Month: July 2016

Submitted by Mac Slavo via SHTFPlan.com,

Call it conspiracy theory, coincidence or just bad luck, but any time someone is in a position to bring down Hillary Clinton by testifying they wind up dead. In fact, there’s a long history of Clinton-related body counts, with scores of people dying under mysterious circumstances.

Perhaps the most notable is Vince Foster. Foster was a partner at Clinton’s law firm and knew the inner workings of the Clinton Machine.  Police ruled that death a suicide, though it is often noted that Foster may have been suicided.

Now, another official has found himself on the wrong end of the Clintons. That John Ashe was a former President of the United Nations General Assembly highlights the fact that no one is safe once in their sights.

And as you might have guessed, there are major inconsistencies with Ashe’s death. It was not only conveniently timed because Ashe died just a few days before being set to testify against Clinton in a corruption case, but official reports indicated he died of a heart attack.

The problem, however, is that police on the scene reported Ashe died when his throat was crushed during a work-out accident.

The New York Post’s Page Six reported that after Ashe was found dead Wednesday, the U.N. claimed that he had died from a heart attack. Local police officers in Dobbs Ferry, New York, later disputed that claim, saying instead that he died from a workout accident that crushed his throat.

 

Adding to the mysterious nature of Ashe’s death was the fact that he had been slated to be in court Monday with his Chinese businessman co-defendant Ng Lap Seng, from whom he reportedly received over $1 billion in donations during his term as president of the U.N. General Assembly.

 

And then there was this: During the presidency of Bill Clinton, Seng illegally funneled several hundred thousand dollars to the Democrat National Committee.

 

Source: The Conservative Tribune via The Daily Sheeple

It must be coincidence, right?

If former Secret Service agent Gary Byrne is to be believed, this is business as usual for the Clintons. Excerpt via Zero Hedge:

BYRNE: I feel so strongly that people need to know the real Hillary Clinton and how dangerous she is in her behavior. She is not a leader. She is not a leader.

 

SEAN: She does not have the temperament?

 

BYRNE: She doesn’t have the temperament. She didn’t have the temperament to handle the social office when she was First Lady, she does not have the temperament.

 

SEAN: She’s dishonest.

 

BYRNE: She’s dishonest, she habitually lies, anybody that can separate themselves from their politics and review her behavior over the past 15 years…

Byrne is the author of the newly published book Crisis Of Character – a first-hand Clinton exposé.

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In the last five years, coal has gone from hero to zero. There was a time in the not so distant past that coal was the unquestioned all-star of the energy mix. Just over a decade ago, coal-fired power generated more than 50% of U.S. electricity. Coal is cheap and found almost everywhere, but it’s also extremely easy to scale with. If you need more power, just burn more coal. However, as VisualCapitalist's Jeff Desjardins details, the decline of coal has been swift and unprecedented. That’s why it is expected that by 2020, only 22% of electricity will be generated from the fossil fuel.

 

 

The top four miners have lost over $44 billion in market capitalization from their recent peaks in 2011. That’s an astonishing 99.9% decrease in value, and possibly exemplifies the decline of coal better than anything else… except perhaps, as The Wall Street Journal reports, Murray Energy Corp., the largest privately held coal miner in the U.S., has warned that it may soon undertake one of the biggest layoffs in the sector during this time of low energy prices.

In a notice sent to workers this week, Murray said it could lay off as many as 4,400 employees, or about 80% of its workforce, because of weak coal markets. The company said it anticipates “massive workforce reductions in September.”

 

The law requires a 60-day waiting period before large layoffs occur.

 

In a statement, the company said the potential layoffs were "due to the ongoing destruction of the United States coal industry by President Barack Obama, and his supporters, and the increased utilization of natural gas to generate electricity."

 

The move came just a day after the United Mine Workers of America said it would reject a proposed new labor deal with Murray. The existing contract expires at the end of this year.

 

"Hopefully the coal market will come to the point where [the layoffs are] not necessary," he said. “it's no secret the coal market is bad right now."

Almost all of the biggest coal producers in the U.S. have declared bankruptcy in the past 18 months, including Peabody Energy Corp., Arch Coal Inc. and Alpha Natural Resources Inc.

“Frankly, I am frightened for you, my employees, and the survival of your jobs and family livelihoods,” Mr. Murray told the crowd while introducing Mr. Trump, according to a copy of his prepared remarks.

