Tag: finance

“A Modified Ponzi Scheme”: Since 2008, 78% Of Tesla Operating Cash Flow Has Come From Customer Deposits

An impressive, 46-page Value Investor Club write-up on Tesla was published by user jcoviedo on Monday and promptly leaked thereafter, which – not surprisingly – pitched a short thesis which sees the stock price first dropping to Musk’s margin call level of roughly $200/share, after which a “massive reset” as core investors dump, sends it below $50 share.

And while Zero Hedge readers are by now familiar with many of the bearish arguments against the company, there was one striking observation that goes to the heart of Tesla’s biggest weakness: its liquidity, and specifically that Tesla is nothing more than a deposit-churning Ponzi scheme, that only keeps its light on thanks to gullible buyers who front the cost of production of the next model, and the next, and so on. Here is the passage in question:

Tesla is in effect a modified Ponzi scheme. Throughout its history, the company has financed its operations by announcing a new product (originally the roadster, then the Model S, the Model X, the Model 3, the Semi, the roadster 2, and now the Model Y as well as the vaporware full self driving package) and then taking deposits for the product before it has ever designed a production system for the product. The company then spends the deposits on operating expenses and the capital expenses to manufacture the original product. When the company is close to running out of funds, the company announces a new product and takes deposits on it in order to finish the production of the first product. Since 2008, 78% of TSLA’s cash flow from operations has come from customer deposits!

While it is debatable whether this practice is legal or not, there it one thing it clearly isn’t, especially in the long run: sustainable.

And Musk know it. As the report’s author points out, “unlike a bank, Tesla does not segregate customer deposits and in reality customer depositors are just unsecured creditors of the company. In Ashlee Vance’s Elon Musk biography he has a telling scene in late 2008, Kimbal Musk worries about the legal implications of Elon raiding the customer deposits in order to keep the lights on.

Is this a harbinger of what is coming for Tesla customers first, and shareholders next? If that is indeed the case, then sustaining demand for the company’s products – in the form of millions of fronted deposits – means the difference between life and liquidity death for Tesla. In fact, if demand is indeed down, one can even calculates the precise time of upcoming death. Here is the stunning calculation from the report’s author:

With a sharp demand slowdown as well as the $920 million convertible bond maturity Tesla paid on March 1st, Tesla’s balance sheet is in an increasingly perilous position. We believe the ongoing Department of Justice investigator into potential securities and wire fraud related to Model 3 production statements prior to the company’s 2017 high yield offering as well as the SEC’s ongoing litigation with CEO Elon Musk over the “Funding Secured” debacle have likely blocked the company’s ability to do a registered equity offering. The MXWL merger proxy is taking a surprisingly long time to be declared effective. It’s almost as if the SEC is refusing to approve any registration statements for the company so long as Musk remains CEO. The poor performance of Tesla’s high yield bonds has likely limited the company’s potential access to that market. In theory, Tesla could do some sort of private placement in its equity, but we believe Musk has been unwilling to pursue this path since the likely pricing of such an offering would trigger his margin call and wipe him out personally.

Assuming the company sells ~17k Model SIX, 42k Model 3s, is able to extend payables to 105 days from 87 days in Q4, raises $50 million in Model Y/Semi/Roadster 2 deposits, spends $3 billion on capex over the course of 2019 ($500 million of which is funded by drawing on the China credit facility) we estimate Tesla will end Q1 with consolidated cash on its balance sheet of a little over $1.6 billion. When you adjust this cash balance for the ~$600 million likely trapped in China (according to the 10-K Tesla had $749 million in cash outside the U.S.), we estimate Tesla ends Of with only roughly $1 billion in on balance sheet cash accessible in the U.S. compared to over $800 million in consumer deposits.

the punchline: “The company will likely have to raid those consumer deposits in Q2 in order to remain outside of Chapter 11.“

The full “must read” report is below:

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Nunes Sues Twitter For $250 Million In “Shadow Ban” Lawsuit

Rep. Devin Nunes (D-CA) filed a lawsuit against Twitter and several of its users on Monday seeking $250 million in compensatory damages and $350,000 in punitive damages, reports Fox News.

