Tag: finance

Authored by James Rickards via The Daily Reckoning,

There’s no need to rehash the sordid politics of the U.S.-Russia relationship since 2014. That relationship became collateral damage to gross corruption in Ukraine.

The U.S. and its allies, especially the UK under globalists like David Cameron, wanted to peel off Ukraine from the Russian orbit and make it part of the EU and eventually NATO.

From Russia’s perspective, this was unacceptable. It may be true that most Americans cannot find Ukraine on a map, but a simple glance at a map reveals that much of Ukraine lies East of Moscow.

Putting Ukraine in a Western alliance such as NATO would create a crescent stretching from Luhansk in the South through Poland in the West and back around to Estonia in the North. There are almost no natural obstacles between that arc and Moscow; it’s mostly open steppe.

Completion of this “NATO Crescent” would leave Moscow open to invasion in ways that Napoleon and Hitler could only dream. Of course, this situation was and is unacceptable to Moscow.

Ukraine itself is culturally divided along geographic lines. The Eastern and Southern provinces (Luhansk, Donetsk, Crimea and Dnipro) are ethnically Russian, follow the Orthodox Church and the Patriarch of Moscow, and welcome commercial relations with Russia.

The Western provinces (Kiev, Lviv) are Slavic, adhere to the Catholic Church and the Pope in Rome, and look to the EU and U.S. for investment and aid.

Prior to 2014, an uneasy truce existed between Washington and Moscow that allowed a pro-Russian President while at the same time permitting increasing contact with the EU. Then the U.S. and UK overreached by allowing the CIA and MI6 to foment a “color revolution” in Kiev called the “Euromaidan Revolution.”

Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych resigned and fled to Moscow. Pro-EU protestors took over the government and signed an EU Association Agreement.

In response, Putin annexed Crimea and declared it part of Russia. He also infiltrated Donetsk and Luhansk and helped establish de facto pro-Russian regional governments. The U.S. and EU responded with harsh economic sanctions on Russia.

Ukraine has been in turmoil (with increasing corruption) ever since. U.S.-Russia relations have been ice-cold, exactly as the globalists intended.

The U.S- induced fiasco in Ukraine not only upset U.S.-Russia relations, it derailed a cozy money laundering operation involving Ukrainian oligarchs and Democratic politicians. The Obama administration flooded Ukraine with non-lethal financial assistance.

This aid was amplified by a four-year, $17.5 billion loan program to Ukraine from the IMF, approved in March 2015. Interestingly, this loan program was pushed by Obama at a time when Ukraine did not meet the IMF’s usual borrowing criteria.

Some of this money was used for intended purposes, some was skimmed by the oligarchs, and the rest was recycled to Democratic politicians in the form of consulting contracts, advisory fees, director’s fees, contributions to foundations and NGOs and other channels.

Hunter Biden and the Clinton Foundations were major recipients of this corrupt recycling. Other beneficiaries included George Soros-backed “open society” organizations, which further directed the money to progressive left-wing groups in the U.S.

This cozy wheel-of-fortune was threatened when Donald Trump became president. Trump genuinely desired improved relations with Russia and was not on the receiving end of laundered aid to Ukraine.

Hillary Clinton was supposed to continue the Obama policies, but she failed in the general election. Trump was a threat to everything the globalists, Democrats and pro-NATO elites had constructed in the 2010s.

The globalists wanted China and the U.S. to team up against Russia. Trump understood correctly that China was the main enemy and therefore a closer union between the U.S. and Russia was essential.

The elites’ efforts to derail Trump gave rise to the “Russia collusion” hoax. While no one disputes that Russia sought to sow confusion in the U.S. election in 2016, that’s something the Russians and their Soviet predecessors had been doing since 1917. By itself, little harm was done.

Yet, the elites seized on this to concoct a story of collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign. The real collusion was among Democrats, Ukrainians and Russians to discredit Trump.

It took the Robert Mueller investigation two years finally to conclude there was no collusion between Trump and the Russians. By then, the damage was done. It was politically toxic for Trump to reach out to the Russians. That would be spun by the media as more evidence of “collusion.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin (l.) has recently named a new Prime Minister, Mikhail Mishustin (r.). This is part of a complex government reorganization designed to extend Putin’s rule beyond existing term limits. This is a setback for democracy, but may be a plus for the economy because it adds stability and continuity to Putin’s programs.