 

He added that electing “friends of coal” like Mr. Trump were the only hope the industry has.

Which seems appropriate given Hillary's reaction the last time she spoke to a coal miner…

On the campaign trail, Hillary Clinton said with a smile "We're going to put a lot of coal miners, and coal companies out of business."

 

Bo Copely, a 39 year old father who recently lost his job, reminded Hillary as he fought back tears that not everyone lives in a world that's rainbows and skittles. Sometimes people actually have to work for a living, and when politicians say and do things to generate a good laugh from their well-off inner circle, it can directly impact many hard working people.

"When you make comments like 'we're going to put a lot of coal miners out of jobs' these are the kind of people that you're affecting, this is my family. I just want to know how you can say you're going to put a lot of coal miners out of jobs, and then come in here and tell us how you're going to be our friend."

Hillary's response:

"I don't know how to explain it", and then blamed him for somehow taking her exact words out of context.

Here is Hillary trying to pretend she didn't say what she said

 

We can't say we're surprised by any of this, as just like the financial elites that run everything, political elites also have realities that are significantly disconnected from everyone else.

h/t @theblaze

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Authored by Michael Lebowitz of 720Global.com (via RealInvestmentAdvice.com),

720 Global has repeatedly warned that U.S. equity valuations are historically high and, of equal concern, not properly reflective of the nation’s weak economic growth potential. In this article we provide further support for that opinion by examining the ratio of equity prices to corporate revenue also known as the price to sales ratio (P/S). At its current record level, the P/S ratio leads us to one of two conclusions: 1) Investors are extremely optimistic about future economic and earnings growth or 2) Investors are once again caught up in the frenzy of an equity bubble and willing to invest at valuations well above the norm.

Either way, the sustainability or extension of the current P/S ratio to even higher levels would be remarkable. What follows here is an exercise in logic aimed at providing clarity on the topic.

Before showing you the current P/S ratio in relation to prior market environments, it is important to first consider two related concepts that frame the message the market is sending us.

Concept #1 – Investors should accept higher than normal valuation premiums when potential revenue growth is higher than normal and require lower than average premiums when potential revenue growth is lower than normal.

Consider someone who is evaluating the purchase of one of two dry cleaning stores (A and B). The two businesses are alike with similar sales, pricing, and locations. However, based on the buyers’ analysis, store A’s future revenue is limited to its historical 2% growth rate. Conversely, the potential buyer believes that store B, despite 2% growth in the past, has a few advantages that are underutilized which the buyer believes can potentially produce a revenue growth rate of 10%. If stores A and B are offered at the same price the buyer would most likely opt to purchase store B. It is also probable the buyer would be willing to pay a higher price for store B versus store A. Therefore highlighting that revenue growth potential is a key factor when deciding how much to pay for a business.

Purchasing a mutual fund, ETF or an equity security is essentially buying a claim on a potential future stream of earnings cash flows, just like the dry cleaning business from the prior example. The odds, therefore, of a rewarding investment are substantially increased when a company, or index for that matter, offering substantial market growth potential is purchased at a lower than average P/S ratio. Value investors actively seek such situations.

Logically one would correctly deduce that P/S ratios should tend to follow a similar directional path as expected revenues.

Concept #2 – Corporate earnings growth = economic growth

Corporate earnings growth rates and economic growth rates are nearly identical over long periods. While many investors may argue that corporate earnings growth varies from the level of domestic economic activity due to the globalization of the economy, productivity enhancements that lower expenses for corporations, interest rates and a host of other factors, history proves otherwise.

Since 1947, real GDP grew at an annualized rate of 6.43%. Over the same period, corporate earnings grew at a nearly identical annualized rate of 6.46%. Thus, expectations for future corporate earnings over the longer term should be on par with expected economic growth although short term differences can arise.

The graph below shows the running three-year annualized growth rate of U.S. real GDP since 1950.  While there have been significant ebbs and flows in the rate of growth over time, the trend as shown by the red dotted regression line is lower. The trend line forecasts average GDP growth for the next 10 years (green line) of 1.85%, a level that is historically recessionary.

As we have shared before, the combination of negligible productivity growth, heavy debt loads, short-termism and demographic changes will continue to produce headwinds that extract a heavy price on economic growth in the years ahead.  Barring major changes in the way the economy is being managed or a globally transformative breakthrough, there is little reason to expect a more optimistic outcome. Given this expectation, the outlook for corporate earnings is equally dismal and likely to produce similar negligible growth rates.