The suit accuses the social media giant of “shadow-banning conservatives,” including himself, in order to influence the 2018 US elections through the systematic censorship of certain opinions – while “ignoring” multiple lawful complaints of abusive behavior. 

Also included in the lawsuit are several accounts which Nunes claims defamed him – accusing the lawmaker of being a racist, having “white supremacist friends” and turning out “worse than Jacob Wohl,” a 21-year-old political exhibitionist and former investment adviser who was charged with 14 counts of securities fraud in 2017. 

The lawsuit alleges defamation, conspiracy, and negligence, and seeks not only damages, but also an injunction compelling Twitter to turn over the identities behind numerous accounts he says have harassed and defamed him.

Although federal law ordinarily exempts services like Twitter from defamation liability, Nunes’ suit said the platform has taken such an active role in curating and banning content — as opposed to merely hosting it — that it should face liability like any other organization that defames. –Fox News

“Twitter created and developed the content at issue in this case by transforming false accusations of criminal conduct, imputed wrongdoing, dishonesty and lack of integrity into a publicly available commodity used by unscrupulous political operatives and their donor/clients as a weapon,” reads the lawsuit. “Twitter is ‘responsible’ for the development of offensive content on its platform because it in some way specifically encourages development of what is offensive about the content.”

Twitter is accused of supporting “an orchestrated defamation campaign of stunning breadth and scope, one that no human being should ever have to bear and suffer in their whole life,” after the platform allowed defamatory material to be spread about Nunes. 

The complaint also named specific Twitter accounts that spread allegedly defamatory material about Nunes. One defendant, identified as “Liz” Mair, purportedly published tweets that “implied that Nunes colluded with prostitutes and cocaine addicts, that Nunes does cocaine, and that Nunes was involved in a ‘Russian money laundering front,'” according to Nunes’ lawyers. –Fox News

According to the complaint, “Twitter did nothing to investigate or review the defamation that appeared in plain view on its platform. Twitter consciously allowed the defamation of Nunes to continue” despite reports and reviews by Twitter’s content moderators. 

“As part of its agenda to squelch Nunes’ voice, cause him extreme pain and suffering, influence the 2018 Congressional election, and distract, intimidate and interfere with Nunes’ investigation into corruption and Russian involvement in the 2016 Presidential Election, Twitter did absolutely nothing,” the complaint continues. 

On Monday, Twitter admitted to shadowbanning The Federalist co-founder Sean Davis. 

Tweeting a passage last week from former FBI attorney Lisa Page’s Congressional testimony discussing the FBI’s rush to find connections between the Trump campaign and Russia, Davis pointed out the irony of Hillary Clinton’s campaign employing former UK spy Christopher Steele, a foreign national, “working with Russians to obtain damaging information about Donald Trump.” 

 

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Christopher Steele’s Former MI6 Boss Calls Dossier “Overrated” 

In yet another stunning blow to the so-called “Steele Dossier” assembled by former MI6 agent Christopher Steele, the former chief of the (MI6) said the hastily cobbled-together report by his former employee is “overrated” and its salacious claims against Donald Trump unlikely to be verified, as the Daily Wire‘s Ashe Schow reports. 

Following an appearance at the Jamestown Foundation’s 12th annual terrorism conference in Washington D.C., Sir John Scarlett – who headed the British Secret Intelligence Service from 2004 to 2009, fielded a question from journalist Nicholas Ballasy, who asked Scarlett what he thought of the dossier and if he believed what was written in it. 

“Well, no,” said Scarlett, adding “I looked at it and I thought these are commercial intelligence reports; I don’t know about the sources — they might be right, they might be wrong and they’ll probably be overrated and they’ve been overrated.“

When asked if the dossier could ever be verified, Steele’s former boss said “No.” 

Ballasy then asked Scarlett if he was surprised that Steele would produce the dossier using unverified information, to which the former MI6 head replied: 

“Well, they were commercial intelligence reports and they were visibly that so there’s a question of why they were there and where they came from and who commissioned them and so on,” adding” So, I’ve tended to see them in that context and never quite of political significance for obvious reasons and actually if you think about it, people have talked about them in a really big way a year or so ago and they haven’t really made that much of a difference.“

“As I said, I suspect, all I can say, is they are overrated.“

When asked about what Steele was like to work with, Scarlett replied: “I’m not going to comment,” before walking away. We’re guessing he’s probably tired of MI6 having been mentioned in the same breath as Steele for the last several years.