This whirl of false charges, cover-ups, and deep state sabotage finally led to Trump’s impeachment on December 18, 2019.

Fortunately, the Senate impeachment trial may soon be behind us with Trump’s exoneration in hand (although new impeachment charges and false accusations cannot be ruled out).

Is the stage finally set for improved U.S.-Russia relations, relief from U.S. sanctions, and a significant increase in U.S. direct foreign investment in Russia?

Right now, my models are telling us that Russia is one of the most attractive targets for foreign investment in the world. Just because U.S. policymakers missed the boat does not mean that investors must do the same.

Russia is often denigrated by Wall Street analysts and mainstream economists who know little about the country. Russia is the world’s largest country by area and has the largest arsenal of nuclear weapons of any country in the world.

It has the world’s 11th largest economy at over $1.6 trillion in annual GDP, ahead of South Korea, Spain and Australia and not far behind Canada, Brazil and Italy.

It also is the world’s third largest producer of oil and related liquids, with output of 11.4 million barrels per day, about 11% of the world’s total. The U.S. (17.8 million b/d), Saudi Arabia (12.4 million b/d) and Russia combine to provide 41% of the world’s liquid fuels. The latter two countries effectively control the world’s oil price by agreeing on output quotas.

Russia has almost no external dollar-denominated debt and has a debt-to-GDP ratio of only 13.50% (the comparable ratio for the United States is 106%).

In short, Russia is too big and too powerful to ignore despite the derogatory and uninformed claims of globalists. Importantly, Russia is emerging from the oil price shock of 2014-2016 and is in a solid recovery.

The stage is now set for significant economic expansion as illustrated in the chart below from Moody’s Analytics:

This graphic analysis from Moody’s Analytics divides major economies into categories of Recovery, Expansion, Slowdown and Recession. Economies revolve clockwise through these four phases. The U.S. is in a Slowdown phase with some risk of Recession. Russia is in the Recovery phase heading toward Expansion. The Russian situation is the most attractive for investors because it offers cheap entry points with high returns as the Expansion phase begins.

Russia has also gone to great lengths to insulate itself from U.S. economic sanctions. Their reserves have recovered to the $500 billion level that existed before the 2014 oil price collapse with one important difference. The dollar component of reserves has shrunk substantially while the gold component has increased to over 20%.

With the recent surge in gold prices, Russia’s reserves get a significant boost (when expressed in dollars) because of the higher dollar value of the gold reserves. Gold cannot be hacked, frozen or seized, as is the case with digital dollar assets.

Russia’s fortunes have been improving not only because of low debt and higher gold prices but also because of higher oil prices. The country is poised for a strong expansion, even if U.S. hostility caused by the Democrats continues.

If Trump regains his footing after impeachment and wins a second term (which I expect), investors can expect warmer relations with Russia and an even more powerful Russian economic expansion than the one already underway.

A portion of President Trump’s $11 billion border wall with Mexico, or about $20 million per mile, blew over Wednesday from gusty winds, came crashing down on the Mexican side, reported CNN.

Agent Carlos Pitones of the Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) sector in El Centro, California, told CNN that 130 feet stretch of the wall in Calexico, California, fell on Wednesday after high winds were present in the area.

Pitones said the cause of the wall crashing down was due to freshly poured concrete not yet cured.

The National Weather Service (NWS) said gusts in Calexico were up to 40 mph Wednesday, which the video below shows the wall leaning against trees adjacent to a street in Mexicali, Mexico.

Trump border wall fell to the floor 29 january 2020 pic.twitter.com/PhF46R8PqC

— torressteel.official (@TorressteelO) January 29, 2020

“We are grateful there was no property damage or injuries,” said Pitones.

CBP told USA Today in a statement that no property damage or injuries were seen during “this uncommon event.”

“The border wall system is imperative to securing the border and is what border patrol agents have asked for and need to maintain operational control of the southern border,” CBP said.

The agency said construction of the wall in Calexico would continue.

President Trump’s wall is expected to be completed in three phases.

Trump has so far allocated $11 billion to construct 576 miles of a new “border wall system.”

“You’re going to have a wall like no other. It’s going to be a powerful, terrific wall,” President Trump said at a rally in Milwaukee last week. “A very big and very powerful border wall is going up at a record speed, and we are fully financed now, isn’t that nice?”

