Tag: finance

In late September, RealClearInvestigations‘ Paul Sperry suggested that Inspector General Michael Horowitz – tasked with investigating and exposing wrongdoing at the highest levels – was feared to be pulling punches in order to protect establishment darlings in his upcoming report on the Russia investigation.

Now we learn that Horowitz, who volunteered on several Democratic political campaigns while in college and is married to a former liberal political activist, Obama donor and CNN employee, is expected to conclude that the FBI didn’t spy on the Trump campaign.

Instead, when longtime FBI / CIA asset Stephan Halper and his undercover FBI ‘assistant’ named “Azra Turk” befriended George Papadopoulos, it was nothing more than “typical law enforcement activities,” according  the New York Times.

Mr. Horowitz found no evidence that Mr. Halper tried to infiltrate the Trump campaign itself, the people familiar with the draft report said, such as by seeking inside campaign information or a role in the organization. The F.B.I. also never directed him to do so, former officials said. Instead, Mr. Halper focused on eliciting information from Mr. Page and Mr. Papadopoulos about their ties to Russia.

…

Mr. Trump and his allies have pointed to some of the investigative steps the F.B.I. took as evidence of spying, though they were typical law enforcement activities. –NYT

Recall that the Obama administration had paid Halper over $1 million over a several years, with nearly half of it surrounding the 2016 election.

The FBI never tried to place informants inside the Trump campaign. They only ran informants to solicit information from people who worked for the campaign. Is it just me, or does this seem like a distinction without a difference. https://t.co/hOVEiLdgyq

— Eli Lake (@EliLake) November 27, 2019

NYT: The FBI never did X. Never ever. Except those two times… https://t.co/f9AcujwtEr pic.twitter.com/uZlFxPho1f

— Byron York (@ByronYork) November 27, 2019

The report is also expected to conclude that Maltese professor Joseph Mifsud – who fed Papadopoulos the rumor that Russia had dirt on Hillary Clinton – is not an FBI informant. Mifsud, a self-described member of the Clinton Foundation, has been painted by Western media as a Russian asset.

Except, nobody claimed Mifsud was an FBI informant. As The Conservative Treehouse notes, “The concern has always been Mifsud was a western intelligence asset, perhaps CIA.”

Moreover, Horowitz will conclude that while the FBI was ‘careless and unprofessional’ in pursuing a wiretap on Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, and that a ‘front-line lawyer’ Kevin Clinesmith, 37, fabricated evidence to support a FISA spy warrant renewal against Page, that the underlying justification to go after page remained intact.

In other slaps on the wrist, Horowitz is expected to criticize DOJ official Bruce Ohr for failing to inform his bosses about his extensive contacts with ‘Steele Dossier’ author Christopher Steele.

And the icing on the cake – last week The Times also reported that while Horowitz will criticize the FBI for how they handled the Trump investigation, “he made no finding of politically biased actions by top officials Mr. Trump has vilified like the former F.B.I. director James B. Comey.”

NYtimes did a story on Horowitz report. I warned folks many times about Horowitz. Turns out I was right.
“ report debunks a series of conspiracy theories/insinuations about the F.B.I. that Mr. Trump & his allies have put forward over the past
2 years “..https://t.co/r0f2mP34GH

— Christian Lamar (@christianllamar) November 25, 2019

Horowitz gave Comey, McCabe, Strzok, Yates, Boente and Rosenstein a clean bill of health. No wrongdoing.

Don’t expect Durham to charge anyone because if he did the Department of Justice would be contradicting itself.

Clinesmith guy is low hanging fruit. No big players charged.

— Christian Lamar (@christianllamar) November 25, 2019

No wonder Comey and team have been so smug!

The report is expected December 9, while Horowitz is scheduled to testify in front of the Senate days later.

I’m at the “abolish the FBI” stage of grief. https://t.co/I22PmMwih1

— Jubal E. Harshaw (@alimhaider) November 28, 2019

Of course, while Horowitz may or may not give key FBI officials a pass in his report, its only one component of the ongoing efforts by the DOJ.

16) The media will use the IG report to paint the narrative that no one of consequence will be prosecuted. They’ll conflate the responsibilities of IG Horowitz and US Attorney Durham, and claim that Horowitz’s recommendations are what really matter.

— Praying Medic (@prayingmedic) November 28, 2019

Via BabylonBee.com,

In honor of Thanksgiving week, the nation’s progressives have begun to give thanks that they have so much to be angry and offended about this year.

