Month: May 2019

Authored by Mike Whitney via The Unz Review,

Your Geopolitical Quiz for the Day:

Two countries are embroiled in a ferocious rivalry. One country’s meteoric growth has put it on a path to become the world’s biggest economic superpower while the other country appears to be slipping into irreversible decline. Which country will lead the world into the future?

Country A builds factories and plants, it employees zillions of people who manufacture things, it launches massive infrastructure programs, paves millions of miles of highways and roads, opens new sea lanes, vastly expands its high-speed rail network, and pumps profits back into productive operations that turbo-charge its economy and bolster its stature among the nations of the world.

Country B has the finest military in the world, it has more than 800 bases scattered across the planet, and spends more on weapons systems and war-making than all the other nations combined. Country B has gutted its industrial core, hollowed out its factory base, allowed its vital infrastructure to crumble, outsourced millions of jobs, off-shored thousands of businesses, plunged the center of the country into permanent recession, delivered control of its economy to the Central Bank, and recycled 96 percent of its corporate and financial profits into a stock buyback scam that sucks critical capital out of the economy and into the pockets of corrupt Wall Street plutocrats whose voracious greed is pushing the world towards another catastrophic meltdown.

Which of these two countries is going to lead the world into the future? Which of these two countries offers a path to security and prosperity that doesn’t involve black sites, extraordinary rendition, extrajudicial assassinations, color-coded revolutions, waterboarding, strategic disinformation, false-flag provocations, regime change and perennial war?

China’s Belt and Road Initiative: A Tectonic Shift in the Geopolitical Balance of Power

Over the weekend, more than 5,000 delegates from across the world met in Beijing for The Second Belt and Road Forum For International Cooperation. The conference provided an opportunity for public and private investors to learn more about Xi Jinping’s “signature infrastructure project” that is reshaping trade relations across Europe, Asia, Latin America and Africa. According to journalist Pepe Escobar, “The BRI is now supported by no less than 126 states and territories, plus a host of international organizations” and will involve “six major connectivity corridors spanning Eurasia.” The massive development project is “one of the largest infrastructure and investment projects in history, ….including 65% of the world’s population and 40% of the global gross domestic product as of 2017.” (Wikipedia) The improvements to road, rail and sea routes will vastly increase connectivity, lower shipping costs, boost productivity, and enhance widespread prosperity. The BRI is China’s attempt to replace the crumbling post-WW2 “liberal” order with a system that respects the rights of sovereign nations, rejects unilateralism, and relies on market-based principles to effect a more equitable distribution of wealth. The Belt and Road Initiative is China’s blueprint for a New World Order. It is the face of 21st century capitalism.

The prestigious event in Beijing was barely covered by the western media which sees the project as a looming threat to US plans to pivot to Asia and become the dominant player in the most prosperous and populous region in the world. Growing international support for the Chinese roadmap suggests that Washington’s hegemonic ambitions are likely to be short-circuited by an aggressive development agenda that eclipses anything the US is currently doing or plans to do in the foreseeable future.

The Chinese plan will funnel trillions of dollars into state of the art transportation projects that draw the continents closer together in a webbing of high-speed rail and energy pipelines (Russia). Far-flung locations in Central Asia will be modernized while standards of living will steadily rise. By creating an integrated economic space, in which low tariffs and the free flow of capital help to promote investment, the BRI initiative will produce the world’s biggest free trade zone, a common market in which business is transacted in Chinese or EU currency. There will be no need to trade in USD’s despite the dollar’s historic role as the world’s reserve currency. The shift in currencies will inevitably increase the flow of dollars back to the United States increasing the already-ginormous $22 trillion dollar National Debt while precipitating an excruciating period of adjustment.

Chinese and Russian leaders are taking steps to “harmonize” their two economic initiatives, the Belt and Road and the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU). This will be a challenging task as the expansion of infrastructure implies compatibility between leaders, mutual security guarantees, new rules and regulations for the common economic space, and supranational political structures to oversee trade, tariffs, foreign investment and immigration. Despite the hurtles, both Putin and Xi appear to be fully committed to their vision of economic integration which they see as based on the “unconditional adherence to the primacy of national sovereignty and the central role of the United Nations.”

It comes at no surprise that US powerbrokers see Putin’s plan as a significant threat to their regional ambitions, in fact, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton admitted as much in 2012 when she said, “It’s going to be called a customs union, it will be called the Eurasian Union and all of that, but let’s make no mistake about it. We know what the goal is and we are trying to figure out effective ways to slow down or prevent it.” Washington opposes any free trade project in which it is excluded or cannot control. Both the EEU and the BRI fall into that category.

The United States continues to demonize countries that simply want to use the market to improve the lives of their people and increase their prospects for prosperity. Washington’s hostile approach is both misguided and counterproductive. Competition should be seen as a way to improve productivity and lower costs, not as a threat to over-bloated, inefficient industries that have outlived their usefulness. Here’s an excerpt from an article that Putin wrote in 2011. It helps to show that Putin is not the scheming tyrant he is made out to be in the western media, but a free market capitalist who enthusiastically supports globalization:

“For the first time in the history of humanity, the world is becoming truly global, in both politics and economics. A central part of this globalization is the growing importance of the Asia-Pacific region as compared to the EuroAtlantic world in the global economy. Asia’s rise is lifting with it the economies of countries outside Asia that have managed to latch onto the “Asian economic engine”….The US has also effectively hitched itself to this “engine”, creating an economic and financial network with China and other countries in the region…