By mid-January, the government had constructed 101 miles of the border wall.

Mexico has recently reported a 56% reduction in the number of undocumented migrants crossing the country, a sign that President Trump’s tough stance on Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) has been working.

However, there’s a huge problem: the wall can’t prevent drug-smuggling tunnels that are all too common between California and Mexico.

The latest drug tunnel the CBP has discovered, measured a quarter-mile into the U.S. to San Diego and a half-mile into Mexico, to Tijuana.

CBP officials said the tunnel had a ventilation system, electricity, and even elevators.

Wall or no wall, it’s probably a good idea to have one, so if a zombie apocalypse unfolds, people with coronavirus in Mexico can’t easily cross the U.S. border.

Authored by Chris Hailton via Econimica blog,

2019 saw US population growth at its lowest percentage level in US history aside from the pandemic years of 1918/1919 (when the Spanish flu took the lives of nearly 700,000 Americans).  The 0.5% annual growth meant US population grew by approx. 1.55 million persons in 2019.

Today, I just wanted to focus on the implications of low population growth on the largest sector of the US economy, housing and in particular new housing starts.  The chart below shows annual total US population growth in millions (red line, million), the next line is the US population growth among the under 70 year old population (yellow line, million), then annual housing starts (blue line, million), and finally the Federal Reserve set federal funds rate driving interest rates (black line, %).

Really take a minute to check to understand these relationships…its really important.

From 1960 to 2008, annual population growth (red line) varied from about 1.8 to 3.5 million a year and the vast majority of that growth came among the under 70 year old population (yellow line).  During this nearly five decades, housing starts (blue line) varied from about 1 to 2 million units annually, with sharp inverse swings based on the cost of money represented by the changes in the federal funds rate (black line). 

But starting in 2008, housing starts fell below 1 million units and would remain there through 2012 despite the cost of money (federal funds rate) sitting at zero for nearly a decade.  The NAR and others suggest there is a housing shortage due to this period of significantly below trend housing starts…but if you happen to look at the red line (decelerating total population growth) and the yellow line (collapsing population growth among the under 70 year old population), perhaps something else is happening.

70+ year-old elderly folks have the highest home ownership rates, are least likely to undertake new loans, and have the lowest labor force participation rates among the adult population at something like 1 in 10 working versus 8 in 10 among 50 year-olds.  In 2019, the 70+ population grew by about 1.3 million.  Point is, 70+ year-olds are not net home buyers but net sellers as they pay down/pay off their mortgages, downsize, move to managed care, or pass away.

It is the annual growth of the under 70 year-old population that drives demand for new housing, that has high levels of employment, and the willingness to undertake long term mortgage debt.  In 2019, the under 70 year-old population grew by less than 300 thousand.  The 90%+ annual deceleration in the potential buyers versus a ten-fold rise in the annual growth of elderly has turned the housing market upside down.

But last year, more new homes were started than the total population increased…something that had not happened since the early 1970’s.  The chart below shows annual starts as a percentage of annual population growth moving inverse the federal funds rate.  The sharp increase in housing starts amid a population growth slowdown is definitely noteworthy.

While the total annual population growth is decelerating, all the deceleration is among the under 70 year-old population (declining births, declining immigration) while the 70+ year-old population growth is still accelerating.  The chart below details the annual housing starts as a ratio of annual under 70 year-old population growth from 1960 through 2015.  Nearly 40 years of interest rate cuts have mitigated the deceleration in housing starts as a percentage of under 70 year-old population growth, until…

That is until now…2018 and particularly 2019 saw new housing starts surge while population growth of the under 70 year old population took another leg down.  The result was more than five new housing starts per every new under 70 year-old in the US…aka, the hockey stick chart below.

Now, go back and look at the first chart again.  You will notice that for the whole of the 2020’s, what projected population growth there is, is among the 70+ year-old population and, so long as the declining birth rates / total births and decelerating immigration continue, we should expect little to no growth among home buyers.  The idea that America needs more housing seems strange indeed.  Far more realistic is that the 2020’s will see a period of replacement level new housing rather than outright growth.  Of course, real estate is local.  On a micro level, there is likely to be a surge of rural inventory, and inversely, increasingly tight urban inventory in select cities.  This is due to a likely ongoing outflow of young adults from rural locales to select urban centers, in search of opportunity.  Either way, the net picture is unchanged or even worsened as urban fertility and birth rates are even lower than those seen in rural areas.