“Thank you, unspecified deity who may or may not exist, for giving us so much stuff to be outraged about,” said Staci Walder, 42, of Portland, as she prepared her vegan, kale-wrapped turkey.

“I’m truly humbled that you’ve blessed me with the Trump presidency, the patriarchy, the laws of economics, and biological facts to rage against.“

“Every year, it’s important to pause and recognize how much we have to be angry about.”

“A lot of people struggle with gratitude, but I’m deeply thankful that the universe has given us a veritable cornucopia of things to be mad about,” agreed Mary Wallace, 27, of New York.

“I know that I come from a place of privilege, and when I think about those poor people who have absolutely nothing to be mad about, I utter a prayer of thanks to goddess.”

Many progressives partake in an annual tradition of writing down all the things they’re thankful to be mad about:

• White people

• Pronouns

• Personal responsibility

• Satire that does not affirm their viewpoint

• Billionaires

• Old tweets

• 32-ounce sodas

• Plastic straws

• People who hold a steady job

• Appropriating other cultures

• Excluding other cultures

• Bush

• Obama

• Trump

• Babies

• Kanye West

• America

“If we’d all just remember to count our outrages, we’d have a much worse attitude all the time,” Wallace said as she looked over her own list of offensive things that dare to exist.

“We should live our lives as though it’s Outrage Thanksgiving every day.”

Having failed miserably to “trickle down” stock market wealth for a decade as was their intention, something Ben Bernanke made clear in his Nov 4, 2010 WaPo op-ed, central banks have moved on to more noble causes.

Over the weekend Minneapolis Fed chair Neil Kashkari suggested it was time to allow central banks to directly decide how to redistribute wealth, stating unironically that “monetary policy can play the kind of redistributing role once thought to be the preserve of elected officials”, apparently failing to realize that the Fed is not made up of elected officials but unelected technocrats who serve the bidding of the Fed’s commercial bank owners.

Failing to decide how is poor and who is rich, central bankers are happy to settle with merely fixing the climate.

Overnight, Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda joined his European central banking peers by endorsing government plans to compile a fiscal spending package for disaster relief and measures to help the economy stave off heightening global risks. Kuroda said that natural disasters, such as the strong typhoon that struck Japan in October, may erode asset and collateral value, and the associated risk may pose a significant challenge for financial institutions, Kuroda said.

In short, it’s time for central banks to target global warming climate change:

“Climate-related risk differs from other risks in that its relatively long-term impact means that the effects will last longer than other financial risks, and the impact is far less predictable,” he said. “It is therefore necessary to thoroughly investigate and analyse the impact of climate-related risk.”

Kuroda’s crusade to tame climate came just hours after the ECB’s new chief, Christine Lagarde pushed for climate change to be part of a strategic review of the European Central Bank’s purpose, “spearheading a global drive to make the environment an essential part of monetary policymaking.”

As the FT put it, the plan “underlines Ms Lagarde’s declared goal as president to make climate change a “mission-critical” priority for the central bank. It comes as European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen, whose team on Wednesday was officially endorsed by the European Parliament, is about to unveil her first landmark climate policy package.

“We have reached the point where the reputational risk of doing nothing is large enough that they will have to announce something at the end of the review — the big question is what,” said Stanislas Jourdan, head of Positive Money Europe, a campaign group.

Funny Jourdan should bring up reputational risk: after all he was referring to the criminally convicted former IMF head, who recently incinerated tens of billions in IMF bailout funds in Argentina. The same former IMF head who in April 2016 admitted that for the IMF to “thrive”, the world has to “go downhill”, and that the IMF “to be sustainable” it needs to be “very in touch with our client base” while adding that “when the world goes well and we’ve had years of growth, as was the case back in 2006 and 2007, the IMF doesn’t do so well both financially and otherwise.”

Naturally, Lagarde’s attempt to hijack the ECB’s mission from one of failing to hit an inflation target for years, diverting from Mario Draghi’s disastrous bubble legacy, and from making the wealth divide between the rich and poor the widest it has ever been, and to one of virtually unlimited debt monetization and MMT under the virtue-signalling guise of monetizing fiscal deficits to “save the climate” was promptly frowned upon by real central bankers such as Bundesbank president Jens Weidmann, who said last month that he would view “very critically” any attempt to redirect ECB monetary policy actions to tackle climate change. Then again, as has long been the case, the general public is by now well aware of Weidmann’s “bad cop” act – when push comes to shove, the German always folds, he will fold again.