Listen:

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Marc Faber Rages: Rise Of Socialism “Leads To Complete Economic Calamity”

Via Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com,

Legendary contrarian investor Dr. Marc Faber says forget about the coming slowdown because the economy has already been backing up for months.

Faber, who holds a PhD in economics, explains,

“Investors are relatively complacent. Nobody thinks a recession has begun. I think a recession in the U.S. probably began in October/November of last year. If you define a recession as peak economic activity and subsequent declining growth rates that can turn overall negative in the process, I think this is happening now in the world. We are probably already in a recession.

The central banks, in my view, will continue to do more or less what they have done in the past, namely, print money.”

Dr. Faber warns,

“When I started to work in 1970 on Wall Street, the stock market capitalization of the U.S. as a percentage of GDP… was between 25% and 30%.

Now, the stock market capitalization alone is 150% of GDP, and when you add the bonds to it, we are at 300%.

It’s a huge asset bubble compared to the real economy. I think no matter what they do, this asset bubble will be deflated, and it will be very painful. The asset holders are the powerful ones here, and they don’t want it deflated…

The question is would it have been better economically to go into the hospital in 2008/2009 and clean up the system rather than to essentially inject the sick patient with more opioids to keep him alive? It’s going to get much worse the next time it happens.”

Faber says, “You ask me what I fear. I say you and I and your viewers do not know how it will end… I am not hopeful for the global economy. We can have a recession at any time, but I think the asset market will hold up because of the money printing.”

Dr. Faber thinks that the problems in the West are not just financial, but geopolitical with the rise of socialism and communism. Dr. Faber says,

“I can assure you that people who lived under socialism and communism in China, Russia and Eastern Europe, that is the last thing they want to go back to–the last thing.

The Westerners, who have never experienced the devastating lifestyle under socialism and communism, are amenable to the idea.

The millennials think the government should do more. They don’t know what that means. When the government can do more, it can do everything. They can have people build bridges in the desert where no bridges are needed to keep people busy, and that leads to a complete economic calamity.”

Join Greg Hunter as he goes One-on-One with Dr. Marc Faber, Editor and Publisher of “The Gloom, Boom & Doom Report.”

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Trudeau’s Top Bureaucrat Unexpecteldy Quits Amid Growing Corruption Scandal

Since it was exposed by a report in Canada’s Globe and Mail newspaper earlier this month, the scandal that’s become known as the SNC-Lavalin affair has already led to the firing of several of Trudeau’s close advisors and raised serious questions about whether the prime minister was complicit in pressuring the attorney general to offer a deferred prosecution agreement with a large, Quebec-based engineering firm.

And according to the first round of polls released since the affair exploded into public view…

…it could cost Trudeau his position as prime minister and return control to the conservatives, according to the CBC.

Campaign Research showed the Conservatives ahead with 37% to 32% for the Liberals, while both Ipsos and Léger put the margin at 36% to 34% in the Conservatives’ favour. Since December, when both polling firms were last in the field, the Liberals have lost one point in Campaign Research’s polling and four percentage points in the Ipsos poll, while the party is down five points since November in the Léger poll.

Meanwhile, as the noose tightens around Trudeau, on Monday another of the key Canadian government officials at the center of the SNC-Lavalin scandal has quit his post.

Michael Wernick, clerk of the privy council, the highest-ranking position in Canada’s civil service and a key aide to Justin Trudeau, announced his retirement Monday. Trudeau named Ian Shugart, currently deputy minister of foreign affairs, to replace him.

In a scathing letter to Trudeau, Wernick said that “recent events” led him to conclude he couldn’t hold his post during the election campaign this fall.

“It is now apparent that there is no path for me to have a relationship of mutual trust and respect with the leaders of the opposition parties,” he said, citing the need for impartiality on the issue of potential foreign interference. According to Bloomberg, the exact date of his departure is unclear.