Or, then again, maybe the Federal Reserve can just print new buyers…or add residential real estate to its already bloated balance sheet so America can keep on building…ever more…for ever fewer?

Fashion retailer Nordstrom gets it: Americans are becoming poorer, and it’s time for it to capitalize on recommerce, otherwise known as reverse commerce, which basically means Nordstrom is going to sell secondhand clothing. 

So, move over local consignment stores, and or Goodwill Industries, eBay, and The Salvation Army, there’s a new player in town, Nordstrom, that will jump into the recommerce industry on Jan. 31. 

Nordstrom’s “See You Tomorrow” store will have a dedicated section at its New York flagship store, opens tomorrow, and will sell secondhand luxury clothes. There’s also going to be a section on the company’s website that will list a catalog of used clothing, the company said in press release, dated Jan. 30. 

Nordstrom’s closet recommerce competitor will be The RealReal, an online and brick-and-mortar marketplace for authenticated luxury consignment, as the industry for used clothing increased to $28 billion in 2019. 

Olivia Kim, vice president of creative projects for the retailer, said many of the brands Nordstrom carries would be resold through its “See You Tomorrow” shop. 

“We want to provide a unique and elevated resale shopping experience that encourages a sense of discovery and provides access to the brands our customers know and love, while giving them a convenient opportunity to participate in the circular fashion economy,” Kim said 

She said, “so many Americans are already engaged with recommerce, whether it’s rental or retail.” 

She added that many of the items that will be carried at “See You Tomorrow” will be sourced from Nordstrom’s inventory of returned and damaged merchandise.

Nordstrom has partnered with Yerdle, which already handles resale for Eileen Fisher, Patagonia, and other top brands.

Yerdle is expected to clean and repair Nordstrom products, along with handling, inventory, processing and fulfillment.

Nordstrom’s resale items are expected to include “women’s apparel, women’s shoes, handbags, men’s apparel, accessories and shoes, children’s wear and a limited selection of jewelry and watches,” the retailer said. 

Nordstrom is diving into the recommerce industry at a time when consumers are broke, heavily leverage with auto debt, credit cards, and student debt, but for some odd reason, are feeling very optimistic about life. 

However, when the next recession strikes, consumers, who are already bound with insurmountable debts, will not enjoy the luxuries of purchasing new luxury goods and will have to opt for secondhand clothing at their local “See You Tomorrow.” 

 

 

Authored by Nick Cunningham via OilPrice.com,

“All oil-field workers are radiation workers.”

That quote comes from a blockbuster investigation by Justin Nobel writing in Rolling Stone, who has spent more than a year and a half researching and reporting on radioactivity in fracking waste.

When a well is drilled, it produces a ton of brine, a salty substance that comes out of the ground. Shale wells can produce as much as ten times more brine than they do oil and gas. While hydrocarbons prove to be useful, the brine needs to be hauled somewhere for disposal. Often it is reinjected into disposal wells, or, in some cases it is sent to water treatment plants.

The problem is that the brine can be radioactive. As Nobel writes in Rolling Stone, radioactive brine may be dramatically increasing the cancer risk for people who come in contact with it. The workers who handle the waste are most obviously at risk. But there are plenty of others. The brine is used for de-icing roads, so municipalities are essentially spreading radioactivity all over roads in various parts of the country.

Old oilfield equipment is also repurposed. Rolling Stone spoke with a Louisiana inspector who saw a child sitting on a fence that was so radioactive that someone might receive a full year’s radiation dose in a single hour.

The oil and gas industry dismisses the risk of radioactivity in the brine, which is naturally occurring, as not something that anybody should be worrying about. However, some of the experts that Nobel interviewed argue otherwise.

First of all, the notion that just because something exists naturally in the world somehow makes it benign, is odd.

“Arsenic is completely natural, but you probably wouldn’t let me put arsenic in your school lunch,” one nuclear-forensics scientist told Rolling Stone.

Second, the industry is barley regulated, if at all, when it comes to handling radioactive substances. Officials at EPA and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission sounded perplexed when Nobel presented questions to them about the risk, each indicating that they were not responsible for regulating radioactivity in the oil and gas industry.

