I will let you in on a “dirty little secret.” 

Wall Street doesn’t care about you or your money. Such is because their profits don’t come from servicing “Mom and Pop” retail clients trying to save their way into retirement. Wall Street is not “invested” along with you, but “uses you” to generate income for their “real” clients.

Such is why “buy and hold” investment strategies are so widely promoted. As long as your dollars are invested, the mutual funds, stocks, ETF’s, etc, the Wall Street firms collect their fees. These strategies are certainly in their best interest – just not necessarily yours.

However, those retail management fees are a “rounding error” compared to the really big money.

Wall Street’s real clients are multi-million and billion-dollar investment banking transactions. These deals include public offerings, mergers, acquisitions, and debt offerings, which generate hundreds of millions to billions of dollars in fees for Wall Street each year.

You know, companies like Uber, Lyft, Snapchat, Tesla, and Shopify.

Buy, Sell or Hold

For Wall Street firms to “win” that very lucrative business, they must cater to their prospective clients. Not surprisingly, it is difficult for a firm to gain investment banking business from a company with a “sell” rating. 

Such is why “buy” ratings are so prevalent versus “hold” or “sell,” as it keeps the client happy. I have compiled a chart of 4644 rated stocks ranked by the number of “Buy”, “Hold” or “Sell” recommendations.

There are just 2.97% of all stocks with a “sell” rating.

Do you believe that out of 4644 rated companies, only 138 should be “sold?”

You shouldn’t.

But for Wall Street, a “sell” rating is not good for business.

The conflict doesn’t end just at Wall Street’s pocketbook. Companies depend on their stock prices rising as it is a huge part of executive compensation packages.

Corporations apply pressure on Wall Street firms, and analysts, to ensure positive research reports with the threat they will take their business to a “friendlier” firm. The goal of boosting share prices for compensation is also why roughly 40% of corporate earnings reports are “fudged” to produce better outcomes.

As the Associated Press exposed in “Experts Worry That Phony Numbers Are Misleading Investors:”

“Those record profits that companies are reporting may not be all they’re cracked up to be.

As the stock market climbs ever higher, professional investors are warning that companies are presenting misleading versions of their results that ignore a wide variety of normal costs of running a business to make it seem like they’re doing better than they really are.

What’s worse, the financial analysts who are supposed to fight corporate spin are often playing along. Instead of challenging the companies, they’re largely passing along the rosy numbers in reports recommending stocks to investors.“

You Have To Do Your Own Homework

So, what can you do? 

You have two choices. 

You can do your homework using a research tool like “RIAPro.Net” (Try Risk-Free for 30-days) where you can screen for fundamental value.

Or, you can hire an independent, fee-only advisor who knows how to do the work for you.

Let me show you the difference between Wall Street’s “buy, sell, hold” analysis versus how we break the universe of stocks we screen at RIA Advisors.

As an independent money manager, I use valuation analysis to determine what equities should be bought, sold or held in client’s portfolios. While there are many valuation measures, two of my favorites are Price-to-Sales and the Piotroski f-score. For this example, I sorted the entire Zacks Research equity universe of 5028 issues. I ranked them by just these two measures.

See the difference. Not surprisingly, there are far fewer “buy” rated, and far more “sell” rated, companies than what is suggested by Wall Street analysts.

Price-To-Sales Sends A Warning

Here is something even more alarming.

Just after the “dot.com” bust, I wrote a valuation article quoting Scott McNeely. He was the CEO of Sun Microsystems at the time. At its peak, the stock was trading at 10x its sales. (Price-to-Sales ratio) In a Bloomberg interview, Scott made the following point.

“At 10 times revenues, to give you a 10-year payback, I have to pay you 100% of revenues for 10 straight years in dividends. That assumes I can get that by my shareholders. It also assumes I have zero cost of goods sold, which is very hard for a computer company.

That assumes zero expenses, which is really hard with 39,000 employees.That assumes I pay no taxes, which is very hard. And that assumes you pay no taxes on your dividends, which is kind of illegal. And that assumes with zero R&D for the next 10-years, I can maintain the current revenue run rate.

Now, having done that, would any of you like to buy my stock at $64? Do you realize how ridiculous those basic assumptions are? You don’t need any transparency. You don’t need any footnotes.

What were you thinking?

What’s In Your Portfolio

How many of the following “Buy” rated companies do you own carrying price-to-sales valuations above 9 or 10 times?