Reality

The graphs below chart the S&P 500 (blue line/top graph) and the median S&P 500 P/S ratio (red line/ bottom graph) since 1964. As shown in the bottom graph, the P/S ratio is now 2.50 standard deviations from the median and well above the prior levels preceding the significant bear markets of 2000-2002 and 2007-2009.

Based on the fact that the P/S ratio has been steadily rising and has eclipsed prior peaks, we are left to select from one of two conclusions as we mentioned previously:

1. that investors are extremely optimistic about the potential for revenue growth, or
2. investors are once again caught in the grasp of bubble mentality and willing to pay huge premiums to avoid missing out on further gains.

After further deliberation, however, there is a very plausible third possibility. Perhaps the lack of viable options for investors to generate acceptable returns, has them reluctantly ignoring the risks they must assume in those efforts.  If that is indeed the case, then one should also consider the possibility that the next correction will extract more than a pound of flesh in damage.

We remain confident that extravagant earnings and economic growth are not in the cards, and it is very likely monetary policy is fueling a new form of bubble logic. Invest with caution!

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Just three months after signing a $15/hour minimum wage into law, a proposal which as he himself admitted “doesn’t make economic sense” and which unleashed an exodus of locals departing for other states, on Friday afternoon,  California governor Jerry Brown once again pandered to liberals (while ironically angering some democrats in the legislature)  when he signed a sweeping package of gun control bills on Friday, banning high-capacity ammunition magazines and expanding the definition of prohibited assault weapons in the wake of mass shootings in San Bernardino and Orlando.

Gov. Jerry Brown speaks at an event in Los Angeles

The legislation in Sacramento was passed with overwhelming Democratic support, and was largely opposed by Republicans who make up a small minority in the Senate and the Assembly.

Democrats in the legislature rushed the measures through in hopes of passing them before their summer break, in part to try to forestall a competing gun control proposal headed for the November ballot. California already has some of the toughest gun control laws in the nation, but after the shooting spree in the Southern California city of San Bernardino last December, lawmakers began work on measures they said would close unintended loopholes.

“My goal in signing these bills is to enhance public safety by tightening our existing laws in a responsible and focused manner, while protecting the rights of law-abiding gun owners,” Brown said in a signing measure. As Reuters writes, “it was a rare success for advocates of greater gun control.”

The new laws would prohibit the possession of high-capacity magazines — those holding more than 10 rounds of ammunition — for assault weapons. “These so-called high-capacity magazines are not for target shooting or hunting,” said Senator Loni Hancock, a Democrat who sponsored the bill. “Their sole purpose is to kill as many people as possible in the shortest period of time.” A separate bill banned semiautomatic weapons with “bullet buttons,” which make it easy to quickly remove a magazine and replace it with another.

Other bills the governor signed will require an ID and background check to purchase ammunition and create a new state database of ammunition owners;restrict the loaning of guns without background checks to close family members.

As the LA Times reports, the governor’s action comes one day after the Legislature approved 12 gun-control bills that were introduced in response to the December mass shooting in San Bernardino. The bills gained legislative momentum after last month’s massacre in Orlando that claimed 49 lives.

While Brown signed six measures, he also vetoed five several proposals which he described as “overly regulative”, including a bill that would have allowed co-workers, mental health workers and school officials to petition the court for a “gun violence restraining order” for people judged a danger to themselves and others. Such orders would allow guns to be confiscated for a year.

Other bills vetoed by the governor would have:

• Put an initiative on the November ballot to clarify that theft of a firearm is grand theft and is punishable as a felony.
• Require those who make guns at home to register them with the state and get a serial number so the weapons can be tracked.
• Required stolen or lost guns to be reported within five days.
• Limited Californians to the purchase of one rifle or shotgun per month; Brown wrote: “While well-intentioned, I believe this bill would have the effect of burdening lawful citizens who wish to sell certain firearms that they no longer need,” Brown said.

Despite the vetoes, the National Rifle Association accused the governor of exploiting the terrorist attacks for political gain.