The “supercontinent” of Eurasia is home to two-thirds of the world’s population and produces over 60 percent of its economic output. Because of the dramatic opening of China and the former Soviet Union to the world, almost all the countries in Eurasia are becoming more economically, politically, and culturally interdependent. …

There is huge potential for development in infrastructure, in spite of some formidable bottlenecks. …A unified and homogeneous common power market stretching from Lisbon to Hanoi via Vladivostok is not necessary, because electric power markets do not function in that way. But the creation of infrastructure that could support a number of regional and sub-regional common markets would do much for the economic development of Greater Eurasia.” (Russian newspaper, Izvestia, 2011)

Keep in mind, the article was written back in 2011 long before Xi had even conjured up his grand pan-Asia infrastructure scheme. Putin was already a committed capitalist looking for ways to put the Soviet era behind him and skillfully use the markets to build his nation’s power and prosperity. Regrettably, he has been blocked at every turn. Washington does not want others to effectively use the markets. Washington wants to threaten, bully, sanction and harass its competitors so that outcomes can be controlled and more of the world’s wealth can be skimmed off the top by the noncompetitive, monopolistic corporate behemoths that diktat foreign policy to their political underlings (in congress and the White House) and who see rivals as blood enemies that must be ground into dust.

Is it any wonder why Russia and China have emerged as Washington’s biggest enemies? It has nothing to do with the fictitious claims of election meddling or so-called “hostile behavior” in the South China Sea. That’s nonsense. Washington is terrified that the Russo-Chinese economic integration plan will replace the US-dominated “liberal” world order, that cutting edge infrastructure will create an Asia-Europe super-continent that no longer trades in dollars or recirculates profits into US debt instruments. They are afraid that an expansive free trade zone that extends from Lisbon to Vladivostok will inevitably lead to new institutions for lending, oversight and governance. They are afraid that a revamped 21st century capitalism will result in more ferocious competition for their clunker corporations, less opportunity for unilateralism and meddling, and a rules-based system where the playing field is painstakingly kept level. That’s what scares Washington.

The Belt and Road Initiative and the Eurasian Economic Union represent the changing of the guard. The US-backed ‘neoliberal’ model of globalisation is being rejected everywhere, from the streets of Paris, to Brexit, to the rise of right wings groups across Europe, to the unexpected election of Donald Trump in 2016. The Russo-Chinese model is built on a more solid, and less extractive, foundation. This new vision anticipates an interconnected multipolar world where the rules governing commerce are decided by the participants, where the rights of every state are respected equally, and where the new guarantors for regional security scrupulously keep the peace.

It is this vision of ‘revitalized capitalism’ that Washington sees as its mortal enemy.

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2VbUmjX Tyler Durden

The US military has reported a massive spike in sexual assaults, with 20,500 instances of unwanted sexual contact in 2018 – up from 14,900 in 2016 when a survey was last conducted, according to ABC News. 

Most of the victims were female recruits aged 17 to 24, while alcohol was involved in approximately 1/3 of the incidents reported. Shockingly, just one out of three cases were reported to the authorities. 

In response to the findings, Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan told Congress he plans to “criminalize” sexual harassment in the military. 

The report released on Thursday surveyed the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines, and found 20,500 cases in 2018.

Incidents of unwanted sexual contact – which ranges from groping to rape – rose by around 38% between 2016 and 2018.

Only one out of three cases were reported to authorities, the report found.

In over 85% of the cases, the victims knew their alleged attacker – and a disturbing number of incidents involved young women whose attacker was often their superior officer. 

“We’ve got a higher prevalence for women 17 to 24. We’re going to be focusing very, very tightly on that,” said Nate Galbreath, Deputy Director of the Department’ of Defense’s Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office. 

“This is what tells us that there’s something going on that we need to hone in on,” he told ABC News. 

“It’s extremely disheartening,” said Dr. Elizabeth Van Winkle, the executive director of the Office of Force Resiliency for the Defense Department. “These are our youngest service members and it is extremely frustrating because we’ve been working at this for a really long time.”

New efforts will focus on lower-level leaders, starting with non-commissioned officers, and how they need to hold service members in their units accountable. 

“Our command climate surveys for a long time measured toxic leadership,” said Van Winkle. “What we’re moving towards is that you’re not only accountable for your own behavior but you’re accountable for true command climate. You are accountable for what’s happening within the peers underneath you.”

“What we now have to do is we really have to focus down and work with the E5’s (sergeants) and those first line folks that are right there on the front lines,” said Galbreath. “To be able to say here are the tools that you can use to be able to set good order and discipline.”

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2IXvvJT Tyler Durden

Authored by Caitlin Johnstone via Medium.com,

Headlines were blaring the word “Russian” again the other day because the mass media narrative managers found yet another reason for westerners to feel terrified of the icy potato patch that we’d barely ever thought about prior to 2016.

I’d like to talk about the Kremlin’s latest horrifying horrific addition to its fearsome doomsday artillery, and recap a few of the other incredibly frightening and terrifying tactics that those strange Cyrillic-scribbling demons of the East are employing to undermine truth, justice, and the American way. Just to make sure we’re all good and scared like we’re supposed to be.

Gather the kids, clutch your pearls and sign off on hundreds of billions of dollars of extra military spending, my patriotic brethren! Here are five super scary ways the Red Menace is trying to destroy you and everything you hold dear:

1. Whales

Is this beluga whale actually a Russian spy? https://t.co/GC8hYIuH7J

— USA TODAY (@USATODAY) April 29, 2019

Headlines and TV news segments from virtually all mainstream outlets were falling all over themselves the other day to report the fact that some Norwegians found a tame beluga whale with a harness on it, and “experts” attest that the animal may have been part of a covert espionage program for the Russian navy.