As we reported in February, Canada’s former justice minister and attorney general, Jody Wilson-Raybould, quit following allegations that several key Trudeau government figures pressured her to intervene to end a criminal prosecution against Montreal-based construction giant SNC. Wernick was among those she named in saying the prime minister’s office wanted her to pursue a negotiated settlement.

Wernick has since twice spoken to a committee of lawmakers investigating the case, and during that testimony both defended his actions on the SNC file and warned about the risk of foreign election interference, as “blame Putin” has become traditional Plan B plan for most politicians seeing their careers go up in flames.

“I’m deeply concerned about my country right now, its politics and where it’s headed. I worry about foreign interference in the upcoming election,” he said in his first appearance before the House of Commons justice committee, before repeating the warning a second time this month. “If that was seen as alarmist, so be it. I was pulling the alarm. We need a public debate about foreign interference.”

Because somehow foreign interference has something to do with Wenick’s alleged corruption.

Incidentally, as we wonder what the real reason is behind Wernick’s swift departure, we are confident we will know soon enough.

Anyway, back to the now former clerk, who is meant to be non-partisan in service of the government of the day, also criticized comments by a Conservative senator and praised one of Trudeau’s cabinet ministers.

Wernick’s testimony was criticized as overly cozy with the ruling Liberals. Murray Rankin, a New Democratic Party lawmaker, asked the clerk how lawmakers could “do anything but conclude that you have in fact crossed the line into partisan activity?” Green Party Leader Elizabeth May said he seemed “willing to interfere in partisan fashion for whoever is in power.”

Whatever Wernick’s true motives, he is the latest but not last in what will be a long line of cabinet departures as the SNC scandal exposes even more corruption in Trudeau’s cabinet (some have ironically pointed out that Canada’s “beloved” prime minister could be gone for actual corruption long before Trump). Trudeau had already lost a top political aide, Gerald Butts, to the scandal. A second minister, Jane Philpott, followed Wilson-Raybould in quitting cabinet.

Separately, on Monday, Trudeau appointed a former deputy prime minister in a Liberal government, Anne McLellan, as a special adviser to investigate some of the legal questions raised by the controversy. They include how governments should interact with the attorney general and whether that role should continue to be held by the justice minister.

As Bloomberg notes, the increasingly shaky Liberal government hasn’t ruled out helping SNC by ordering a deferred prosecution agreement in the corruption and bribery case, which centers around the company’s work in Moammar Qaddafi’s Libya. Doing so would allow the company to pay a fine and avoid any ban on receiving government contracts. That decision is up to the current attorney general, David Lametti; of course, such an action would only raise tensions amid speculation that the government is pushing for a specific political, and favorable for Trudeau, outcome. 

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College Proposes Banning Emotional Support Animals From Classrooms, Offices

Via The College Fix,

The University of Minnesota has proposed banning emotional support animals from campus classrooms, labs, and offices, a policy which has been under consideration for about two years.

Service animals for people with disabilities would still be permitted under the new policy, and emotional support pets would continue to be allowed in campus housing pending approval by the Disability Resource Center, according to the Star Tribune.

University Services Chief of Staff Paige Rohman said emotional support animals “can cause a disturbance if they bark, lunge or go to the bathroom on campus,” and are “problematic for people with allergies or those of the Muslim faith who view dog saliva as unclean.”

Sophomore Sophia DeGarmo, who is studying animal science, lived with her dog Riley in campus housing last year to help address her depression, anxiety and panic disorder. She said she often brought the cavapoo to class but never caused any disruptions.

“The only time a professor said anything was when I said it was his birthday and one of them wanted to sing happy birthday,” she said.

The proposed policy includes exceptions to permit animals that are used during instruction, animals that are receiving medical treatment on campus and animals serving as official NCAA mascots or participating in patriotic ceremonies.

Utilization of emotional support animals has taken off in recent years; for example, in one year at Yale use increased from one animal to fourteen.

After Donald Trump’s surprise election victory in 2016, the University of Pennsylvania brought in puppies and kittens for students to cuddle in a coping “Breathing Space.”