“Gov. Jerry Brown today signed a Draconian gun control package that turns California’s law-abiding gun owners into second-class citizens,” said  Amy Hunter, California spokesperson for the group. “ The governor and legislature exploited a terrorist attack to push these measures through even though the state’s already restrictive laws did nothing to stop the attack in San Bernadino.” “This makes California the most anti-gun state in America,” Hunter added.

Other gun rights advocates called bills a “Gunpocalypse.”

“The California Legislature showed their true faces today,” said Craig DeLuz, spokesman for the Firearms Policy Coalition. “They abused the legislative process to enact their depraved anti-civil rights agenda.” Their efforts spilled into intra-party politics as well, after Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom, who is expected to run for governor in 2018, gathered enough signatures to place his own gun control referendum on the November ballot.

Ironically, the move angered the state Senate’s top Democrat, Kevin de Leon, who had been working to pass many of the same measures through the legislature. Worried in part that Newsom’s initiative would boost turnout in November among Republicans who oppose gun control, legislative Democrats rushed to pass their bills in time for Newsom to withdraw his measure.

But the lieutenant governor refused. “Today’s steps in the right direction will grow into a giant leap forward for public safety if voters pass the Safety for All initiative to keep guns and ammo out of the wrong hands,” he said.

Brown acted on the gun bills just before he left for a European vacation expected to last a few weeks.

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By EconMatters

It is important to know your market well, and identify which catalysts are drivers for supporting a Reversion to the Mean Trading Strategy that you can assign probabilities, timeframe and position sizing around in constructing a viable investing model. The most important factor in any Mean Reversion Trading Strategy is in controlling the Risk Element, i.e., what is your cutoff strategy for the trade.

 

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Authored by Mark St.Cyr,

Years ago when I first began calling out what I deemed as “snake oil,” it was mainly concentrated to what is now referred to as “the self improvement/motivation industry.” Although I believe in (as well as instruct) in self improvement, as well as motivation (motivation being an internal discipline rather than an external) I have not been shy to criticize both the industry, as well as some of the players or constructs they employ.

I was one of the first to openly state the whole Left brain – Right brain mumbo jumbo was for the brain dead. All I’ll say is this; it didn’t win me any friends within the industry.

However, we now know that whole idea of “I’m a one-sided brain extraordinaire!” has been dismissed as rubbish by the scientific community via the scientific method. It’s not a “consensus” opinion. It’s a scientific fact as opposed to the pseudoscience which has perpetuated it.

Yet, that still hasn’t stopped Human Resource departments across the globe from buying some “New and Improved” version as to force down gullets in meeting rooms everywhere as they increase the effectiveness of this dribble with slide after slide in a death by PowerPoint® venue washed down with stale pastry and watered down coffee. But I digress.

So why do I bring this point up? Well, I was just sent a recent interview conducted by Bloomberg™ with one of the investors of Theranos™and it fit squarely into something else I’ve been calling out these many years: What’s behind many a “unicorn” is nothing more than a piecing together of anything which might appear believable as to hope and pray Wall Street buys it – literally.

Many of the shenanigans I’ve written or spoken about has been the literal calling out of what I see as pure – unadulterated – bulls##t.

Yes, it’s only my opinion for I have no inside information and have to make my assessments from afar just like anyone else. (anyone that is who will actually look) Yet, that said, I have a honed and practiced bulls##t meter that’s second to none. And it’s being proved out as time moves forward that many of the calls I made, about what I saw as “wait…what?” moments, were indeed worthy of pausing, as to make sure what I heard, read, or saw jived with what was being witnessed, sometimes to the absolute contrary.

I would like to take you back to just one instance as an example that wasn’t all that long ago to put more context around what I have forthcoming.

Remember when the whole Jack Dorsey controversy came up with him being CEO of both Twitter™ as well as Square™ along with the timing? That timing being Twitter on the bottom of the birdcage in stock value, and Square about to IPO hoping to soar. During that period I made the following observation. To Wit:

“This makes absolutely no sense what so ever unless: the board, as well as many investors are panic-stricken on just how bad things are behind the scenes and figured; the best they could do was to bring (or convince) a person such as Mr. Dorsey back on as CEO, spin the narrative as much as humanly possible, and pray Wall Street buys it. Literally.”

Here is where not only did I seem to get under a few peoples skin, but touched some very raw nerves. For suddenly as I predicted what was all “rainbows and unicorns” was morphing into “storm clouds and old grey mares.” Not to mention calling into question their observations or business acumen as having more of a charlatan-esque type approach, rather than anything bordering on objective.