While there is no indication that this spying cetacean has been trained in the arts of sonar election meddling or shooting novichok from its blowhole, theGuardian helpfully informs us that the harness was labeled “Equipment of St. Petersburg”, and was equipped to hold “a camera or weapon”.

“Marine experts in Norway believe they have stumbled upon a white whale that was trained by the Russian navy as part of a programme to use underwater mammals as a special ops force,” the Guardian reports.

The Norwegian tabloid Verdens Gang, which picked up on the discovery well before the breathless English headlines began gracing us with their presence, is a teensy bit less Ian Flemingesque in its reporting on the matter: the harness is equipped for a GoPro camera. The words “Equipment of St. Petersburg” are written in English.

Why is the Russian military writing “Equipment of St. Petersburg” in English on the garments of its aquatic special ops forces, you may ask? If there were indeed a secret beluga espionage squad assembled by Russian intelligence services, would they not perhaps avoid writing the home address of the whales on their harnesses altogether, and maybe, you know, not let them run free in the wild?

And to that I would say, stop asking so many questions. That’s just what Putin wants.

2. Crickets

NBC and MSNBC Blamed Russia for Using “Sophisticated Microwaves” to Cause “Brain Injuries” in U.S. “Diplomats” in Cuba. The Culprits Were Likely Crickets. https://t.co/7G8p0PyCKI

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) January 7, 2019

A report seeded throughout the mainstream media by anonymous intelligence officials last September claimed that US government workers in Cuba had suffered concussion-like brain damage after hearing strange noises in homes and hotels with the most likely culprit being “sophisticated microwaves or another type of electromagnetic weapon” from Russia. A recording of one such highly sophisticated attack was analyzed by scientists and turned out to be the mating call of the male indies short-tailed cricket. Neurologists and other brain specialists have challenged the claim that any US government workers suffered any neurological damage of any kind, saying test results on the alleged victims were misinterpreted.

The actual story, when stripped of hyperventilating Russia panic, is that some government workers once heard some horny crickets in Cuba.

*cough*

3. Puppies

Robert Parry explores the strange mystery of the Russia-gate puppies, https://t.co/XL9pxJW4E8

— Consortium News (@Consortiumnews) October 4, 2017

Ye gads, is is nothing sacred? Is there any weapon these monsters won’t use to transform the west into a giant, globe-spanning Mordor?

That’s right, in 2017 puppies became one of the many, many things we’ve been instructed to fear in the hands of our vodka-swilling enemy to the east, with mass media outlets reporting that a Facebook group for animal lovers was one of the sinister, diabolical tactics employed by St. Petersburg’s notorious Internet Research Agency. As the Moon of Alabama blog has explained, the only evidence we’ve seen so far actually indicates that the Internet Research Agency’s operations in America served no purpose other than to attract eyeballs for money. As journalist Aaron Maté wrote of the highly publicized Russian Facebook meddling, “Far from being a sophisticated propaganda campaign, it was small, amateurish, and mostly unrelated to the 2016 election.”

The late, great Robert Parry, one of the earliest and most outspoken critics of the Russiagate narrative, covered this one for Consortium News in an article he authored a few months before his untimely passing:

As Mike Isaac and Scott Shane of The New York Times reported in Tuesday’s editions, “The Russians who posed as Americans on Facebook last year tried on quite an array of disguises. … There was even a Facebook group for animal lovers with memes of adorable puppies that spread across the site with the help of paid ads.”

Now, there are a lot of controversial issues in America, but I don’t think any of us would put puppies near the top of the list. Isaac and Shane reported that there were also supposedly Russia-linked groups advocating gay rights, gun rights and black civil rights, although precisely how these divergent groups were “linked” to Russia or the Kremlin was never fully explained. (Facebook declined to offer details.)

At this point, a professional journalist might begin to pose some very hard questions to the sources, who presumably include many partisan Democrats and their political allies hyping the evil-Russia narrative. It would be time for some lectures to the sources about the consequences for taking reporters on a wild ride in conspiracy land.

Yet, instead of starting to question the overall premise of this “scandal,” journalists at The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, etc. keep making excuses for the nuttiness. The explanation for the puppy ads was that the nefarious Russians might be probing to discover Americans who might later be susceptible to propaganda.

“The goal of the dog lovers’ page was more obscure,” Isaac and Shane acknowledged. “But some analysts suggested a possible motive: to build a large following before gradually introducing political content. Without viewing the entire feed from the page, now closed by Facebook, it is impossible to say whether the Russian operators tried such tactics.”

4. Pokémon

Yes, Pokémon.

This Russia hysteria has been a long, wild ride, and sometimes it’s honestly felt like they’re just experimenting on us. Like they’ve been testing the limits of how ridiculous they can make this thing and still get mainstream Americans to swallow it. Like the establishment propagandists are all sitting around in a room smoking blunts and making bets with each other all,
 “I’m telling you, we can sell a Pokémon Go Kremlin conspiracy.”
 “Do it!”
 “No way. There’s no way they’ll go for it.”
 “Yeah well you said that about the puppy dogs!”

And then they release their latest experiment in social manipulation and place bets on how many disgruntled Hillary voters they can get retweeting it saying “God dammit, I knew that jigglypuff looked suspicious!”

