Tag: news

Authored by Daisy Luther via The Organic Prepper blog,

The FBI has released a 15-page document warning of the dangers of “anti-government, identity-based, and fringe conspiracy theories.” The law enforcement agency says that these are “very likely to motivate some domestic extremists to commit criminal, sometimes violent activity.” The document seems to recommend increased social media and web censorship.

The FBI assesses anti-government, identity-based, and fringe political conspiracy theories very likely motivate some domestic extremists, wholly or in part, to commit criminal and sometimes violent activity. The FBI further assesses in some cases these conspiracy theories very likely encourage the targeting of specific people, places, and organizations, thereby increasing the Iikelihood of violence against these targets. These assessments are made with high confidenced, based on information from other law enforcement agencies, open-source information, court documents, human sources with varying degrees of access and corroboration, and FBI investigations.

One key assumption driving these assessments is that certain conspiracy theory narratives tacitly support or legitimize violent action. The FBI also assumes some, but not all individuals or domestic extremists who hold such beliefs will act on them. The FBI assesses these conspiracy theories very likely will emerge, spread, and evolve in the modem information marketplace, occasionally driving both groups and individual extremists to carry out criminal or violent acts. Indicators that may lead to revised judgements or cause a change in the confidence level assoc iated with this assessment include a lack of conspiracy theory-driven criminal or violent activity in the near to long term or significant efforts by major social media companies and websites to remove, regulate, or counter potentially harmful conspiratorial content.

So what do they consider conspiracy theories? A few of the theories and topics mentioned in the document are QAnon, Pizzagate, the New World Order, various child-sex trafficking ring theories, and racial extremists. Interestingly, there is no specific mention in this document of Antifa and their theories, despite the fact that they’re decidedly anti-government and confirmably violent.

The FBI believes the internet causes anti-government theories to spread.

The internet brings people together in forums, on social media, in private online chatrooms, and via email. The document released by the FBI seems to consider that this is part of the problem.

Although conspiracy theory-driven crime and violence is not a new phenomenon, today’s information environment has changed the way conspiracy theories develop, spread, and evolve. The advent of the Internet and social media has enabled promoters of conspiracy theories to produce and share greater volumes of material via online platforms that larger audiences of consumers can quickly and easily access.

Based on the increased volume and reach of conspiratorial content due to modern communication methods, it is logical to assume that more extremist-minded individuals will be exposed to potentially harmful conspiracy theories, accept ones that are favorable to their views, and possibly carry out criminal or violent actions as a result. The Internet has also enabled a ‘crowd-sourcing’ effect wherein conspiracy theory followers themselves shape a given theory by presenting information that supplements, expands, or localizes its narrative.

The examples above demonstrate how crowd-sourced conspiracy theories can influence which entities extremists choose to target. These examples also substantiate concerns expressed by some researchers who believe a rise of conspiracism, fostered in part by the Internet, may be accompanied by a search for scapegoats-those believed to be the conspirators’ allies, henchmen, or collaborators.

This is worrisome, as censorship of any alternative view is already at an all-time high, with a coordinated purge of alternative media websites from social media outlets and a major search engine. It seems as though this could potentially lead to even more censorship. Maybe that’s what it’s actually for – to give social media outlets even more justification for cracking down on free yet unpopular speech.

How does the FBI define “conspiracy theory?”

The document notes the FBI’s definition of “conspiracy theories.”

Although many conspiracy theories appear benign or inconsequential, others create serious risks. Throughout history, such conspiracy theories have fueled prejudice, witch-hunts, genocide, and acts of terrorism.’ In the context of domestic terrorism, extremists often view the activities of alleged conspirators as an existential threat that can only be stopped through drastic, or even violent means…

…A conspiracy theory is an attempt to explain events or circumstances as the result of a group of actors working in secret to benefit themselves at the expense of othersr. Conspiracy theories typically allege wrongdoing by powerful others (for example, public officials, business executives, scientists) or societally marginalized groups (for example, Muslims, Jews), and are most prevalent among individuals with extreme political viewsg. Some conspiracy theories point to weak circumstantial evidence, but ignore stronger evidence that would refute their claims.