It wasn’t just Weidmann who was appalled by Lagarde’s mission creep. Overnight, Rabobank’s Michael Every wrote that “just 24-hours after the Daily made the joke that said central banks will be adding a CO2 target to their CPI target, we see the Financial Times report that ECB President Lagarde wants a key role for climate change in the upcoming ECB review; this is apparently being opposed by the Germans, who believe that central banks are only supposed to focus on not-getting CPI right.”

To be sure, Lagarde’s half-baked strategy prompted even more questions the answers. Here is Every again:

Is Lagarde suggesting the ECB’s balance-sheet expansion will only be targeted at firms who meet green criteria? That’s going to cause a rapid liquidity crunch if so. Or is it that the ECB will back de facto fiscal expansion provided the scheme address global warming? “Cli(MM)a(T)e crisis”. I am not taking a side on that debate by the way, which is literally life or death if you believe the science: I am just asking how this is not something that elected politicians shouldn’t be front-running – does central-bank independence now run into the meteorological? And very sadly, commentary in Nature today suggests we might already be past the tipping point on the climate anyway – which would ironically be par for the course for central banks, who are always fighting the last war and failing to meet their targets.

And on the “let’s reduce inequality” front the Fed’s Kashkari recently floated as another focus for central banks, are we perhaps to see the Fed’s balance-sheet expansion channelled to low-income housing, or to firms who help #MAGA? “#M(MMT)AGA” springs to mind if so. Or are they going to keep things simple and merely tell banks they have to charge rich people more in order to give subsidised loans to poor people?

None of this really suggests higher rates or yields, of course.

That was nothing, however, compares to full-on rant unleashed by Shard Capital’s Bill Blain in his latest daily letter:

US Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell was recently asked what he thought about tax cuts, and replied it was not the Fed’s job to comment on political initiatives – he made clear the US Central Bank will stick to the data to deliver on its mandate of price control and employment. Simple Stuff and Very Focused.

Compare and contrast to the situation in Europe.  New ECB head Christine Lagarde is demanding a key role for the ECB in Climate Change. I thought the ECB was a central bank?  Silly me. Bravo for her strident virtue signalling of her impeccable climate change credentials. I would propose a round of applause – but let’s give her Jazz Hands in case it offends anyone.

The gods of unintended consequences are going to have a fantastic time!

I was also under the impression The ECB was an element within some form of democracy at the centre of Europe where elected governments would determine policy. Apologies if I misunderstood.

Just how will the ECB address climate change? Will it impose punitive capital costs on banks lending to borrowers they deem non-climate worthy? Will it jail bankers and financiers that have the temerity to offer terms to Oil, Gas and Coal companies?  Will the Bank only buy bonds issued by green borrowers who pass their tests? How will the bank police its green lending – for instance creating a Ministry of Financial Climate Control and basing it in Luxembourg…?  How will it address Greenwashing? (By selling its own Green label perhaps?) What incentives and punishments will it have at its command?

The potential for market distortion is multiple and serious.

I would suggest the remit of the ECB might stick with the knitting – like how to get European agreement on the obvious stuff like Banking Union, how to address the need for Fiscal policy, rather than trampling all over National State’s rights to address climate change themselves.

No Matter. Lagarde is French and Europe belongs to Macron.  

Any company that is well run, efficient and has positive cash flow, but is tarred by some Not Green badge, is going to be a screaming buy if you legislate against it – because it will be a good and cheap company.  Giving a company a green badge does not make it a good company. It means it got a gold star – nothing more.

Blain’s punchline: “why stop at protecting the environment. Go the whole hog and give the ECB oversight of ESG in its entirety. Give the ECB responsibility for determining which companies have done enough in terms of gender and transgender diversity, social inclusiveness, and which support the European dream most enthusiastically…”

Well, Bill, if we wait just a few years you will surely get your wish.

Finally, just in case Every and Blain’s sarcasm was lost on someone, here is Cantillon’s Sean Corrigan pointing out that what central bankers are currently pushing is “backdoor, globalist imposition of anti-democratic #Green tyranny, nothing less 2.0C + 2.0CPI = CCCP2.0.”