The October 2017 CNN report which sparked off a full day of shrieking “OMG THEY’RE EVEN USING PIKACHU TO ATTACK OUR DEMOCRACY” headlines was titled “Exclusive: Even Pokémon Go used by extensive Russian-linked meddling effort”, and it reported that Russia had extended its “tentacles” into the popular video game for the purpose of election meddling. Apparently the Internet Research Agency attempted to hold a contest using the game to highlight police brutality against unarmed Black men, which of course is something that only an evil autocracy would ever do.

Not until the fifteenth paragraph of the article did we see the information which undercut all the frantic arm flailing about Russians destroying democracy and warping our children’s fragile little minds:

“CNN has not found any evidence that any Pokémon Go users attempted to enter the contest, or whether any of the Amazon Gift Cards that were promised were ever awarded — or, indeed, whether the people who designed the contest ever had any intention of awarding the prizes.”

Mmm hmm.

5. Laughter

Turns out jokes are a Russian disinformation conspiracy.
Is nothing safe? What will those barbarian Others think of next? Weaponizing our tears? https://t.co/0CFcTL65q0

— Mark Ames (@MarkAmesExiled) December 15, 2018

Late last year the BBC published an article titled “How Putin’s Russia turned humour into a weapon” about yet another addition to the Kremlin’s horrifying deadly hybrid warfare arsenal: comedy. The article’s author, ironically titled“Senior Journalist (Disinformation)” by the BBC, argues that Russia has suddenly discovered laughter as a way to “deliberately lower the level of discussion”.

“Russia’s move towards using humour to influence its campaigns is a relatively recent phenomenon,” the article explained, without speculating as to why Russians might have suddenly begun laughing at their western accusers.

Is it perhaps possible that Russian media have begun mocking the west a lot more because westerners have made themselves much easier to make fun of? Could it perhaps be the fact that western mass media have been doing absolutely insane things like constantly selling us the idea that the Kremlin could be lurking behind anything in our world, even really innocuous-looking things like puppy dogs, Pokémon and whales? Could we perhaps be finding ourselves at the butt end of jokes now because in 2016 our society went bat shit, pants-on-head, screaming-at-passing-motor-vehicles insane?

Nahhh. Couldn’t be. It’s the Russians who’ve gone mad.

*  *  *

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via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2UWYRJU Tyler Durden

Over the last year, home prices have risen in 49 of the biggest 50 metro areas in the United States.

At the same time, mortgage rates have hit seven-year highs, making things more expensive for any prospective home buyer.

With this context in mind, today’s map comes from HowMuch.net, and it shows the salary needed to buy a home in the 50 largest U.S. metro areas.

The Least and Most Expensive Metro Areas

As a reference point, Visual Capitalist’s Jeff Desjardins points out that the median home in the United States costs about $257,600, according to the National Association of Realtors.

With a 20% down payment and a 4.90% mortgage rate, and taking into account what’s needed to pay principal, interest, taxes, and insurance (PITI) on the home, it would mean a prospective buyer would need to have $61,453.51 in salary to afford such a purchase.

However, based on your frame of reference, this national estimate may seem extremely low or quite high. That’s because the salary required to buy in different major cities in the U.S. can fall anywhere between $37,659 to $254,835.

The 10 Cheapest Metro Areas

Here are the cheapest metro areas in the U.S., based on data and calculations from HSH.com:

After the dust settles, Pittsburgh ranks as the cheapest metro area in the U.S. to buy a home. According to these calculations, buying a median home in Pittsburgh – which includes the surrounding metro area – requires an annual income of less than $40,000 to buy.

Just missing the list was Detroit, where a salary of $48,002.89 is needed.

The 10 Most Expensive Metro Areas

Now, here are the priciest markets in the country, also based on data from HSH.com:

Topping the list of the most expensive metro areas are San Jose and San Francisco, which are both cities fueled by the economic boom in Silicon Valley. Meanwhile, two other major metro areas in California, Los Angeles and San Diego, are not far behind.

New York City only ranks in sixth here, though it is worth noting that the NYC metro area extends well beyond the five boroughs. It includes Newark, Jersey City, and many nearby counties as well.

As a final point, it’s worth mentioning that all cities here (with the exception of Denver) are in coastal states.

Notes on Calculations

Data on median home prices comes from the National Association of Realtors and is based on 2018 Q4 information, while national mortgage rate data is derived from weekly surveys by Freddie Mac and the Mortgage Bankers Association of America for 30-year fixed rate mortgages.

Calculations include tax and homeowners insurance costs to determine the annual salary it takes to afford the base cost of owning a home (principal, interest, property tax and homeowner’s insurance, or PITI) in the nation’s 50 largest metropolitan areas.

Standard 28% “front-end” debt ratios and a 20% down payments subtracted from the median-home-price data are used to arrive at these figures.

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2ZSq0Bx Tyler Durden

Authored by Dagny Taggart via The Organic Prepper blog,

“Go to any airport in this country and you’ll see how well our government is dealing with the terrible danger you’re in. TSA staffers are wanding 90-year-old ladies in wheelchairs, and burrowing through their suitcases. Toddlers are on the no-fly list. Lipsticks are confiscated. And it’s all done with the highest seriousness.

It’s a show of protection and it stirs the fear pot, giving us over and over an image of being in grave personal peril, needing Big Brother to make sure we’re safe.” – Ann Medlock, Home of the Brave

The federal government wants us to believe that its growing disregard for our First and Fourth Amendment rights is in the interest of national security.