Consequently, they are usually at odds with official or prevailing explanations of events) While a conspiracy theory refers to an allegation that may or may not be true, a conspiracy is a true causal chain of events. Real conspiracies involving illegal, antidemocratic, or harmful activities by high­ level government officials and political elites have been exposed in the past and it has been argued that such plots have encouraged conspiracism in society.

Relying on the premises that nothing happens by accident, nothing is as it seems, and everything is connected, conspiracy theorists tend to view every bad outcome as the result of an intentional decision by an evil actor, dismiss disconfirming evidence as “fabricated” by the conspirators, and connect a wide range of seemingly unrelated occurences to suggest a larger plot. Despite sharing key characteristics and at times featuring similar themes and intersecting plots, conspiracy theories vary greatly in their scope. Some are narrowly focused on a particular event or set of events whereas others suggest broad, expansive narratives that link multiple conspiracies in complex ways to portray a group of evil actors working to manipulate society on a global scale.

So, does this definition mean that anyone who disagrees with the official story about anything is a dangerous conspiracy theorist?

What theories are the FBI worried about?

The FBI document mentions numerous arrests, some of which were not widely publicized. The document also provided a list of conspiracy theories that they find particularly worrisome in Appendix B.

The conspiracy theories referenced in this intelligence bulletin have been categorized as anti­ government, identity-based, or fringe political because they assert secretive, malevolent acts either by an allegedly hostile and tyrannical federal government, by racial, religious, or social minority groups, or by political opponents.

Anti-Government

(U) NWO: A group of international elites controls governments, industry, and media organizations, instigates major wars, carries out secret staged events, and manipulates economies with the goal of establishing global rule.

(U) UN: The UN is being used by an evil global cabal to erode American sovereignty, strip away individual liberties, and bring foreign troops to American soil in order to replace democracy with global tyranny.”

(U) False Flags: The official story surrounding a given terrorist attack or mass shooting is a lie; the event was staged or conducted by the government to justify encroachments on civil liberties.

Identity-Based

(U) Zionist Occupied Government: Jewish agents secretly control the governments of Western states and are conspiring to achieve world domination.

(U) Islamberg: The small Muslim community near Hancock, New York known as Islamberg is a terrorist training camp; its residents, who pose as peaceful Muslims, are in fact Islamic radicals operating as a terrorist sleeper cell.

Fringe Political

(U) Pizzagate: High ranking democratic officials are or were involved in a child sex trafficking ring centered at the Comet Ping Pong pizza restaurant in Washington, DC.’

(U) QAnon: An anonymous government official known as “Q” posts classified information online to reveal a covert effort, led by President Trump, to dismantle a conspiracy involving “deep state” actors and global elites allegedly engaged in an international child sex trafficking ring.’

The thing one might find particularly ironic is that the arrest of Jeffrey Epstein has brought out a massive amount of information about…well…child sex trafficking and global elite pedophiles. (See this article, this article, this one, and this one.)

Why the FBI believes conspiracy theorists are violent

Beginning on page 2 of the document, the FBI cites numerous cases of violence based on conspiracy theories.

The FBI assesses anti-government, identity-based, and fringe political conspiracy theories very likely motivate some domestic extremists, wholly or in part, to engage in criminal or violent activity. This assessment is based on events in which individuals committed crimes, plotted attacks, or successfully carried out deadly violence and who – either before or after their arrests -attributed their actions to their conspiratorial beliefs. These events include instances in which the perpetrators intended to kill groups identified by such theories as hostile and malevolent, or to simply carry out dangerous, unlawful acts in an effort to draw attention to or expose a perceived conspiracy.

Most people who question the status quo would not be surprised if this document is just the beginning of a crackdown on anyone who refuses to accept the mainstream explanations because they might “engage in criminal or violent activity.”

While some of the theories mentioned are pretty far-fetched, the First Amendment protects free speech – and that includes conspiracy theories. Most people who believe that there are pedophiles in our government or who question the official reports of heinous events will never become violent. But now, it appears they may become targets of suspicion based on their thought crimes.

And when this FBI report is combined with the recently introduced Threat Assessment, Prevention, and Safety Act of 2019, which focuses on developing “a national strategy to prevent targeted violence through behavioral threat assessment and management, and for other purposes,” it certainly could make critical thinkers a little bit nervous.