Nobel profiled several people who have come in contact with brine and have suffered from an array of worrying health problems.

“The workers are going to be the canaries,” Raina Rippel of the Southwest Pennsylvania Environmental Health Project, told Rolling Stone.

“The radioactivity issue is not something we have adequately unpacked. Our elected leaders and public-health officials don’t have the knowledge to convey we are safe.”

This is not just an environmental story or a public health story, but it could also be a financial one. This is a whole aspect of the oil and gas industry that is mostly unregulated, underreported and largely unknown to the public. And it could yet turn into a massive liability for the industry if local, state or the federal government ever decided to get serious about it.

The industry would be directly impacted if it had to pay for remediation somehow, or even if the standards on the disposal of toxic brine were tightened up. It could spell financial “disaster” for oil and gas drillers if the EPA began regulating brine as a hazardous waste, one legal scholar told Rolling Stone. Reckoning with the public health fallout from radiation is not something anybody seems willing to take on at the moment.

But as Rolling Stone notes, public awareness of the problem itself could be a big problem for the industry. Oil and gas is already starting to see its “social license to operate” erode over climate change concerns. But the threat from climate change is diffuse in both space and time. The damage from fossil fuels is somewhat abstract in that sense.

In contrast, the extraction of toxic radioactive waste from beneath the earth, and then spreading it on roads, for example, is arguably more menacing. Or, at the very least, the direct health threat to the public is easier to understand. Certain types of cancers are cropping up, and scientists say there is a lot of evidence that points in the direction of exposure to brine and proximity to other oil and gas processes.

It seems as if the unconventional oil and gas industry has been around forever, as if it’s a fact of life that everyone has to live with. But the story of fracking is only a little over a decade old, and with each passing year the science surrounding the health risks grows more damning. Some presidential candidates are already calling for a ban on fracking. As the evidence of radioactivity becomes more known, the momentum for a crackdown on the industry could continue to grow.

The medical journal ‘The Lancet’ has published several pieces of cutting-edge research about the coronavirus, including the first reports that infected individuals can become contagious before symptoms appear. Now, the journal is one-upping itself by publishing research showing that men are more susceptible to the coronavirus than women.

According to a study of 99 patients treated in Wuhan’s Jinyintan Hospital, along with researchers from Shanghai Jiao Tong University and Ruijin Hospital in Shanghai, men – particularly those with preexisting health problems – are more prone to the virus. It confirmed a similar finding from an earlier study.

The study also warned – somewhat unnecessarily – that early identification and treatment of the pneumonia-like illness was important, since complications like organ failure are common. So far, the virus has killed more than 170 people, all of them in China.

Of the patients studied by the researchers, more than half were infected in “clusters”, a sign of just how rapidly the virus can jump from an infected person to a non-infected person.

“We observed a greater number of men than women in the 99 cases of 2019-nCoV infection. Mers-CoV and Sars-CoV have also been found to infect more males than females,” the study said, referring to Middle East respiratory syndrome and severe acute respiratory syndrome, which are also coronaviruses.

“The reduced susceptibility of females to viral infections could be attributed to the protection from X chromosome and sex hormones, which play an important role in innate and adaptive immunity,” it said.

Another alarming finding from the study: The mortality rate among the group studied was 11%. While that number is well above the 2%-3% official death toll, other epidemiologists have suggested that the true death toll for the virus is closer to 11%.

The study also offered a glimpse of the virus’s more serious symptoms. One-third of the patients studied developed organ failure and other complications. Some 17% developed acute respiratory distress syndrome.

Given the potential consequences should the virus be left untreated, seeking care early after symptoms emerge is crucial, the researchers said. Of course, that doesn’t bode well for people in Wuhan who have reportedly been turned away from overcrowded hospitals.

As researchers debate the genesis of the virus, a separate study of nine coronavirus patients published in The Lancet on Wednesday found that only one of them had not been to the Hunan seafood market in Wuhan where the virus has been traced to the market’s illegal trade in wild animals. Many of them worked at the market.

And with that, the ‘bat soup’ theory lives on.

Authored by Emma Fiala via TheMindUnleashed.com,

Manhattan-based Clearview AI is collecting data from unsuspecting social media users and the Chicago Police Department (CPD) is using the controversial facial recognition tool to pinpoint the identity of unknown suspects, reads a report from the Chicago Sun-Times.