And, once again: I wasn’t winning any friends.

As a matter of fact, such statements more often than not placed yours truly at the butt-end of some very “highbrow” twit-storms for stating such. So be it, for being proven correct in the end is always worth it. (“correct” being; hows all that, and all the other IPO’s working out? What? Too soon?)

So now with the above for context here is the link to the afore mentioned interview: DFJ’s Draper: There’s Nothing Wrong With Theranos.

This interview is just under 2 minutes. And it is an encyclopedia’s worth of insight for those who really want to understand what’s behind many a old-grey-mare unicorn still hoping for IPO paradise, rather, than the glue factory of M&A. That is, if the cash burn doesn’t force bankruptcy court vulture-ism first.

I implore you to watch, don’t take my word or opinion on anything. Watch, listen, and see if what you know to be true such as: their own admissions of farming out much of their testing to other vendors using generally known and accepted procedures because of their own reliability issues in their asserted breakthrough procedures, not withstanding, how its figurehead Ms. Holmes presented all those breakthroughs.

Tell me you don’t feel the need to take a shower after watching. Personally, I felt I might need to be pressure washed. I am still aghast. Welcome to “next in rotation fund manager” interviewing at its finest is all I’ll say.

If you wanted a more clear example of why people have not only left this “market” along with many of the business/financial media outlets, the above interview just about says it all.  (to be fair it’s only a sampling of the whole, but it says all that needs to be in my opinion)

You can replace every-time he said “Theranos” with “current monetary policy” and “Ms. Holmes” with “Chair Yellen” and the narrative and storytelling would be about the same. Along with the push-back, or lack there of. Welcome to Bizzaro world. However, there are some signs that people have caught on to all this and are searching out different avenues as to try and understand precisely what the heck is going on, rather than be spoon fed “Bad is now good, and terrible is terrific!” And I’m very proud to say I can use myself as one of the examples: To Wit:

Here are two naked search results about 24 hours after another rather large Theranos “moment” was making headlines.

 As you can see, using a naked query, that is yours truly at the top. You don’t get there because you paid. You get there because the search algo’s are reacting to real “eye balls” as much as other criteria. And for those stating “Oh, that was just a fluke you’re trying to milk!” I would say “Fair enough.” However, to the right is another doing the same some hours later and, as one can see, some of the results had changed to show it wasn’t just a fluke.

I’ll also add, this is far from the first time I’ve demonstrated things such as this. I keep track of such things. If it were just a fluke I’d be pretty foolish to tout them. I only do it for the “Well who are you to say XYorZ?” crowd. So with that all said…

I don’t do “fire-walks,” nor am I some paid  “financial analyst” you’ll see on the remaining business networks. And you won’t see me in “The Economist™, NY Times™, Barrons™, or other mainstream financial/business media. Where I’ll also add – and proud of it.

No, I’m nobody ‘cept for a guy who can’t spell cat without spell checker – but has a bulls##t meter along with some business acumen that’s second to none, which seems to make news others want to read; rather than like a few others making news for “fire-walking” and “investing.” Albeit they both seem to now be feeling a lot of unwelcome “heat” themselves. But, I guess that’s showbiz – I mean – “investing” today.

Just remember and repeat 3 times while clicking your “execute order” button: “I BTFD because the Fed’s got my back.”

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Several days ago we posted an update to our favorite trading strategy since 2013: namely betting on the stupidity of the “smart money” and going long the most underowned and hated names, while shorting the most owned ones (recall from September 2013: “”Presenting The Best Trading Strategy Over The Past Year: Why Buying The Most Hated Names Continues To Generate “Alpha“”). As Bank of America confirmed three years later this past Wednesday, this indeed remains the best alpha-generating strategy. Here is what BofA’s Savita Subramanian said:

As flows from active to passive funds have accelerated, one strategy that has worked unusually well for the last several years is a simple positioning trade of selling the 10 most overweight stocks and buying the 10 most underweight stocks by active managers. This single trade has yielded over 16ppt of alpha year-to-date. And implied derisking/ outflows on Brexit alone have been fierce, with the same strategy generating 5.2ppt of alpha just since last Thursday’s close. Even if Brexit’s impact on funds is limited from here, we believe that crowded stocks will likely continue to underperform neglected stocks: a whopping two-thirds of US large cap AUM still resides in active funds – there is likely a lot more to go in the rotation from active to passive.