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2Kdv5hV Tyler Durden

When policymakers in Beijing made the decision to remove the unwritten valuation cap for companies trading on the country’s new Star market, they probably didn’t realize that they were about to open Pandora’s box.

Because in a market that has become infamous for its frothy trading debuts – the 25 original Star Market stocks added $44 billion to the total A-shares market cap during their first day of trading last month – new valuation records are being set at a ridiculous pace. Earlier this week, a biotech firm that has been around for nearly 20 years priced its shares at about 468x reported earnings during its trading debut on the exchange, according to a filing.

That’s almost three times the most extreme valuations from the 25 stocks that debuted when the exchange opened last month, according to Bloomberg.

By comparison, Beyond Meat, the fake meat company stock that has been unstoppable since it debuted on the Nasdaq back in May, with its shares climbing more than 700% from its IPO price. The company’s shares currently trade at around 55 times sales (the company has yet to report a profit).

The company, Shenzhen Chipscreen Biosciences, was founded in 2001 and focuses on cancer medicines. SCB planned to raise about 1 billion yuan ($145 million) from the offering, which was 27% more than the company’s initial target.

By removing the valuation caps, Chinese regulators hope to persuade more Chinese firms to list domestically, instead of pursuing IPOs in Hong Kong, London or New York. By the looks of it, they’ve done a pretty good job. More than 120 companies are lining up to list on the exchange. Since 2014, Chinese regulators have imposed a regulatory cap of 23x earnings for all IPOs. That was intended to prevent retail investors from getting their faces ripped off in China’s notoriously volatile equity market. Though, apparently, regulators’ priorities have shifted.

Advanced Micro-Fabrication Equipment was the priciest IPO among the venue’s first batch of 25 stocks, which started trading last week. It has almost tripled in value since originally listing at 171x earnings.

In its filings, SCB said its rivals typically trade at 31 times reported earnings.

We’ll let you work out the math on that one.

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/33c0jOf Tyler Durden

Two weeks after former Chicago Mayor and Obama White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and her “snot-nosed punk” chief-of-staff Saikat Chakrabarti are destroying the Democratic party, Chakrabarti and AOC’s communications director Corbin Trent have abruptly resigned from the Congresswoman’s office, according to The Intercept. 

“Saikat has decided to leave the office of Rep. Ocasio-Cortez to work with New Consensus to further develop plans for a Green New Deal,” according to Trent, who added “We are extraordinarily grateful for his service to advance a bold agenda and improve the lives of the people in NY-14. From his co-founding of Justice Democrats to his work on the Ocasio-Cortez campaign and in the official office, Saikat’s goal has always been to do whatever he can to help the larger progressive movement, and we look forward to continuing working with him to do just that”

The 33-year-old Chakrabarti – a Harvard graduate and former Bernie Sanders organizer in 2016 – made headlines in June when he compared moderate Democrats to Southern Democrat segregationists in a now-deleted tweet. 

In response, the official House Democrats Twitter account (operated by the office of Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY)) slammed Chakrabarti after he tried to backpedal. 

Last month, Chakrabarti also took heat for wearing a T-shirt featuring Nazi collaborator Subhas Chandra Bose.

In April, he came under fire for reportedly funneling over $1 million in political donations from two political action committees he founded into two of his own private companies. The allegation earned a campaign finance violation complaint with the Federal Election Commission, according to the Washington Examiner. 

Chakrabarti founded a PAC called Brand New Congress in 2016, and another in 2017 called Justice Democrats which has the stated goal of helping to elect progressives to Congress.  

Between 2016 and 2017 his PACs raised approximately $33 million – mostly from small donations, while the committees transferred over $1 million to two shell companies Chakrabarti controlled during the same time period. The shells were formed with similar names to the PACs; “Brand New Campaign LLC and Brand New Congress LLC” according to the Examiner report. 

Lastly, AOC’s former right-hand-man revealed himself to be an opportunist when he said that her signature Green New Deal wasn’t actually about saving the environment – remarking to presidential candidate Jay Inslee’s climate director “it wasn’t originally a climate thing at all … we really think of it as a how-do-you-change-the-entire-economy thing.” 