Thankfully, there are organizations that are attempting to bring attention to the ever-expanding police state – and are even willing to fight them in court.

America is turning into a Constitution-free zone.

Since 2015, U.S. government searches of travelers’ cellphones and laptops at airports and border crossings have nearly quadrupled.

You might be tempted to believe that these searches are done for good reasons.

You’d be mistaken.

Those searches are “being done for reasons beyond customs and immigration enforcement, according to papers filed Tuesday in a federal lawsuit that claims scouring the electronic devices without a warrant is unconstitutional,” according to the Associated Press:

The government has vigorously defended the searches, which rose to 33,295 in fiscal 2018, as a critical tool to protect America. But the newly filed documents claim the scope of the warrantless searches has expanded to assist in enforcement of tax, bankruptcy, environmental and consumer protection laws, gather intelligence and advance criminal investigations.

Agents with U.S. Customs and Border Protection and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement consider requests from other government agencies in determining whether to search travelers’ electronic devices, the court papers said. They added that agents are searching the electronic devices of not only targeted individuals but their associates, friends, and relatives. (source)

Border officers are conducting searches without a warrant.

CBP and ICE policies allow border officers to manually search anyone’s smartphone with no suspicion at all, and to conduct a forensic search with reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing. CBP also allows suspicionless device searches for a “national security concern.”

The previously undisclosed information about the searches was included in a motion the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts. The groups asked a federal court to rule without trial (called a summary judgment) that the Department of Homeland Security violates the First and Fourth Amendments by searching travelers’ smartphones and laptops at airports and other U.S. ports of entry without a warrant.

Last year, U.S. District Judge Denise Casper in Boston rejected the government’s request to dismiss the lawsuit, allowing the case to move forward. The ACLU and EFF began gathering documents and deposition testimony. Based on the new information, they filed a motion asking the judge to rule in their favor without a trial. “Travelers’ devices contain an extraordinary amount of highly personal information that the government can easily search, retain, and share,” the motion argues.

This information was obtained as part of a lawsuit, Alasaad v. McAleenan, EFF, ACLU, and ACLU of Massachusetts filed in September 2017 on behalf of 11 travelers – 10 U.S. citizens and one lawful permanent resident – whose smartphones and laptops were searched without warrants at U.S. ports of entry.

The plaintiffs are asking the court to rule that the government must have a warrant based on probable cause before conducting searches of electronic devices, which contain highly detailed personal information about people’s lives.

Among the plaintiffs are a limousine driver, a military veteran, journalists, students, an artist, a NASA engineer, and a business owner. They are also requesting the court to hold that the government must have probable cause to confiscate a traveler’s device.

The government can keep your data and share it with other entities.

In addition, the plaintiffs are demanding the government expunge from investigatory databases information obtained in past searches. ICE and CBP both allow officers to retain information from travelers’ electronic devices and share it with other government entities, including state, local and foreign law enforcement agencies, the court papers claim.

Travelers who have had their electronic devices searched at the border run increased odds of being subject to future device searches as they can be flagged in government databases for additional scrutiny on that basis, the plaintiffs say.

Adam Schwartz, senior staff attorney for the EFF, elaborated in a press release:

“The evidence we have presented the court shows that the scope of ICE and CBP border searches is unconstitutionally broad.

ICE and CBP policies and practices allow unfettered, warrantless searches of travelers’ digital devices and empower officers to dodge the Fourth Amendment when rifling through highly personal information contained on laptops and phones.” (source)

Esha Bhandari, staff attorney with the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project, added:

“This new evidence reveals that government agencies are using the pretext of the border to make an end run around the First and Fourth Amendments. The border is not a lawless place, ICE and CBP are not exempt from the Constitution, and the information on our electronic devices is not devoid of Fourth Amendment protections. We’re asking the court to stop these unlawful searches and require the government to get a warrant.” (source)

Government is abusing its power under the guise of security.

It might be tempting to believe that allowing the government to violate our rights is the price we pay for a safer country…that the ends justify the means.

If you are inclined to think that way, please consider the following questions from John W. Whitehead, Constitutional attorney and founder of The Rutherford Institute:

How far would you really go to secure the nation’s borders against illegal aliens?

Would you give the government limitless amounts of money to fight yet another endless war? Surround the entire country with concrete walls and barbed wire? Empower border police to do whatever it takes to crack down on illegal immigrants, even if it means violating their human rights? Hold your nose and tolerate all manner of abuses in name of national security?

Would you allow government agents to trample on the rights of anyone who gets in their way, including legal citizens? Relinquish some of your freedoms in exchange for the elusive promise of non-porous borders? Submit to a national ID card that allows the government to target individuals and groups as it chooses in order to identify those who do not “belong”? Turn a blind eye to private prisons and detainment camps that profit off the forced labor of its detainees?

Would you turn your backs on every constitutional principle for which our founders fought and died in exchange for empty campaign promises of elusive safety by fast-talking politicians?

This is the devil’s bargain that the U.S. government demands of its people. (source)

Immigrants are not the only ones being subjected to warrantless searches.

Border control cops aren’t just targeting immigrants who are attempting to enter the U.S., as Whitehead explains:

As part of the government’s so-called crackdown on illegal immigration, drugs and trafficking, its border patrol cops are expanding their reach, roaming further afield and subjecting greater numbers of Americans to warrantless searches, ID checkpoints, transportation checks, and even surveillance on private property far beyond the boundaries of the borderlands.

That so-called border, once a thin borderline, is now an ever-thickening band spreading deeper and deeper inside the country.