I have been warning about this for some time now. Divus Marcus #Carney has been leading the charge and it all fits nicely, too, with the OPM Wokery of #ESG ‘investing’
This is a backdoor, globalist imposition of anti-democratic #Green tyranny, nothing less
2.0C + 2.0CPI = CCCP2.0 pic.twitter.com/T0maR3o7tj

— Wild Goose (@TrueSinews) November 28, 2019

He is, of course right.

Authored by Brittany Slaughter via The College Fix,

As college students across the nation arrive home for Thanksgiving, they’re armed with the knowledge of how to “decolonize” their holiday.

There was no one way to impart this instruction, as educators took different approaches, with events such as “How You Can Eat Your Turkey and Decolonize Thanksgiving Too” and “Thanks But No Thanks-Giving: Decolonizing an American Holiday.”

“By taking a decolonizing approach to teaching about Thanksgiving, teachers and families reject the myths of Thanksgiving and harmful stereotypes about Native peoples,” Professor Lindsey Wieck wrote in an article for Medium in which she encouraged parents to send letters to their children’s schools to “advocate for a more inclusive approach to discussing Thanksgiving.”

Wieck, an assistant professor of history St. Mary’s University, did not respond to requests from The College Fix seeking further comment. But due to her stance, it’s unlikely she would have been in opposition to some of the activities campuses hosted in recent weeks given the article’s headline: “Decolonizing Thanksgiving: A Toolkit for Combating Racism in Schools.”

Montana State University’s “indigenous dinner” on Nov. 13 dinner included locally and tribally sourced foods with various stations offering natural Native American dishes.

“The dinner has two missions: to educate patrons about foods they may not have realized are indigenous to this country and to help people understand what it was like to eat prior to the colonization of the Americas,” said KayAnn Miller, executive sous chef for Miller Dining Commons, in a university news release.

But university’s spokesperson Carly Toalson declined to comment to The College Fix about the event.

Meanwhile at the University of Oregon, it hosted “Thanks But No Thanks-giving: Decolonizing an American Holiday.”

The Nov. 21 event reminded students that “Thanksgiving is, foundationally speaking, a celebration of the ongoing genocide against native peoples and cultures across the globe,” according to the university’s website.

With that, the event focused “on ways in which we can continue to show gratitude while raising our critical consciousness and identifying ways to decolonize the holiday.”

A University of Oregon spokesperson declined to comment to The College Fix about the event.

Over at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania, it played host to a “Decolonize Thanksgiving Information Table” on Nov. 14.

“Stories told about the first Thanksgiving often perpetuate harmful stereotypes and racism. Decolonize your Thanksgiving to go beyond the harmful ‘pilgrims and Indians’ narrative and focus on common values: generosity, gratitude, community, and good food,” the university’s website states.

Abigail Adams, chairperson for IUP’s Native American Awareness Council, told Campus Reform the event included copies of “The suppressed speech of Wamsutta James” and a poster addressing the “myth of Thanksgiving.”

Meanwhile, over at Missouri Southern State University, a panel it recently played host to was titled “How You Can Eat Your Turkey and Decolonize Thanksgiving Too.” It was led by Tehya Deardorff, of the Quapaw Nation, and Kristen Fidler, of the Cherokee Nation. Organizers did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

The panel was part of a larger event called “The Whole Story: A Decolonial Cross-Cultural Day,” reports the Joplin Globe. Other topics the event aimed to decolonize included language, fashion and science.

Materials provided to the Globe by event founder Rebecca Mouser, an assistant professor in the English and philosophy department and president of the faculty senate, noted that “colonization has taken place all over the globe through the stealing of lands; the raping of women; the taking of slaves; the breaking of bodies through fighting, labor, imprisonment and genocide; the stealing of children; the enforcement of religion; (and) the destruction or attempts to destroy spiritual ways of life.”

“All of these things have left a psychological, spiritual and physical impact on indigenous peoples and a governmental ruling system that we did not create, that was not made for us. These are the things we need to heal from, where we need to start reclaiming. This is where organizing and decolonizing comes in.”

Former Polish president Aleksander Kwasniewski  – a current board member for Ukrainian gas company Burisma, admitted to AP that Hunter Biden was picked to sit on the company’s board because of his name, and that’s ‘just how the world works.’

Still, he insists that the younger Biden never leveraged his relationship with his father to further the company’s interests – such as the time Joe threatened to withhold $1 billion in US aid unless Ukraine’s top prosecutor, who was investigating Burisma, was fired.