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2T60hmm Tyler Durden

A strange cube-shaped building sitting on Jeffrey Epstein’s infamous ‘pedophile island’ differed significantly from blueprints which were submitted to the Department of Planning and Natural Resources, according to NBC News, which has seen the plans. 

The building, shaped like a giant box and initially topped with a gold dome, has fueled rampant speculation and online conspiracy theories.

Drawings supplied by Epstein’s architects to the U.S. Virgin Islands agency that oversees coastal development show that it was designed to be a haven for music: an octagonal 3,500-square-foot pavilion housing a grand piano. –NBC News

Epstein’s ‘haven for music‘ was recently seen with what appears to be a stack of mattresses on the floor while it undergoes renovations. 

“The major difference seems to be in the shape of the building itself,” said one astute Department of Planning and Natural Resources employee, Marlon Hibbert, adding “In the link you provided the building looks rectangular and in the drawings it looked octagonal.” 

The blue-striped structure sits on a lookout point on the southeastern edge of Little St. James island, which Epstein purchased in 1998 for $7.95 million. The building is surrounded by an expansive terrace painted bright white with red shapes. Locals say the structure’s gold dome was blown away during Hurricane Maria in 2017.

Records viewed by NBC News show that the building was among proposed new construction that raised alarm inside the Department of Planning and Natural Resources. In March 2011, a top official sent a letter to Epstein’s attorney expressing concern over development on the island.

A few months earlier, Epstein’s lawyer, Maria Tankenson Hodge, had submitted a request to add a 3,000-square-foot spa to a permit application that included the music pavilion, a pool and a 2,000-square-foot cabana with a coral stone deck, living space and rest room. That portion of the island already housed a gym, tiki hut, nature observation cabana and dive pavilion, according to the documents. –NBC News

“Rest room” indeed. 

The 66-year-old Epstein faces 45 years in prison on charges of sex trafficking minors as young as 14 years old.

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2KhAGmk Tyler Durden

Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times,

Billionaire financier George Soros is launching a super PAC ahead of the 2020 election and, at $5.1 million, he has already made the single biggest contribution so far this election cycle compared to any other megadonor.

Soros contributed $5.1 million to the new group, Democracy PAC, according to Paperwork filed with the Federal Election Commission.

Super PACs, which are officially known as “independent-expenditure only committees,” are not allowed to make contributions to specific parties or candidates. They may, however, support initiatives independently of campaigns and do so by engaging in unlimited political spending.

According to Politico, Soros was one of the Democratic Party’s biggest donors in the last presidential election, with the party’s candidates and causes receiving Soros-sourced financial support to the tune of over $20 million. Compared to the corresponding phase in the 2016 election season, Soros has in the 2020 cycle already doubled his donation amount.

A person familiar with Democracy PAC told Politico that Soros’s family members may also support the initiative with their cash. Soros’s son, Alexander Soros, has in recent years increasingly taken on the role of a Democratic megadonor.

The Hill reported that Soros does not plan to use Democracy PAC to set up an independent political group but instead intends to funnel funds to other organizations.

“He has, unlike Tom Steyer or [Michael] Bloomberg, funded things like Senate Majority PAC and Priorities USA and EMILY’s List and Planned Parenthood and expects to continue to do so,” a person familiar with Democracy PAC told Politico.

Soros has not yet endorsed a candidate for president in 2020.

‘National Impact By and In 2020’

Soros helped fund Democratic efforts to flip Georgia, Arizona, and Florida in the recent midterm elections, The Epoch Times previously reported, noting that the strategy of flipping Republican “red states” to Democrat blue is laid out in his Open Society Foundations documents.

According to a white paper called “U.S. Programs 2015–2018 Strategy,” the progressive organization began funding activist operations in Arizona and Georgia in 2015, with the ultimate goal being to influence the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.

“Beginning in 2015 with initial investments, U.S. Programs anticipates seeking to have national impact by and in 2020, through targeted work in a small number of states. States such as Arizona, Georgia, or North Carolina, are quickly changing demographically and rising in political significance,” the document states.

Known as the 2020 Project, Open Society’s funding efforts have been aimed at “building the capacity of community-based organizations to catalyze political engagement throughout the year and not solely around elections,” and they feature coordination “with our anchor and core grantees, Democracy Alliance partners and other donors, and field leaders, such as Planned Parenthood, progressive labor, and other allies.”