So, what are you thinking?

As an increasing number of “baby boomers” head into retirement, the need for independent, organic research and analysis, which is in the client’s best interest, is more critical now, than ever. 

Independent advice can help remove those emotional biases from the investing process that lead to poor investment outcomes. There are many great advisors with the right team, tools, and data, who can manage portfolios, monitor trends, adjust allocations, and protect capital through risk management.

The next time someone tells you that you can’t “risk-manage” your portfolio and just have to “ride things out,” just remember, you don’t.

With the Nasdaq trading at record highs on its sixth straight day in the green, largely thanks to Amazon surpassing $3,000 a share, Wal-Mart is gearing up to launch what it hopes will be its “Amazon Prime Killer” – a new e-commerce subscription service called “Walmart+”.

According to Recode, Wal-Mart is planning to launch the new service later this month. The service will cost $98 a year, and include perks like same-day delivery of groceries and general merchandise, discounts on fuel at Walmart gas stations, and early access to product deals, according to the “multiple” insider sources who spoke with Recode (to be sure, this report bears all the hallmarks of a officially sanctioned leak, so we expect these details are coming straight from the source).

With COVID-19 making Amazon more central than ever in the lives of Americans, more retailers are scrambling to find ways to compete in the new world, where shopping at brick-and-mortar stores now carries an additional risk, along with many new aggravations (like mask-wearing and mandatory distancing).

Wal-Mart had initially planned to launch the new service in March or April, but it delayed the rollout due to COVID-19.

As Amazon struggles to roll out grocery delivery across the US (so far, it has concentrated mostly on the big cities), Wal-Mart is leaning on this natural advantage as a central component of this new service.

Right now, it’s not clear yet whether the service will be rolled out regionally, or nationally. But given Wal-Mart’s status as the country’s biggest brick and mortar retailer, we suspect this news could derail (or at least delay) Jeff Bezos’ inexorable march toward becoming the world’s first trillionaire by Amazon Prime day.

Wal-Mart shares are surging on the news.

 

For the first time in her privileged life, ex-socialite Ghislaine Maxwell is living in conditions described by one judge in 2016 as similar to a ‘prison on Turkey or a Third World Country.’

The 58-year-old Maxwell was arrested after hiding out in a lavish four-bedroom, four-bathroom mansion in New Hampshire, which Bloomberg notes sports views of the Mount Sunapee foothills from every room.

After being initially booked in New Hampshire on multiple charges related to trafficking underage girls for the sexual gratification of dead pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, Maxwell was transferred on Monday to New York’s Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) – home to over 1,600 male and female detainees which was built at the turn of the 20th century and used during both world wars, according to Bloomberg.

No one wants to go to jail, but the conditions described at the MDC have been the subject of numerous complaints and scrutiny that rival the rat-infested federal lockup in Lower Manhattan where Epstein was held.

In early 2019, hundreds of inmates at the MDC were locked shivering in their cells for at least a week after an electrical fire knocked out power in the building. The inmates spent some of the coldest days of that winter in darkness, largely without heat and hot water. –Bloomberg

One inmate, Derrilyn Needham, has been incarcerated at MDC since last November along with 30 other women who slept in bunk beds. Needham said social distancing was difficult, and that for three days starting April 23, the women were on “lockdown on our bunk beds, not able to leave our bunks except to use the bathroom or shower.

She added that they hadn’t been given gloves, hand sanitizer or disinfectant wipes – and that despite symptoms of COVID-19, the assistant warden said she couldn’t receive a test for the virus.

According to The Intercept, “The number of reported coronavirus symptoms far exceeds the number of tests MDC has performed.” In May, the facility came under fire for allegedly destroying medical records “as part of a deliberate effort to obscure the number of incarcerated people infected with the coronavirus.”

The report, filed Thursday as part of a putative class-action lawsuit by people held in custody at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, casts doubt on assertions by the Bureau of Prisons, which runs the jail, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District, which serves as counsel for the bureau. The Bureau of Prisons and federal prosecutors have insisted in court that the situation at the jail is under control. But the medical examiner’s report — which contradicted prison assertions that Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines were being followed — suggests that the six people in custody who have tested positive for the disease likely represent the tip of the iceberg. –The Intercept

After the pandemic began, the detention center was deemed “ill-equipped” to deal with the spread of COVID-19 by former chief medical officer for the city’s jails, Homer Venters, who says he’s “concerned about the ongoing health and safety of the population,” and slammed administrators for failing to adequately deal with the pandemic.