“I understand that if someone asks me to be part of some project it’s not only because I’m so good, it’s also because I am Kwasniewski and I am a former president of Poland. … Being Biden is not bad. It’s a good name,” he said.

Hunter and his ‘good name’ was recently revealed to have fathered a child out of wedlock with an Arkansas stripper – notably at a different strip club than he is accused of smoking crack in, neither of which were the club where he’s also accused of having someone run out to get a dildo “so the gals could use it” on him, according to Page Six.

Then there was the time Hunter returned a Hertz rental car to an Arizona with a crack pipe, and the number of a local colon hydrotherapist called the next day to let the rental agency know the keys were in the gas cap.

Great name indeed!

Authored by Jennie Taer via SaraACarter.com,

Holiday season is not just about spending quality time with friends and family, now, according to Teen Vogue, it’s about confronting your “bigoted relatives”…

That’s right and not only that, but it’s also about breaking the “safe space” your white relatives have created to openly discuss “racist, transphobic, queer antagonistic, mysogynistic, and generally ugly ideas.”

In the magazine’s recent column, Jenn M. Jackson argues that its “our responsibility to challenge” our “bigoted relatives” this holiday season.

 “Some white people who see themselves as nonracist will just play nice instead of clapping back directly at these problematic family members. This year, consider doing something different,” Jackson argues.

Further, she says that although discriminatory laws have been deemed unconstitutional, white people are still quietly participating in acts of segregation. They continue to “isolate” themselves from nonwhite populations through “white flight” and comprise their social groups of only other white people.

“Neighborhood segregation means that many white Americans don’t see many nonwhite people as members of their communities, and certainly not as their next-door neighbors,” Jackson notes.

The holiday meal will be the social justice warrior’s ground zero for ending white privilege. It’s time to mobilize.

“Quietly forking away at your yams and green beans while Aunt Susan spews hateful messages about Black people, immigrants, or gender nonconforming people won’t do anything to change the status quo,” Jackson wrote.

“It’s just another way of allowing these toxic ideas and beliefs to permeate throughout generations and social networks every day. How about stepping up to do something about it?”

The legacy of Karl Marx’s ideas and how they’re relevant to the current political climate: https://t.co/G9L2xUhkk1

— Teen Vogue (@TeenVogue) June 24, 2019

Consistent with their latest column, the magazine published a glowing piece on Karl Marx earlier this year. They introduced him to readers, mostly young girls, as “the man, the meme, the legend” of communism.

Speaking to academic experts on the subject of Marxist theory, it was clear that Teen Vogue hoped to inspire the next proletariat overthrow of the bourgeoisie class.

Holiday travelers are relieved that the first storm, which moved across the Central and Midwest regions earlier this week, has left the coast of New England on Thursday.

Though the storm has left behind gusty winds across the Mid-Atlantic and North East states for Thanksgiving, from North Carolina to New York City, wind advisories have been posted, reported ABC News.

Winds in New York City could reach 35 to 40 mph during Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade — it appears that some of the floats will still fly, despite earlier reports, the floats could be canceled due to high winds.

JUST IN: The Macy’s Thanksgiving parade balloons will fly! https://t.co/60HBADWUuv pic.twitter.com/616AWMqeTP

— Good Morning America (@GMA) November 28, 2019

From Northern California to Michigan, dozens of states are under winter storm advisories and warnings as wintery participation fell into the late week, from a second storm.

There were even reports of blizzard-like conditions in Spokane, Washington, which on Tuesday, led to a massive pileup involving more than 100 cars. 

Heads up westbound traffic into #Spokane! A fast hitting #SnowSquall has snarled traffic on I-90 up here on the West Plains! #wawx pic.twitter.com/KpbUiKXboC

— NWS Spokane (@NWSSpokane) November 26, 2019

Pictures of the pileup circulated around social media on late Tuesday. Authorities said six were injured with no deaths. 

Other reports show the storm unleashed blizzard-like conditions in southern Oregon and northern California. Parts of the I-5 were shut down on Tuesday for an extended period of time, stranding hundreds of drivers. 

Winter Storm Warnings have been posted for the Sierras to the Central and Southern Rockies, where 2-4 feet of snow is expected by Friday evening.

The winter storm will track east into the Plains by the Weekend.

Montana to Michigan could be slammed with dangerous blizzard conditions. Currently, the storm is crossing the Southwest and Southern Plains.