According to Epoch Times contributor William Patrick, “Democracy Alliance is a collective of wealthy center-left and left-wing political donors with Soros as its centerpiece. It supports a sprawling activist infrastructure with so-called dark money, which hides donor identities, and requires its grantees to sign nondisclosure agreements.”

Zuckerberg, Soros, and Bloomberg Spent Millions on Ballot Initiatives

According to earlier reports, Soros, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, and former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg were three of the dozens of billionaires who dropped millions of dollars into campaigns for ballot initiatives ahead of the last year’s midterm elections.

An analysis of state records by the Center of Public Integrity revealed just how much some elite political players want certain initiatives to pass.

The group found that several weeks before the midterm election, 25 American billionaires had invested more than $70.7 million in campaigns for initiatives in states where they don’t actually reside.

More than $70 million has gone to ballot measure campaigns this year from billionaires who live in different states.

See what issues they’re trying to influence in your state as you cast your ballot.https://t.co/lhcs5Fjz9k

— The Center for Public Integrity (@publicintegrity) October 22, 2018

Opponents

The billionaires have backed a number of different campaigns, including a ballot measure in Ohio that would soften penalties for people convicted of drug possession.

“We think setting criminal justice policy by constitutional amendment is a terrible idea, and I think what makes it even worse is that it’s not being proposed by Ohioans,” Louis Tobin, the executive director of the Ohio Prosecuting Attorneys Association, told the Atlantic, which co-reported the story with the Center of Public Integrity and Business Insider. “It’s being driven by money from out of state.”

“We’re going to have to live with the unintended consequences of this,” he added.

Tom Steyer speaks onstage during The People’s State Of The Union at Town Hall in New York City on Jan. 29, 2018. (Roy Rochlin/Getty Images)

In Arizona, a ballot measure would require utilities to get 50 percent of their power solely from wind and solar sources by 2030. Its backers include Tom Steyer, a billionaire who lives in California.

“We believe strongly that a California billionaire coming into Arizona and spending $10 [million] to $20 million to cram this thing down our throats is problematic,” said Matthew Benson, an opponent of the measure.

Others, though, have said that it’s not unusual for ballot campaigns to have high-level backing.

“The fact is that you need a lot of money to even get one of these campaigns off the ground,” said Josh Altic, ballot measures project director for Ballotpedia, adding that the average cost for a campaign to get on the ballot in 2016 was more than $1 million.

“It’s not very unusual to have really rich individuals or financially influential corporations giving a lot of money.”

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2ODoAcL Tyler Durden

The New York Police Department has been loading thousands of arrest photos of both children and teenagers onto a facial recognition database, despite evidence that the technology has a higher risk of false matches in younger people, according to the New York Times.

Internal records show that the department has used the technology to compare crime scene images with its collection of juvenile mugshots for about four years. The photographs are taken during arrests and most of the photos are of teenagers between 13 and 16. However, children as young as 11 have been included.

Civil rights groups and elected officials amount the software to a powerful surveillance tool on adolescents, despite their status being protected in the criminal justice system. It’s also been pointed out as an example of the police department’s ability to implement advanced technology with little public scrutiny.

Members of the city council and civil liberties groups said that they weren’t aware of the policy. Police department officials defended the decision, claiming that the facial recognition software was just the latest evolution of the long-standing technique of using arrest photos to identify suspects.

The city’s chief of detectives, Dermot F. Shea, said: 

“I don’t think this is any secret decision that’s made behind closed doors. This is just process, and making sure we’re doing everything to fight crime.”

Other cities have started the debate on whether or not law-enforcement should use such technology. The facial recognition software relies on an algorithm to quickly look through images and suggest matches. In May, San Francisco blocked the police from using the tool and Detroit is now facing public backlash to a technology that has been shown to have lower accuracy for people with darker skin. The state education department in Lockport, New York recently told the school district to delay a plan to use facial recognition on students.

Councilman Donovan Richards, a Queens Democrat said:

“At the end of the day, it should be banned – no young people.” 

The police department said its legal bureau gave it the “OK” to use facial recognition on juveniles. They also said the algorithm suggests leads, but that detectives wouldn’t make an arrest based solely on it.