Consequently, nearly 66% of Americans (2/3 of the U.S. population, 197.4 million people) now live within a 100-mile-deep, Constitution-free zone.

As journalist Todd Miller explains, that expanding border region now extends “100 miles inland around the United States—along the 2,000-mile southern border, the 4,000-mile northern border and both coasts… This ‘border’ region now covers places where two-thirds of the US population (197.4 million people) live… The ‘border’ has by now devoured the full states of Maine and Florida and much of Michigan.” (source)

It is time to ask ourselves how much liberty we are willing to sacrifice in exchange for a bit of security (security the government isn’t even good at providing).

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2Wnvxhw Tyler Durden

As the United States continues its ‘longest war’ in Afghanistan, the US military has elected to stop releasing information often used to measure progress, citing “uncertainty” in the way the data is produced which have resulted in “subjective” underlying assessments. 

“The command said they no longer saw decision-making value in these data,” reads a report by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR). 

In remarks to reporters last week, John Sopko, the special inspector general, criticized what he called a trend toward less openness by the military authorities who are advising, training and assisting Afghan security forces. –AP

“I don’t think it makes sense,” said Sopko. “The Afghan people know which districts are controlled by the Taliban. The Taliban obviously know which districts they control. Our military knows it. Everybody in Afghanistan knows it. The only people who don’t know what’s going on are the people who are paying for all of this, and that’s the American taxpayer.“

The move comes amid a stalemate within the Trump administration, as the Pentagon has proposed sending nearly 4,000 more US troops into the conflict, which many in the White House oppose. Some in the White House have even propsed withdrawing completely(i.e. the non-interventionism platform Trump campaigned on) or handing over the American effort to private security contractors. 

And as AP notes, the decision to restrict battlefield information is but the most recent step in a trend of less transparency about the war in recent years – often at the insistence of the Afghan government, which has in previous instances stopped the US military from disclosing how many Afghans had been killed in battle, and the overall attrition within the Afghan army. 

The latest clampdown also aligns with President Donald Trump’s complaint that the U.S. gives away too much war information, although there is no evidence that this had any influence on the latest decision.

A government watchdog agency that monitors the U.S. war effort, now in its 18th year, said in a report to Congress on Wednesday that the U.S. military command in Kabul is no longer producing “district control data,” which shows the number of Afghan districts — and the percentage of their population — controlled by the government compared to the Taliban. –AP

In January, President Trump criticized the disclosure of battlefield information – telling reporters “Some IG goes over there, who are mostly appointed by President Obama — but we’ll have ours, too — and he goes over there, and they do a report on every single thing that’s happening, and they release it to the public,” adding “What kind of stuff is this? We’re fighting wars, and they’re doing reports and releasing it to the public? Now, the public means the enemy. The enemy reads those reports; they study every line of it.”

Trump then told acting defense secretary, Patrick Shanahan: “I don’t want it to happen anymore, Mr. Secretary.”

When the US military last released battlefield data in January, it revealed that “Afghan government control was stagnant or slipping,” according to the report, which adds that the share of the population under Afghan government control or influence – “a figure that was largely unchanged from May 2017 to July 2018 at about 65 percent” – had dropped in October 2018 to 63.5 percent. The Afghan government’s control or influence of districts overall fell almost 2% to 53.8 percent. 

Less than two years ago, a top American commander in Afghanistan called population control “most telling.” Gen. John Nicholson told reporters in November 2017 that he wanted to see the figure, then about two-thirds, increase to at least 80 percent, with the Taliban holding only about 10 percent and the rest contested.

“And this, we believe, is the critical mass necessary to drive the enemy to irrelevance,” Nicholson said then.

Nicholson’s successor, Gen. Scott Miller, believes there already are enough such assessments available to the public, including one produced by intelligence agencies. –AP

“We are focused on setting the conditions for a political settlement to safeguard our national interests,” said Col. David M. Butler, a spokesman for Gen. Miller in a Tuesday email exchange with AP. “The district stability assessment that was previously provided by DOD was redundant and did little to serve our mission of protecting our citizens and allies.”

The Trump administration, meanwhile, has been making a hard push to encourage the Taliban and Afghan government to engage in peace talks after the Taliban launched a recent spring military offensive. The group has refused to speak directly with representatives from Kabul, which they view as a US puppet. 

The war in Afghanistan is largely forgotten in much of America, as is the enormous, continuing financial cost. This year the Pentagon budget includes $4.9 billion to provide the Afghan army and police with everything from equipment and supplies to salaries and food. That is one piece of a wider array of “reconstruction” assistance the U.S. government has provided since the war began in 2001, totaling $132 billion. –AP

The United States has spent $737 billion on the war and lost over 2,400 lives, according to the Pentagon. 

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2Vh5BaV Tyler Durden

Authored by Jeff Charles via Liberty Nation,

Americans are more depressed than almost anyone in the world – and we may have the media to thank…

Here’s a conundrum for you. Would it be possible for citizens of the strongest, wealthiest, and freest country in the world to have stress levels higher than those of the most brutally oppressive nations in existence?

The next question would be: “How could this be?” After all, America’s capitalist society has produced many benefits for its residents and the rest of the world. What could possibly have Americans so worried? There are many likely culprits, but one of the key contributing factors is the country’s media establishment, which has peddled in fear and outrage since its inception. So, is the media driving Americans insane?

Americans Are Stressed And Angry

Gallup’s 2019 Global Emotions Report provides a disturbing insight into the emotional state of Americans. According to the study, 55% of people indicated that they felt stressed during much of the day in 2018. Nearly half stated that they were worried and about 22% reported feeling angry. These rates are higher than all but three other countries.