To assist in “de-stressing” during exam week, the University of Oklahoma brought in some “therapy dogs,” while at Montana State a bunch of animals — including a 900-pound donkey named Oliver — were available at the campus library to help students chill out.

Read the Star Tribune story.

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New Zealanders Voluntarily Handing In Semi-Automatic Weapons For Destruction After Terror Attack

As New Zealand reels from Friday’s Christchurch mosque attack that left 50 dead and 50 wounded, Kiwis have started voluntarily surrendering their legally-owned semiautomatic firearms for destruction ahead of reforms promised over the next several days, according to New Zealand news outlet Stuff.

The reports of citizens disarming themselves come amid a Monday announcement by Prime minister Jacinda Ardern that several “in principle decisions” on gun control have been made by Cabinet ministers, and has praised residents who have surrendered their guns to police. 

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern 

“Within 10 days of this horrific act of terrorism we will have announced reforms that I think will make New Zealanders safer,” said Ardern, who donned a headscarf this weekend while visiting stricken Muslim communities. 

John Hart, who has been a sheep and beef farmer for 15 years, said he took his semi-automatic weapon into Masterton police station on Monday as he “couldn’t in all conscience” keep the rifle after seeing the loss of life in Christchurch. –Stuff

“Until today I was one of the New Zealanders who owned a semi-automatic rifle. On the farm they are a useful tool in some circumstances, but my convenience doesn’t outweigh the risk of misuse,” tweeted Hart. 

“Since the events on Friday I had been thinking a lot about the firearms we have here on the farm… They [semi-automatic weapons] are not critical, not if the trade off is loss of life,” said Hart – who said he used his rifle for occasional pest control, but that he doesn’t need semi-automatic weapons on his farm. 

While it can be useful “to have a second or third shot”, that is “a minor inconvenience” compared to using a safer bolt-action rifle for the same jobs, he added. 

Official police figures show that nearly 7,000 New Zealanders are legally allowed to own semi-automatic weapons. Police have advised those who wish to turn theirs in first call their local police station or arms officer for advice on safely transporting them for destruction. 

“Walking up the long courtyard to the Masterton police station, towards a stone-faced policewoman guarding the door holding an AR15 at the ready, while I’m carrying a rifle (in its case) was, let’s say, a puckering experience,” said Hart. 

Another Twitter user, @SirWB, wrote that he has “reflected and reserved my thoughts,” before making “one of the easiest decisions I have ever made” to voluntarily disarm after owning a firearm for more than three decades. 

Following the 1996 Port Arthur Massacre in which 35 people were killed, Australia banned guns via the National Firearms Agreement, which resulted in confiscation of between 650,000 and 1 million firearms from private citizens. 

A 2007 study by researchers Jeanine Baker and Samara McPhedran found that “when compared with observed values, firearm suicide was the only parameter the [National Firearms Agreement] may have influenced, although societal factors could also have influenced observed changes.”

The following year, Wang-Sheng Lee and Sandy Suardi with the University of Melbourne concluded that “there is little evidence to suggest that [the National Firearms Agreement] had any significant effects on firearm homicides.” Additionally, “the evidence so far suggests that in the Australian context, the high expenditure incurred to fund the 1996 gun buyback has not translated into any tangible reductions in terms of firearm deaths.” -Newstalk1130

But in the wake of a mass shooting, apparently all it takes to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy (or gal) who’s given up their ability to defend themselves and their family.

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Like AOC’s Green New Deal? You’ll Love What Illinois Wants To Do!

Authored by Mark Glennon via WirePoints.com,

It’s now moving through the Illinois General Assembly with very broad sponsorship and exceptionally well-organized support. It’s a 365-page monstrosity of bureaucratic overreach, unhinged social engineering, climate extremism and shameless disregard for cost.

It’s called the Clean Energy Jobs Act. It would put specificity and the force of law behind the core concepts of the Green New Deal spearheaded by Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez

The Green New Deal has been ridiculed widely even by many on the left and some environmentalists. Primarily, that’s because of the cost of completely eliminating fossil fuels, which unquestionably would be in the trillions for the nation. One estimate puts that cost at $93 trillion. It’s also loaded with pretty much every social justice goal du jour. Democrat presidential possibility Howard Schultz ripped it as “immoral” and “unrealistic.” It would “bring about mass death,” wrote a Greenpeace co-founder.