And according to a bombshell New York Times report, it is also being used by the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security.

“Until this week, I had not heard of Clearview AI,” Gurbir Grewal, New Jersey’s attorney general, said in an interview. “I was troubled.”

Read the full investigation on Clearview AI from @kashhill: https://t.co/3jOFOxzs5X

— The New York Times (@nytimes) January 25, 2020

The software’s creator, Hoan Ton-That, maintains that it is purely “an after-the-fact research tool for law enforcement, not a surveillance system or a consumer application.” However, privacy advocates are saying this technology is so intrusive and ripe for abuse its use should be immediately halted. And earlier this month, a lawsuit was filed in federal court seeking to do just that.

Chicago attorney Scott Drury who filed the lawsuit describes CPD’s signing of a two-year, $49,875 contract with Illinois tech firm CDW Government to use Clearview AI’s software as “frightening.”

Conversely, Chicago police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi explains:

“Our obligation is to find those individuals that hurt other people and bring them to justice. And we want to be able to use every tool available to be able to perform that function, but we want to be able to do so responsibly.”

According to police, some CPD officials at the Crime Prevention and Information Center used the software for two months on a trial basis prior to the signing of the contract in January.

Despite the two month trial and the contract having been signed for approximately one month, CPD spokesman Howard Ludwig has declined to explain if and when Clearview AI has been used by the department thus far. Ludgwig explained:

“Any information about ongoing investigations can only come from cases that have been thoroughly adjudicated. We haven’t had Clearview long enough for any of the cases to have gone through the courts.”

Clearview AI’s database includes three billion photos taken from social media and network platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter. The software searches its massive database for matches after users, including CPD, upload a photo of a suspect. The user is then provided with links for each image returned in the search that the company once told Green Bay police to “run wild” with in a marketing email.

Ton-That told the Sun-Times, “Our software links to publicly available web pages, not any private data.” It is clear he doesn’t seem to think the software poses any problems. But just this month, New Jersey’s attorney general Gurbir Grewal “put a moratorium on Clearview AI’s chilling, unregulated facial recognition software.”

BREAKING: @NewJerseyOAG put a moratorium on Clearview AI’s chilling, unregulated facial recognition software.

It scraped 3 billion photos online, including from social media, into an index of names + faces for police department subscribers.

This step is unequivocally good news.

— ACLU of New Jersey (@ACLUNJ) January 24, 2020

The ACLU of New Jersey responded to the move in a tweet last Friday:

“Technology like this opens a Pandora’s Box for constant warrantless searches, pretty much of anyone with a photo and name online.

It’s a tool that could make an already-unequal criminal justice system truly dystopian.

New Jersey is right to slam this Pandora’s Box shut.”

Technology like this opens a Pandora’s Box for constant warrantless searches, pretty much of anyone with a photo and name online.

It’s a tool that could make an already-unequal criminal justice system truly dystopian.

New Jersey is right to slam this Pandora’s Box shut.

— ACLU of New Jersey (@ACLUNJ) January 24, 2020

The ACLU also rightfully pointed out that tendency of facial recognition technology to have a bias against “people of color, women, and non-binary people.” In fact, as TMU has previously reported, self-driving cars are less likely to detect black people and artificial intelligence (AI) is sending the wrong people to jail.

Critics of Clearview AI and facial recognition software extend far beyond those involved in the lawsuit mentioned above and the ACLU of New Jersey. In what is the one of the biggest efforts to date in the battle against the use of facial recognition technologies, 40 organizations signed a letter to the Department of Homeland Security’s Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board calling for the banning of the U.S. government’s use of such technology “pending further review.” The letter notes that this technology could be exploited and used to “control minority populations and limit dissent.”

However, as Fast Company points out, not everyone feels the same. In fact, some view actions like the letter mentioned above “an overreaction.”

Jon Gacek, head of government, legal, and compliance for Veritone—a company that provides technology like Clearview AI for law enforcement in both Europe and the U.S.—says all the software does is use “technology to do what police already do, except far faster and at less cost.”

Twitter responded to the bombshell NYT report by sending a letter to Clearview AI last week. In a follow-up report, the NYT explained:

“Twitter sent a letter this week to the small start-up company, Clearview AI, demanding that it stop taking photos and any other data from the social media website “for any reason” and delete any data that it previously collected, a Twitter spokeswoman said. The cease-and-desist letter, sent on Tuesday, accused Clearview of violating Twitter’s policies.”