Here is the proof: “the Top 10 most overbought stocks have trailed the S&P for each of the past three years, while the Top 10 “most neglected” stocks outperformed the S&P on average by 11.6%.”

However, while we would be delighted to take this latest opportunity to gloat, there is a more troubling undertone to this data. Indeed, while we sarcastically pointed out back in 2013 that with the Fed (and now every other central bank) as the market’s Chief Risk Officer, there is no longer a need for anyone to do fundamental analysis, this has not only come true but the outcome is now is far worse. Because it confirms what we have said all along: not only is there no market left aside from what Central Banks decide will happen to “risk assets” on any given day, but the smart money – both hedge and mutual funds – have now completely lost the plot.

For the evidence look no further than the charts below: the first two charts show the relative performance of Goldman’s Hedge Fund VIP basket, the same stocks that comprise the most popular holdings among US hedge funds. Incidentally, this is also the same holdings which back in February we reported that Goldman was trying to make into an ETF in an attempt to offload the most concentrated hedge fund holdings into muppet hands (it failed) and which we added 5 months ago that the “the guaranteed way to make money with this ETF would be to short it”  We were right.

The second chart shows that, as we said in 2013, the best offsetting strategy remains to go long the most hated names. It has been pretty much straight up ever since.

Only it’s not just hedge funds: despite what they may profess on twitter, the reality is that nobody has any idea how to trade this so-called market any more. Enter mutual funds, whose performance has been just as deplorable if not even worse than that of hedge funds.

 

So does any strategy aside from doing the opposite of what everyone else is doing work any more? The answer – and as the charts below prove – is no.

Putting it all together, here is a quote from Bank of America: “the anticipation of central bank support – the key to reversing every major stress event since 2013 – has been strong in recent days. Given the critical role of central banks in supporting markets in recent years, a loss of credibility remains the biggest visible tail risk, in our view.”

For anyone still left in this s-called market, we urge you to pray that “key man” Janet will be safe and sound for years to come, or else.

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“I don’t buy gold, I own it… I buy it for what it does.. not what the price is” begins Grant Williams in this fascinating (and brief) interview as he explains the clock is clearly ticking on the dollar. History says that paper-based currencies will eventually fail.

It has now been 45 years since the US dollar became a completely paper-based currency. Gold, on the other hand, has been a preferred medium of global exchange for over 5,000 years. That makes gold the ultimate hedge against monetary collapse. Despite its long-term record of stability, gold as an asset class still makes up less than 1% of the average investment portfolio. Negative sentiment from the public and media is a key reason why gold continues to be under owned and mispriced.

As Grant Williams explained in the following interview with Mauldin Economics’ Jonathan Roth, “Every day, the picture is becoming more and more discernible It is not quite clear as yet, but it is getting there. The credibility of central bankers is slowly fading away.”

 

Things will go bad when the general public finally realizes that global central bankers have lost control. When this happens, we will end up with either a sharp breakdown in financial markets or a slow-rolling panic. Either way, the price of gold will soar.

h/t Valuewalk

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"If there is a way to stay in the EU, I am determined to pursue it," proclaimed Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon in an interview with Greece's To Ethnos newspaper, noting that Scottish parliament is looking into legal grounds for a new referendum on secession from UK. This confirms JPMorgan's base case that Scotland will vote for independence and institute a new currency at that point. Shortly after Sturgeon's comments, The Queen made her first post-Brexit speech (ironically in Scottish parliament) urging Britons to "stay calm and focused," pointedly noting "real leadership requires deeper and more dispassionate thinking in turbulent times."

A nation divided…

Whih explains why Scotland is looking into legal grounds for holding new referendum on secession from UK, Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon is cited as saying in interview with Greece’s To Ethnos newspaper. As Bloomberg reports,

Other means are being examined in order to block Brexit include debate and vote in Scottish parliament, which would create constitutional issue for UK.

 

"We are in uncharted waters," Sturgeon says, adding that “all options are on the table”

 

“Scotland will continue to consider EU citizens welcome to reside and work in the country”

 

“If there is a way to stay in the EU, I am determined to pursue it,” first minister says, adding that she is very satisfied from her exchanges with EU officials in Brussels.