But others are cheering Illinois’ effort. The Illinois legislation “may serve as a remarkable test case of one of the Green New Deal’s core principles,” says Vox in glowing approval of the bill. And they add, the Green New Deal “is not merely a way to reduce emissions, but also to ameliorate the other symptoms and dysfunctions of a late capitalist economy: growing inequality and concentration of power at the top,” which is why they like the Illinois bill.

The Illinois bill’s central goals are 100% carbon-free electricity production by 2030, and 100% renewable everything across the state by 2050. Importantly, that means the 2050 goal precludes even nuclear energy, which currently accounts for about half of Illinois’ electricity production.

Though the Green New Deal calls for 100% renewables in just ten years, Illinois’ target of 2050 would also be catastrophically expensive. That Greenpeace co-founder wrote recently, “You are delusional if you think fossil fuels will end any time soon, maybe in 500 years.” The idea “excites the left,” wrote a Washington Post Columnist, “but that name is a misnomer. ‘World War G” is more like it because it would mean an “endless, unwinnable global quagmire.”

Under the Illinois bill, natural gas would be history. Rip out all those gas ranges, gas furnaces (that heat 77% of Illinois homes) and the rest over the next 30 years. The entire natural gas infrastructure, pipelines and all, would be abandoned.

The bill calls for 40 million solar panels and 2,500 wind turbines alongside $20 billion in new infrastructure over the next decade. One million gas and diesel vehicles would come off Illinois roads.

Meanwhile, record amounts of relatively clean natural gas, produced alongside oil, are already being flared off because it has gotten so cheap. The United States stands poised to displace Saudi Arabia as the world’s largest oil producer and become energy self-sufficient.

The Illinois bill is loaded with social justice goals. There are tedious requirements for a Clean Jobs Workforce Hubs Program; “environmental justice communities”; job creation for ex-offenders and former foster children; “energy empowerment zones”; workforce and training including soft skills and math to ensure communities of color, returning citizens, foster care communities and others understand clean energy opportunities; stipends for jobs and apprenticeships, including funding for transportation and child care; access to low-cost capital for disadvantaged clean energy businesses and contractors; and much, much more.

What’s most annoying is sheer indifference to cost, which is probably immeasurable anyway given the bill’s vast complexity. Don’t expect to find an estimate anywhere. National critics of the Green New Deal immediately asked about cost, but in Illinois, it just doesn’t matter. Broke Illinois would somehow have to pay a proportionate share of the multi-trillion-dollar cost estimates for the Green New Deal.

Supporters of the Illinois bill typically duck the question of cost by jumping to claims of new job creation in renewables. But their job claims invariably are one sided, ignoring lost jobs in the carbon-based industries they would destroy.

They cite Illinois’ Future Energy Jobs Act to prove success in job creation. It became law in 2017, imposing less grand targets for renewable energy. It authorized $750 million for job training in that industry. “Now we have a report to prove” how many jobs were created by that earlier law, says Ann Williams (D-Chicago), the new bill’s leading sponsor in the Illinois House. But that’s just 1,500 jobs, she says. That’s success? Watch the whole interview with her to get a sense of the mentality behind this bill.

Supporters like Williams also claim that renewables are simply cheaper than fossil fuel alternatives. What? If the goal were truly to allow the cheapest alternatives to prevail, massive intervention in the marketplace obviously wouldn’t be needed.

The Illinois bill is loaded with mind-numbing complexity to accomplish its social goals. Here’s one example, which is for preferences in giving out renewable energy credits to “Approved Vendors” that meet multiple “Equity Actions:

Could it really pass into law?

Companion bills are now pending in both the Illinois House and Senate. Together, they have over 50 sponsors.

Governor Pritzker has not yet commented on the bill. However, in his first days in office he committed to the goal of 100% renewables by 2050. It was not clear if he intended to exclude nuclear.