While those concerned with privacy are typically focused on their photos and data being used by social media companies for profit, the situation with Clearview AI is an excellent reminder that what we post online generally can and will be used in ways we do not consent to despite our best efforts to keep up with Terms of Service updates and checking as many “opt-out” boxes as possible.

Carter Page is suing the DNC and the Perkins Coie law firm for their roles in funding the infamous Steele dossier, which was used as the foundation for controversial surveillance warrants used by the Obama administration to spy on him during and after the 2016 US election.

The former Trump campaign adviser filed a lawsuit Thursday in the Northern District of Illinois’ Eastern Division, which his attorneys described as the “first of multiple actions in the wake of historic” Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) abuse, according to Fox News.

“Defendants developed a dossier replete with falsehoods about numerous individuals associated with the Trump campaign—especially Dr. Page. Defendants then sought to tarnish the Trump campaign and its affiliates (including Dr. Page) by publicizing this false information,” reads the lawsuit, which adds “Even the DOJ and the FISC have recognized that the false information spread by Defendants led to invalid FISA warrants against Dr. Page.“

Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz announced in a December report that the FBI made repeated errors and misrepresentations to the FISA court in the agency’s ham-handed efforts to surveil Page and those in his orbit in 2016 and 2017.

Horowitz confirmed that the FBI’s FISA applications to monitor Page heavily relied on the dossier and news reports rooted in Steele’s unverified research.

Just last week, the FISC released a newly declassified summary of a Justice Department assessment revealing at least two of the FBI’s surveillance applications to monitor Page lacked probable cause. -Fox News

“This is a first step to ensure that the full extent of the FISA abuse that has occurred during the last few years is exposed and remedied,” said attorney John Pierce on Thursday, adding “Defendants and those they worked with inside the federal government did not and will not succeed in making America a surveillance state.”

“This is only the first salvo. We will follow the evidence wherever it leads, no matter how high. … The rule of law will prevail.“

Page first filed a defamation suit on his own against the parties in October 2018 in federal court in Oklahoma, but that suit was dismissed in January 2019 after the judge ruled the court lacked jurisdiction over the case because neither Page nor the DNC had strong enough ties to the state.

Page is now represented by Pierce, the global managing partner of Pierce Bainbridge Beck Price & Hecht LLP. They filed in Illinois because they allege the relationship with the firm behind the dossier, Fusion GPS, was “orchestrated” through law firm Perkins Coie’s Chicago office. The suit also claims the DNC “has a historical pattern” of making Chicago its principal place of business. –Fox News

Read the complaint below:

Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,

In a move that is sure to please President Trump, a State Representative in Tennessee has introduced legislation that would officially designate CNN, as well as The Washington Post, as fake news.

Republican Rep. Micah Van Huss filed the bill Wednesday, with the summary describing it as “A RESOLUTION to recognize CNN and The Washington Post as fake news and condemn them for denigrating our citizens.”

Taking to social media, Van Huss, a former Marine who served tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, declared “I’ve filed HJR 779 on behalf of a constituency that’s tired of fake news and Republicans who don’t fight.”

The State of Tennessee recognizes CNN and The Washington Post as fake news and part of the media wing of the Democrat Party.

I’ve filed HJR 779 on behalf of a constituency that’s tired of fake news and Republicans who don’t fight.

Follow it’s progress: https://t.co/7qp6E7q9LT pic.twitter.com/XyqQETtLKy

— Micah Van Huss (@MicahVanHuss) January 29, 2020

The legislation insists that The Washington Post and CNN have drawn a “line between Trump opponents and Trump supporters” by describing Trump voters as “cultists.”

The bill describes a specific instance where a CNN talking head “suggested that Trump supporters belong to a cult and that our president is using mind control.”

Infowars reported on the segment, aired last November on CNN, where Brian Stelter brought on ‘cult expert’, Steven Hassan, author of a book titled The Cult of Trump.

The pair urged viewers that the President is a ‘pathological liar’, and displays ‘the characteristics of destructive cult leader’.

They further suggested that ‘mind controlled’ Trump supporters need to be ‘deprogrammed’ and broken out of their ‘bubbles’.