To provide some context, the United States reported higher stress levels than people living in countries such as Chad, a nation rife with violence that suffers tragedy on a daily basis. “Even as their economy roared, more Americans were stressed, angry and worried last year than they have been at most points during the past decade,” wrote Julie Ray, a Gallup editor in her summary report.

While several factors are contributing to this phenomenon, one of the primary elements that stand out is the influence of the media and the current state of American politics. Indeed, other studies have revealed that these are having an overly pernicious impact on the American psyche.

What’s Causing These Emotions?

Americans have become far more politically aware since the 2016 presidential campaign. A Monmouth poll showed that 36% of Americans reported that they believed it’s “very important” to get involved in politics. This is an 11% increase over the previous year. Moreover, 37% said that they have become more involved in politics since President Trump took office.

A WebMD survey supports the findings of the Monmouth poll, showing that a little over half (51%) of respondents reported that they were motivated to volunteer for causes they consider to be important. Moreover, 59% stated that they have taken actions including signing petitions and boycotting companies and products due to political concerns. Even more revelatory was the fact that 95% of participants said they follow the news on a regular basis and 72% of these individuals believe that the media “exaggerates issues.” Nothing too shocking there, right?

About 22% of respondents indicated that they are angry with American politics, while 59% expressed dissatisfaction with the government. In February of 2017, the American Psychological Association published the results of a study revealing that two-thirds of the American public are stressed over the future of the nation. Furthermore, they identified the news cycle as a major contributor to these emotions. Dr. Steven Stosny, a therapist, referred to this issue as “headline stress disorder.”

Dr. Jana Scrivani, a clinical psychologist, provided some insight into the growing malaise among Americans. “Being tuned in to the 24 hour news cycle may fuel a lot of negative feelings like anxiety, sadness, and hopelessness,” she told NBC News. “Subjecting ourselves to an endless barrage of tragedies and trauma can foster a real sense of being out of control.”

Are We Losing Our Minds?

Given the state of the nation’s political discourse, the findings of these studies should not come as a surprise. However, what is alarming is the fact that the nature of the country’s politics and the news cycle is eliciting negative emotions more intense than those in countries whose citizens fear for their lives daily.

It is easy to see the media’s unfortunate role in this situation, and while it might be tempting to simply blame this problem on the left, intellectual honesty demands that we acknowledge the part that some conservative outlets play in this troubling trend. Since the public is now more politically aware, people are paying more attention to the goings-on in Washington, the details of which are filtered through the skewed reports of an agenda-driven press.

Now that more of us are consuming news media more often than ever, a higher number of Americans are being fed a steady mental diet of outrage, fear, and hostility wrapped in clickbait headlines designed to make us even more contemptuous of those whose political beliefs clash with our own. Many media outlets have transformed emotionally charged, but ultimately irrelevant, stories into their bread and butter, manipulating their audiences into giving them their precious clicks in exchange for a dose of anger and panic.

Otherwise unimportant stories are catapulted into the mainstream simply because the press knows Americans will tune in and boost their ratings. The Covington kids fiasco is a prime example. What should have been a local matter was morphed into an issue of national importance by a left-wing media apparatus that wanted to further their “MAGA Hat-wearing white people are the spawn of Satan” narrative.

In the end, what is accomplished? For the press, it is higher ratings and more clicks. But for the American public, it is a heightened sense of fear, hatred, and stress – a toxic brew rending the social fabric. It is no wonder that many are predicting another civil war. It would be easy to dismiss such claims as pure alarmism, but given how the Fourth Estate wields their influence, this reality is not hard to imagine. Is it possible to reverse course? Sure, but it won’t be easy. The media is in this game for two reasons: To earn a profit, and to achieve their political objectives. They have no incentive to inform rather than persuade. If the trend persists, things are sure to get uglier before they get better.

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2VEuOv7 Tyler Durden

Following this week’s surge in ADP private payrolls, the Street is looking for a trend-like 185k nonfarm payrolls print. And while the US unemployment rate is expected to remain unchanged, average hourly wage growth is seen ticking up to a near post-crisis high of 3.3%. However, as RanSquawk notes, payroll indicators are mixed heading into the data, although jobless claims falling to cyclical lows in the survey week augur well; however, other gauges, like ISM’s manufacturing PMI, as well as Challenger’s assessment of the labour market call for some caution, analysts say.

First, here is what Wall Street expects, via RanSquawk:

• Non-farm Payrolls: Exp. 185k, Prev. 196k.
• Private Payrolls: Exp. 180k, Prev. 182k; Manufacturing Payrolls: Exp. 10k, Prev. -6k.
• Unemployment Rate: Exp. 3.8%, Prev. 3.8% (the FOMC currently projects unemployment will stand at 3.7% at the end of 2019, and 4.3% in the longer-run).
• U6 Unemployment Rate: Prev. 7.3%.
• Labour Force Participation: Prev. 63.0%.
• Avg Earnings Y/Y: Exp. 3.3%, Prev. 3.2%; Avg Earnings M/M: Exp. 0.3%, Prev. 0.1%.
• Avg Work Week Hours: Exp. 34.5hrs, Prev. 34.5hrs.

The average pace of monthly payroll additions has been easing: 12-month nonfarm payroll headline has averaged 211k, 6-month average 207k, and 3-month average 180k. Nevertheless, “demand for workers remains strong given the economy’s robust performance, yet the shrinking pool of available labour means competition for staff is intense,” ING writes, “this is constraining employment growth and pushing up pay, which will support consumer spending while adding to medium term inflation risks.”