Regardless, this type of technology hasn’t been widely tested on children and most algorithms “think” based on adult faces. There’s growing evidence that the software doesn’t work as well on children as it does on adults.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology recently found the vast majority of more than 100 facial recognition algorithms had a higher rate of mistakes among children. The error was the most pronounced in young children, but it was also seen in children aged 10 to 16. Aging poses an obvious problem: children and adolescents’ appearance can change drastically as they grow through their teenage years.

Karl Ricanek Jr., a computer science professor and co-founder of the Face Aging Group at the University of North Carolina-Wilmington said:

“I would use extreme caution in using those algorithms.” 

This obviously renders the technology much less effective in finding the same person a year or two later.

“The systems do not have the capacity to understand the dynamic changes that occur to a child’s face,” Dr. Ricanek continued.

Two of the companies that provide software to the police department, Idemia and DataWorks Plus, didn’t respond for comment.

The New York Police Department is allowed to take arrest photos of minors as young as 11 who are charged with a felony. In many of these cases, the department can keep the photos for years, making facial recognition comparisons with updated images. The New York Police Department database has 5500 juveniles in it, 4100 of which are no longer 16 or under. Those that are 17 or older are considered adults in the criminal justice system.

Police did not provide statistics on how often their system provide false matches.

Chief Shea continued: “We are comfortable with this technology because it has proved to be a valuable investigative method. Facial recognition has helped lead to thousands of arrests of both adults and juveniles.”

Bailey, a 17 year old girl from Brooklyn who admitted guilt to an attack she committed when she was 14 said: “It’s very disturbing to know that no matter what I’m doing at that moment, someone might be scanning my picture to try to find someone who committed a crime.”

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2YADAYp Tyler Durden

Authored by Celine Ryan via Campus Reform,

Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz bashed universities in a Thursday speech, saying that America’s colleges are raising a “generation of pansies” and doing a disservice to students by shielding them from “scary ideas.”

Cruz let loose on academia at Young America’s Foundation National Conservative Student Conference, telling the crowd “if you are a university administrator, the ideas that are represented in this room are terrifying.”

“There are no ‘safe spaces’ in this room,” he added.

During the question and answer session, one Binghamton University student shared with Cruz his experience of having to employ trigger warnings during college debate competitions, as well as everyone having to share their preferred gender pronouns before a competition and “gender minority” female-only debate tournaments.

“We’re all gonna die,” Cruz said jokingly, before taking a more serious jab at the practice of “trigger warnings” in general.

“Look, one of the saddest things we’re seeing is our colleges and universities are trying really hard to raise a generation of pansies,” Cruz said. 

WATCH:

“What is this sense that you have a right not to be offended? You have a right not to hear ideas that are scary? Look, the entire purpose of university is to hear ideas that are scary,” the senator continued.

Cruz argued that when he was in university, he had to hear plenty of scary ideas, including those of Marxism. 

“When I went to college, when I went to law school, I was surrounded by leftists. I took classes from Marxists. And by the way, I don’t find Marxism just sort of cute and chic,” Cruz said, noting that someone on his hall had a Che Guevara poster and that Cruz sarcastically recommended posters of other “evil, torturing, murderous sons of b*tches,” including Mao Zedong, Adolf Hitler, and Joseph Stalin.

“I would deliberately sign up to take classes from Marxists,” Cruz said. “ Now, my family has been tortured by communists in Cuba. It’s personal to me, but you know what? Truth is not afraid of lies. The light is not afraid of darkness. It is good for you to confront ideas that scare you.”

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2OBLUY4 Tyler Durden

Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon says that President Trump’s new China tariff threat is a clear message that Beijing can no longer ‘game the system.’ 

In a Friday discussion with CNBC, Bannon said “It’s pretty remarkable how the Chinese have tried to … game the system,” adding “They’re used to American leaders buckling under this false concept of engagement.“

On Thursday, President Trump announced that the US would impose a 10% tariff on an additional $300 billion of Chinese imports – days after negotiators from both countries met for trade talks. Later in the day Trump told White House reporters that he’s mulling a 25% tariff or more. 

“It can be lifted in stages so we’re starting at 10% and it can be lifted up to well beyond 25%,” said Trump, adding “But we’re not looking to do that, necessarily.”