The Tennesee bill continues:

“WHEREAS, it is fascinating to see this latest ‘cult-of-Trump’ meme coming from the left, because they are the true masters of deploying mobs to demand total conformity and compliance with their agenda; and WHEREAS, any thoughtful observer can see the cult-of-Trump meme as a classic case of psychological projection; after all, accusing someone’s perceived opponent of exactly what one intends to do is a very old tactic; and WHEREAS, the mainstream media is in a panic because President Trump has opened the eyes of many average Americans who are tired of politics as usual.”

The crux of the legislation argues that all of this “oversimplifies the way people think and feel about their own beliefs and those on the other side of that line.”

The bill reasons that therefore the media outlets pushing this agenda should be recognised as “fake news and part of the media wing of the Democratic Party.”

“BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that we condemn them for denigrating our citizens and implying that they are weak-minded followers instead of people exercising their rights that our veterans paid for with their blood,” the bill asserts.

The perpetually broke, deck-stacking DNC has been thrown into disarray just days before the Iowa caucus after Buzzfeed revealed that a cadre of top officials at the Democratic National Committee approved, then concealed a ‘generous exit package for the party chair, Tom Perez, and two top lieutenants,’ which has left Democrats ‘confounded over the weekend by the optics and timing of the decision on the eve of the presidential primary.”

The proposal, put forward as an official DNC resolution during a meeting of the party’s budget and finance committee last Friday, would have arranged for Perez and two of his top deputies, CEO Seema Nanda and deputy CEO Sam Cornale, to each receive a lump-sum bonus equaling four months’ salary within two weeks of the time they eventually leave their roles.

Senior DNC officers, including members of Perez’s own executive committee, learned of the compensation package after its approval, through the rumor mill, setting off a furious exchange of emails and texts over the weekend to determine what had been proposed, and by whom. –Buzzfeed

And while four-months salary might be more of a ‘bronze parachute’, Perez rejected the “extra compensation” package for himself and his two lieutenants in an email to officials.

Perez says he will serve through the end of the 2020 election, while all three officials have denied having any prior knowledge of, or involvement in the pay package resolution.

“One-hundred percent of our resources are going towards beating Donald Trump,” said DNC communications director Xochitl Hinojosa, who added “DNC leadership will not accept any extra compensation recommended by the budget committee, which didn’t operate at the direction of DNC leadership. The resolution was crafted by the budget committee and did not involve the Chair, CEO, or Deputy CEO.”

Taking the fall for the resolution are two members of the DNC’s budget and finance committee – Daniel Halpern and Chris Korge, who described it as the first step in a “smooth transition” for Perez.

Halperin, an anti-minimum wage lobbyist, was appointed by Perez in 2017. He previously chaired Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed’s 2009 moyoral campaign, and was a trustee for Barack Obama’s 2008 inaugural committee.

Chris Korge is a Florida attorney hired in May of 2019. He was one of the top fundraisers for Andrew Gillum, Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, and served as the co-chairman for the Kerry Edwards campaign in 2004.

For years, the 64-year-old attorney, developer and one-time county hall lobbyist has been an important fundraiser for Democrats. He has raised millions for both Hillary and Bill Clinton, served as national co-chairman for Kerry Edwards Victory in 2004 and this year was co-chairman of Miami’s unsuccessful bid to bring the Democratic convention to South Florida next summer. –Miami Herald

According to Buzzfeed, Halpern and Korge both said the resolution was above-board and a common business practice. 

The resolution, which only applies to the 2021 transition, states that the outgoing chair, CEO, and deputy CEO will help facilitate donor and “stakeholder” relations, and convey “institutional knowledge” to the next chair, but is less specific about the requirements of the transition than the details of the compensation package: a lump sum of four months’ pay, paid within two weeks, unless either Perez, Nanda, or Cornale is terminated for “gross misconduct.”

On Tuesday, Halpern said the resolution was meant to serve only as a “nonbinding” starting point to ensure “continuity” between Perez’s tenure and the next party chair. –Buzzfeed

Top Democrats within the DNC’s leadership speaking on condition of anonymity said that they were shocked to learn of the compensation package on the eve of a presidential primary, amid a massive fundraising defecit. 

“I think it is completely short-sighted and really stupid,” said one senior official.

The package would have paid Perez around $69,000, Nanda around $61,000, and Cornale $39,000.