By Saturday, the storm is expected to move into Central US, from the Northern Plains to the Gulf Coast. Severe weather is expected for states in those regions.

Blizzard conditions are expected across the Northern Plains and Upper Midwest on Saturday, with damaging winds and isolated tornadoes across Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi.

The storm will arrive in the Northeast by Sunday, could produce a mix of rain and snow for some areas.

From coast to coast, it appears travel during this holiday season could be widely disrupted as several storms unleash a mix of volatile weather.

Authored by Bilal Hafeez via MacroHive.com,

Today sees Americans celebrate Thanksgiving. It’s a holiday that brings families together, celebrates harmony, and recognizes the bounty of harvest. So what better time to remind ourselves that despite headlines crying out otherwise, not all is bad in the world.

Here are 8 charts with an optimistic take:

(1) Goldilocks Economic Conditions. 

In the 1970s, the scourge of industrialised economies was high unemployment and high inflation. The sum of both indicators made the ‘misery index’. Today, low unemployment rates and equally low inflation have brought that index close to its lowest level ever for the major economies.

(2) US Jobs Market is Great Again for Neglected Demographics.

For all the rhetoric of increasing polarisation and discrimination in today’s society, one indicator at least has moved in the right direction: the unemployment rates for Women, Black, and Latino segments of the US population. These are at all at low levels – and most at their lowest on record.

(3) China Finding Balance. 

For too long China has relied on investment to generate growth. And often, it’s uneconomic bank lending financing this. Today the picture is different. 2019 has seen the lowest investment contribution to growth for years. And importantly, Chinese bank balance sheets have stopped expanding.

(4) UK Saw Growth Turnaround in 2019. 

The UK has been in the doldrums since the Brexit vote. But this year saw every other industrialised economy hit by a trade-war-affected decline in the global cycle. Who bounced back during this decline? The UK.

(5) The Simplest Investment Strategy Delivered Double Digit Returns. 

While VC returns, smart beta, and macro hedge funds struggled in 2019, the plain vanilla 60:40 strategy came good. It delivered returns of over 15%.

(6) Many Countries are Expected to See a Pick-up in Growth in 2020. 

Global narratives can easily bog you down – seeing the whole world shifting one way or another. Instead, look at individual country growth forecasts. There we find many countries expecting higher growth next year compared with 2019: Argentina, Singapore, Mexico, Hong Kong, and standing out especially, Turkey.

(7) Italy is Fiscally Responsible. 

Everyone was worried that an anti-EU populist government in Italy would break all the fiscal rules. But looking at the actual numbers, Italy has been the exemplar of fiscal prudence.

(8) Equity Investors See Value in Europe. 

It’s easy to dislike the Euro-area: stagnant growth, weak banks, and a lack of innovation. However, equity investors are less dismissive. After selling Euro-area equities in 2018, they have entered the region with force. Clearly they see something others are missing.

Optimism? How long will that last?

Just a few hours after Trump called China’s bluff on the Hong Kong bill, it appears the US president won the pot.

After launching a stern verbal protest overnight in which China’s Foreign Ministry said that it would take strong countermeasures if the US continues to undermine Hong Kong’s autonomy after Trump signed the Bill that supports HK protesters, adding that US attempts to interfere in HK are doomed to fail, Beijing has done nothing really, and instead left the door open for a trade deal with the U.S., confirming again that China needs the trade deal with the US just as much as Trump, if not more.

The build up certainly was dramatic: for days after Congress almost unanimously passed the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act last week, China repeatedly vowed it would take unspecified countermeasures if Trump signed the bill, fueling concerns that President Xi Jinping would scuttle the trade talks to appear tough on the U.S. In the end, China did nothing: Wednesday’s bill signing by Mr. Trump came and went without any real action.

Instead, as the WSJ notes, “Chinese officials shifted their focus to whether the U.S. president would implement any of the bill’s measures, according to officials involved in economic policy-making.” Specifically, to save face, Beijing seized on a sentence in Trump’s statement that emphasized his “constitutional authorities with respect to foreign relations.”

… with respect to foreign relations.” Sources confirm the Phase One deal is being finalized. So let’s see. With @PhilipWen11 @Chao_Deng

— Lingling Wei 魏玲灵 (@Lingling_Wei) November 28, 2019

Or as the WSJ summarized, for all its huffing and puffing, “China’s leadership still wants a deal to help alleviate pressure on its fast-weakening economy”, which incidentally coincides with Trump’s own interest as he hopes to clinch a deal to boost his re-election bid.