Perhaps most importantly, the bill is supported by a juggernaut alliance of the renewable energy industry, climate activists, organized labor, farmers keen on leasing land for wind turbines and social justice warriors. That alliance seems intent on challenging the military industrial complex for clout.

It’s represented by a group called the Illinois Clean Jobs Coalition. They’ve already sponsored over 60 community town halls around the state to build support. Supporters include Illinois’ CUB, the Citizens Utility Board, which historically focused on getting lower rates for consumers, but now seems to have been captured by the renewables industry. The renewables industry is heavily unionized in Illinois, so unions like the bill. Its “supporters include Tom Balanoff, president of the powerful SEIU Local 1 labor union, who pledged to do his best to make sure as many union jobs as possible are created, says the Energy News Network.

In short, yes, this looks serious.

Michael Greenstone is a University of Chicago economist who served in the Obama Administration. When asked about the Green New Deal he said, “Wow. Comparisons with New Deal, World War II and remaking American society are not misplaced.”

That’s why the Green New Deal won’t get through Congress.

In Illinois, however, it’s full speed ahead on remaking society through the Clean Energy Jobs Act.

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The 737 MAX Saga Is a Total Disgrace for Boeing and the FAA

The Worship of Mammon by Evelyn De Morgan.

One of the first things to become apparent as I began reading about the deadly crash of Ethiopian Airlines’ Boeing 737 MAX 8 plane on March 10th, was the fact that nobody seemed to trust U.S. authorities.

As Fortune noted:

Ethiopia’s aviation authority is unable to read the black box recorders from the Boeing 737 Max plane that crashed Sunday, but a row is brewing over just where the flight recorders will be sent for analysis.

The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board is pushing to have its experts analyze the data and voice recorders, which were partly damaged, the Wall Street Journal reports, but Ethiopian authorities would prefer to work with the U.K.’s Air Accidents Investigation Branch to ensure that U.S. experts won’t have undue influence in the probe of the American-made plane.

At the same time, pretty much the entire world had started to ground 737 MAX planes as this was the second time this model had crashed within the span of five months. By early last week, Canada and the U.S. had become increasingly isolated in insisting the planes were safe to fly, and then Canada folded too.

This represented a huge rebuke to the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which continued to defend the aircraft until the very last moment. In a ridiculous stunt, Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao even rode in a 737 MAX two days after the latest crash.

Many people, including myself, saw this lack of trust in the FAA as a watershed moment. Politico noted:

continue reading

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Twitter Admits Shadowbanning Lisa Page Tweet By Federalist Co-Founder “To Keep People Safe” 

Twitter has admitted to shadowbanning a tweet by The Federalist co-founder Sean Davis in order to “keep people safe.” 

Tweeting a passage from former FBI attorney Lisa Page’s Congressional testimony discussing the FBI’s rush to find connections between the Trump campaign and Russia, Davis pointed out the irony of Hillary Clinton’s campaign employing former UK spy Christopher Steele, a foreign national, “working with Russians to obtain damaging information about Donald Trump.” 

Of note, the dossier Steele compiled which was subsequently used to obtain a warrant to spy on a Trump adviser (and later smear Trump) relied on a “senior Russian Foreign Ministry figure” and “a former top level intelligence officer still active in the Kremlin,” according to Vanity Fair. 

Following his March 12 tweet, Davis wondered if Twitter was experimenting with “shadow bans” – as he could only see his tweet if he was logged in, meaning nobody else could see it.

Six days later, Twitter confirmed with Davis that they had deliberately shadow-banned his tweet in order to “keep people safe.”

“Twitter gave me no notice or explanation when it shadowbanned one of my Tweets about Russian interference in our elections,” wrote Davis, adding “But what’s worse is how Twitter apparently gives its users the fraudulent impression that their tweets, which Twitter secretly bans, are still public.“

In short, Twitter did not want the public to consider the irony of Hillary Clinton’s campaign paying for a foreign national to collude with Russians against Donald Trump, while the FBI scrambled to prove the Trump campaign did. 

Unreal.

In other censorship news, ZeroHedge is now banned in much New Zealand and much of Australia following our reporting on the Christchurch terror attacks. 

Sorry citizen, some facts are just too dangerous for your own good.

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