That said, MDC has been on the receiving end of criticism over its conditions long before coronavirus was an issue.

Cheryl Pollak, the federal magistrate in Brooklyn, has repeatedly voiced concerns about the MDC after reviewing a report by the National Association of Women Judges, who visited the facility and found that 161 female inmates were housed 24 hours a day, seven days a week, in two large rooms that lacked windows, fresh air or sunlight and weren’t allowed out to exercise. –Bloomberg

“Some of these conditions wouldn’t surprise me if we were dealing with a prison in Turkey or a Third World Country,” Pollak said during a 2016 hearing. “It’s hard for me to believe it’s going on in a federal prison.”

 

Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

Actor Terry Crews clashed with CNN’s Don Lemon last night during an exchange in which Lemon ludicrously asserted that black on black violence should have nothing to do with the Black Lives Matter movement.

Crews was targeted by the woke mob after he tweeted on July 4 the supposedly controversial opinion that not all white people were bad and not all black people were good.

Are all white people bad?

No.

Are all black people good?

No.

Knowing this reality- I stand on my decision to unite with good people, no matter the race, creed or ideology.

Given the number of threats against this decision-

I also decide to die on this hill.

— terry crews (@terrycrews) July 4, 2020

Before his interview on CNN last night, Crews also tweeted, “#ALLBLACKLIVESMATTER 9 black CHILDREN killed by violence in Chicago since June 20, 2020.”

#ALLBLACKLIVESMATTER

9 black CHILDREN killed by violence in Chicago since June 20, 2020

— terry crews (@terrycrews) July 6, 2020

Crews began by saying that there were “some very militant type forces in Black Lives Matter” and issuing a warning to not allow the movement to get hijacked by extremists.

Given that the ideological inspiration behind Black Lives Matter is literally a cop-killing terrorist fugitive who is on the FBI’s Top Ten Most Wanted Terrorist list, one could argue that the movement has its origins in extremism.

“When you have the leaders of the black lives movement who are now talking about…if we don’t get our demands we’re gonna burn it down, other black people who are talking about working with other whites and other races, they’re being viewed as sellouts or called Uncle Toms, you start to understand that you are now being controlled,” said Crews, adding that BLM embodied a “dangerous self-righteousness that viewed themselves as better, it was almost a supremist move, their black lives mattered a lot more than mine.”

When Crews clarified that he was talking about the leadership of BLM, Lemon asserted that Martin Luther King was once seen as extremist, leading Crews to argue that there had to be a non-racial component to BLM for it to work.

Crews then pointed to the industrial levels of black on black violence in Chicago, which in recent weeks has claimed the lives of nine black children, noting that “the Black Lives Matter movement has said nothing” about the violence.

“What does that have to do with equality though?,” responded Lemon, seriously making the argument that black people dying in massive numbers at the hands of other blacks had nothing to do with black lives mattering and was “apples and oranges,” while trying to shift the blame to “gun culture” across the entire country.

Presumably, Lemon thinks that there is no “equality” in America, yet he was unable to point out any rights that white people have that black people don’t (because they both have the exact same rights under the law).

“Black people need to hold other black people accountable, this is black America’s version of the #MeToo movement,” said Crews.

“If anything’s gonna change, we ourselves, we need to look at our own communities and look at each other and say this thing cannot go down. There are a lot of great people there who are held hostage by people who literally are running these neighborhoods with violence and then claiming that black lives matter.”

Lemon then absurdly tried to argue that talking about black on black violence would be like a “cancer matters” movement being asked why they don’t talk about HIV and that BLM is solely about police brutality, another misnomer given that the full scope of BLM is about defunding the police, overthrowing capitalism and imposing communist ideals (goals that BLM front groups routinely advocate).

“When you look at the organization, police brutality is not the only thing they’re talking about,” responded Crews, prompting Lemon to agree but then contradict himself by repeating the false claim that BLM was solely about police brutality and criminal justice.

The interview ended with Crews insisting that there was more to the BLM agenda than police brutality and that it needed to be scrutinized.

Black on black violence isn’t part of the Black Lives Matter narrative because Black Lives Matter isn’t a civil rights movement, it’s a political movement and black on black violence can’t be exploited for political grist.

It’s that simple. And Don Lemon knows it.

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