Bannon said that if the new tariffs hit on September 1, that it would “cross a psychological barrier in China,” and would be a “new day” for Chinese imports. 

That said, Trump is apparently willing to shelve the tariffs if China takes positive action, according to CNBC‘s Kayla Tausche. 

As I just reported on @SquawkCNBC:

– USTR planning notice in Federal Register w/ tariff details “soon”

– Sr admin official tells me expectation is tariff will apply to goods that arrive in US on Sept 1

– SAO says POTUS willing to shelve if China takes positive action

— Kayla Tausche (@kaylatausche) August 2, 2019

In June, Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed that China would purchase more US agricultural goods in exchange for a pause on additional tariffs – however the US has accused China of failing to hold up their end of the bargain. On Tuesday, Trump tweeted that China is “doing very badly,” and that they “just don’t come through.” 

..My team is negotiating with them now, but they always change the deal in the end to their benefit. They should probably wait out our Election to see if we get one of the Democrat stiffs like Sleepy Joe. Then they could make a GREAT deal, like in past 30 years, and continue

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 30, 2019

According to Bannon, Trump has “given the communist party enough time” to express their concerns over US policy and come to an agreement. 

Washington and Beijing have been engaged in a trade war for the past year, with each side upping punitive measures on one another.

In May, Trump increased the tariff rate on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods to 25% from 10%. In retaliation, China at the time announced plans to raise tariffs, some to as high as 25%, on $60 billion in U.S. goods.

Bannon, a longtime critic of China, told CNBC shortly after that May skirmish that Beijing has been “running an economic war against the industrial democracies for now 20 years.” -CNBC

However this plays out will be “the defining event of our time,” according to Bannon, who added that none of the 2020 Democratic candidates would be able to handle the China situation like Trump. 

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2yKH8gt Tyler Durden

Authored by Simon Black via SovereignMan.com,

Welcome to our Friday roll up, where we highlight the most absurd and concerning stories we are following this week…

10 year old charged for assault… with a dodgeball

A ten year old boy will be brought to juvenile court on assault charges.

His heinous crime was hitting another 10 year old in the face with a dodgeball at recess.

He originally got suspended from school for one day… which seems like a more reasonable punishment.

But the tattle-tale mother of the injured child felt the need to get the authorities involved over a month after the incident.

So now before the next school year starts, the 10 year old deviant will be hauled in front of a juvenile court to answer for his playground crime.

We all know that you aren’t supposed to aim for the head in dodgeball… and we all probably did it anyway as kids.

That’s something you should explain to the principal, not a judge.

Click here for the full story.

10 days in jail for 79 year old who fed stray cats

A kind-hearted 79 year old woman started feeding her neighbor’s cats after he moved away and abandoned them.

Unfortunately, no good deed goes unpunished. Her other neighbor’s ratted her out for violating a city ordinance against feeding stray cats and dogs.

But what is she supposed to do, just watch as these living breathing animals she cares for starve?

Unlike her neighbors, she had the compassion to keep caring for the cats despite three citations from the city.

Finally she was hauled in front of a judge who saw it fit to sentence this old woman to ten days in county jail. For feeding cats.

I don’t know who is worse, the neighbors or the judge?

Click her for the full story.

SWAT team raids a guy’s home over Facebook parody of police

One creative gentleman created a Facebook page that looked almost exactly like his local police department’s page.

But the differences became apparent when you looked closer. For instance, in the jobs section, it said “minorities need not apply.”

It also included posts about the department giving honorary police commissions to pedophiles.

It was a parody page, and clearly this man had an interesting sense of humor…

But as offensive as these posts may be to police, and others, it’s not a crime.

That didn’t stop the police from sending in the SWAT team. They raided the man’s home, arrested him, and charged him with impairing police services.

He spent a few days in jail before posting bail. And when the case went to trial, he was acquitted by the jury.

Since his arrest was an obvious violation of free speech, the man sued.

Usually this is the part where cops get qualified immunity, meaning they can’t be sued because it wasn’t clear to them that they were violating someone’s rights.

But in a rare moment of clarity, a judge decided that this one was pretty obvious: police should have known they were violating this man’s well established rights.

The First Amendment suit will move forward.

Click here for the full story.

*  *  *

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