Indeed, as the WSJ’s Lingling Wei also notes, Trump “Trump also chose the evening before Thanksgiving to sign the measure, a time guaranteed to get little attention in the U.S. While his signature still makes the bill law, his timing suggests he was trying to play down the political impact at home.

Also good point by @bobdavis187 : Trump also chose the evening be­fore Thanks­giv­ing to sign the mea­sure, a time guar­an­teed to get lit­tle at­ten­tion in U.S. The tim­ing sug­gests he was try­ing to play down the po­lit­i­cal im­pact at home.

— Lingling Wei 魏玲灵 (@Lingling_Wei) November 28, 2019

Trump’s successful gambit was concluded when reporters asked if the bill’s signing would affect trade talks. To this, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang didn’t answer directly but demanded the U.S. not implement the law because it would risk “undermining our bilateral relations and cooperation in important areas.” Chinese officials were also reportedly encouraged by Trump’s efforts to emphasize his respect for Mr. Xi. “I signed these bills out of respect for President Xi, China, and the people of Hong Kong,” Trump said unironically in the statement.

And since the actual implementation of the bill wold not take place for over half a year, when it comes to China it is now officially in the rearview mirror as Beijing has moved the goalpost not to responding to Trump’s signing of the bill, but to Washington’s actual implementation.

“It does spoil the mood, but it shouldn’t interfere with the trade talks,” said Wang Yong, a professor of international relations at Peking University, of Mr. Trump’s move. “Both sides have enough reasons to keep trade, Hong Kong and political issues on separate tracks.”

Which means that with both sides now eager to sign a deal, they will ignore any political theater that could potentially jeopardize such a deal:

Some outside experts agree with Beijing’s interpretation that while the U.S. law gives the president broad powers to impose sanctions and travel restrictions on individuals who commit human-rights violations in Hong Kong, the president already had many of those powers—and still has the discretion to not apply them.

“My reading of D.C. is there’s a lot of appetite for talking tough on China, but not that much in terms of actually being tough,” said Andrew Polk, founder of Trivium, a Beijing-based economics and policy consulting firm.

Still, there is a modest risk that Xi will be pressured to offer at least a token response: as noted earlier, China’s top twitter troll, Hu Xijin, editor in chief of the state-run Global Times, said on Twitter that China was considering barring those responsible for drafting the legislation from entering mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau. Trolling Trump’s turn of phrase, Hu said this was “out of respect for President Trump, the U.S. and its people.”

Yet ultimately passage of any trade deal could depend on whether Hong Kong residents escalate their protests in the coming days, emboldened by explicit US support – in that case, Beijing may have no choice but to close the door, if only temporarily, on a Phase 1 deal.

China’s attempts to keep Hong Kong issues and the trade talks on separate tracks might not be universally popular, some analysts say. Shi Yinhong, a professor of international relations at Renmin University, said it could be embarrassing for a phase-one trade deal to progress in light of the Hong Kong law.

Yet despite the various unknowns and risks, the fact that Beijing has so far merely stuck to verbal threats instead of escalating to actual deeds, confirms that for now, Trump’s signing gamble worked out just as the US president expected.

In what could send Millennials across the globe into a tryptophan-inspired cycle of doom, Thanksgiving Day is off to a horrifying start for many as Facebook and Snapchat are reportedly down for millions across the globe.

Source: DownDetector

Users reported outages across both Facebook and Instagram, which are both owned by the same company, but WhatsApp appeared to be unaffected by the issue as yet. All three apps share much of the same underlying infrastructure which can often create a cascade effect when a server goes down.

Source: DownDetector

But the US seems most affected for now…

Source: DownDetector

Social media is “enjoying” the time away from Zuck’s super-surveillance toy…

#facebookdown #instagramdown #Thanksgiving2019 pic.twitter.com/xX1DNfrC8j

— K A T H E R I N E (@SpecialK2991) November 28, 2019

#facebookdown pic.twitter.com/9qdv0I6fcm

— José Luis Duarte (@JoselDuarte) November 28, 2019

 

Aaaand Fcacebook is down. lol #facebookdown #instagramdown pic.twitter.com/7l1Md9UV7e

— Pete O’Neal (@peteonealjr) November 28, 2019

“OK, Boomer” anyone?