 

Main motive behind decision of many Scots to vote against independence was that staying part of the UK meant staying part of the EU; that motive doesn’t exist anymore, “thus creating new conditions”

* * *

Still, as we also cautioned previously, any veto or scuttling threat may be merely Scotland clutching at straws.

Scottish Secretary and Conservative MP David Mundell said: "We have to respect the result on Thursday, even if we don't like it – it was a UK wide vote – it was a vote by people across the UK."

 

Asked about the possibility of Scotland stopping Brexit, he said: "What we need to see is the legal mechanism that we go through to get to a situation of the UK leaving" and then said clearly that "I personally don't believe the Scottish Parliament is in position to block Brexit, but I haven't seen the legal documentation that you refer to in your interview with Nicola [Sturgeon]."

It is unclear what the final legal determination will be on this subject, but if somehow Scotland does succeed in scuttling a historic referendum decision by the majority of the UK population, we urge Edinburgh to build a very big and vary tall wall on its southern border that Hadrian would be proud of (ideally without waiting for Mexico, or the UK, to pay for it).

Meanwhile, as all this takes place, the UK ruling class is in a state of crisis, with both PM Cameron and Chancellor Osborne having disappeared, while the opposition Labour party is undergoing a real time coup attempt, in which as we reported yesterday, party leader Jeremy Corbin has been firing random MPs from the shadow cabinet, in an attempt to foil an ouster. For those eager to follow the drama live, the Telegraph has a good live blog at the following link: "EU referendum Labour crisis: Hilary Benn says Jeremy Corbyn 'is not a leader', after he is sacked over post-Brexit coup plot, as six shadow cabinet members quit and more expected to follow"

For those still confused, the following tweet by the Telegraph's Tim Stanley summarizes everything that has transpired in the past few days best:

Last 48 hrs have shown the public's doubts in the political class were well founded. PM & chancellor disappear. Labour self destructs.

— Tim Stanley (@timothy_stanley) June 26, 2016

Which perhaps explains why The Queen, speaking for the first time since the Brexit vote – ironically at the state opening of Scottish Parliament – told MSPs they should "remain calm and focused" and that they "should feel hope and optimism"… (as The Telegraph details)…

The monarch used her address at the opening of the fifth session of the Scottish Parliament to recommend to the UK’s political class that they allow “room for quiet thinking and contemplation” before they decide their next move.

 

Alluding to the political economic turmoil that has enveloped the country since the vote to Leave the European Union, she said that Britons “live and work in an increasingly complex and demanding world” with events and developments occurring at “remarkable speed”.

 

The Queen admitted that the ability to “stay calm and collected” in such circumstances can be “hard” but argued that a major hallmark of leadership is the ability to take a step back. She argued this would allow for a “deeper consideration of how challenges and opportunities can be best addressed." 

 

The opening of the five-year parliament was a "time for hope and optimism", she added, with a "real sense of renewal" thanks to the large number of new members returned in May's Holyrood election.

 

Her call for a period of quiet contemplation, her first intervention on the Brexit vote since the shock result was announced eight days previously, suggests she does not approve of demands by Jeremy Corbyn and some European leaders for the UK to immediately invoke the Article 50 process to leave the EU.

But Ms Sturgeon defied the Queen's appeal not to rush to judgement by delivering a highly political speech in which she said Scotland should play a part in a "stronger Europe".

She concluded that the parliament should “look forward with hope and a shared determination” to work for the good of Scotland “and in doing so to play our part in a stronger Europe and a better world.”

 

via http://ift.tt/29mv1fK Tyler Durden

Submitted by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,

“I was bribed by billionaires, I was bribed by the Americans to report…not exactly the truth.”

 

–  From the post: “Non-Official Cover” – Respected German Journalist Blows Whistle on How the CIA Controls the Media

If you want a perfect example of why everyone hates the media so much, take a look at this interview, I mean interrogation, of British MEP Daniel Hannan by CNN anchor Christiane Amanpour.

Her bias is so unbelievably transparent, it’s embarrassing.

Finally, while we’re on the topic of CNN, I’ve got another gem for you. Take a look at how easily Vladimir Putin undress CNN’s Fareed

 

Makes you wonder. Is CNN a news organization or part of the CIA?

Just in case you aren’t familiar with it, do some research on Operation Mockingbird.

via http://ift.tt/29h4rCW Tyler Durden