WAGES: The Phillips Curve-like relationship between the unemployment rate and wages is alive, but the link between the UR/wages and overall PCE/CPI has attenuated and that is the Fed’s focus, JPMorgan says, and the bank sees wages likely ticking higher vs March levels. Wells Fargo suggests keeping an eye on the participation rate: The bank says that the rebound in participation has kept wage pressures from building to the point where labour cost would set off inflation or severely strain profits (and therefore, Wells says the increase in labour force participation has provided the FOMC with another reason it can be patient with additional rate hike)

CLAIMS DATA: In the nonfarm payrolls survey period, initial jobless claims in the week fell to a fresh cyclical low at 193k. While this augurs well for the official payrolls data, Pantheon Macroeconomics notes that much of the decline in the first part of April looked like a seasonal adjustment issues; the next week saw a rebound to 230k, supporting that notion. Pantheon thinks the trend probably is still a bit below the 220K mark, but it should head down towards 210K in Q2 as consumer spending rebounds and, perhaps, capex picks up too.

ADP PAYROLLS: ADP’s gauge of payrolls printed 275k in April, beating the Street’s view for 180k, with analysts suggesting that it presents some upside potential for the official payrolls data consensus (185k). “. Unfortunately, the more reliable survey evidence and the temporary employment figures of the official series itself suggest our below-consensus forecast for a subdued 165k gain will be closer to the mark,” Capital Economics says, noting that the large increase in April was helped by an outsized 52k gain in employment in the goodsproducing sector, reflecting a subdued 5k gain in manufacturing payrolls, but a “suspiciously large” 49k gain in construction employment. Overall, CapEco says “the data suggest some upside risk to our forecast that the official figures will show payroll employment growth slowing to 165k in April, following a 196k gain in March,” but says that ADP data has not been an accurate predictor of the official NFP data, and are frequently revised; “so we prefer to rely on a much wider range of indicators, the vast majority of which point to slower employment growth ahead,” CapEco says.

ISM SURVEYS: The non-manufacturing ISM report is scheduled to be released after the NFP data; the manufacturing reports’ employment sub-index printed 52.4 points (-5.1 points vs. March), signalling that employment growth remains in expansion for the 31st straight month. “Employment continued to expand, but at lower levels compared to March,” ISM’s Fiore said, “retention issues and sourcing of skilled and professional labor were noted by respondents as continuing drags on production performance.” NOTE: An employment sub-index above 50.8, over time, is consistent with an increase in the BLS data on manufacturing employment.

CHALLENGER JOB CUTS: Job cuts fell to 40k in April, +31% Y/Y. This was the lowest monthly total since last August. Despite the monthly drop, April cuts are still +11% vs April 2018, and so far this year, employers have announced 230k job cuts, +31% vs the  first four months of last year. “The second quarter averages the fewest cuts of the year, according to our historical tracking,” Challenger said, “with the favourable jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics in March, this could signify companies are slowing down plans to cut workers for the spring and summer months.” It also said that the high job cut numbers in the manufacturing and automotive sectors are “troubling, as changes in these industries tend to have a trickle-down effect,” he added. Challenger says that the majority of cuts this year are due to “restructuring,” with 55.7k cuts announced due to this reason. “While the lower number of cuts last month is certainly a good sign, and we saw a huge hiring announcement in the Retail sector from McDonald’s last month, we are still seeing more than a 30% increase in cuts over last year. The sectors that are making cuts could indicate trouble ahead,” Challenger added.

* * *

Finally, some qualitative considerations, via Goldman Sachs:

Arguing for a stronger report:

Jobless claims. Initial jobless claims declined over the four weeks between the payroll reference periods (-19k to 202k on average, lowest since 1969, and 193k in the payroll reference week). While claims rebounded sharply in the two weeks after the April payroll month, averaging across these periods continues to suggest that the pace of layoffs remains very low. Continuing claims also fell from survey week to survey week (-101k to 1,654k).

Business surveys. The employment components of both our manufacturing and services employment trackers declined (-1.0pt to 55.9 and -0.2pt to 55.1, respectively), but this only partially reversed the sizeable rebound in March. The headline indices of business surveys were mixed in April[1]. Taken together, the level of business surveys still suggests solid job growth in April (see Exhibit 1). Service-sector job growth rose 170k in March and averaged 171k over the last six months. Manufacturing payroll employment declined 6k in March and increased 15k on average over the last six months.

ADP. The payroll-processing firm ADP reported a 275k increase in April private payroll employment—95k above consensus and well above the +210k average pace over the prior six months. While encouraging at the margin, we see several reasons not to overreact to the ADP beat. First, prior-month nonfarm payroll growth and jobless claims are both inputs to the ADP model and likely contributed to the strength. Second, ADP noted in the report text that “April’s job gains overstate the economy’s strength” and suggested in comments on CNBC that the report is consistent with April nonfarm payroll growth of 175k-200k. We also note that weather tends to affect the official payroll measure more so than it affects the ADP series (a negative factor this month, in our view).

Arguing for a weaker report:

Winter weather. We believe winter weather boosted job growth in last month’s report, but only by around 10k. And while winter weather typically does not matter as much for the April employment report, a relatively late and large storm affected much of the Midwest during the survey week (Winter Storm Wesley). Historically, we find that above-average snowfall in the Midwest in April does indeed weigh on weather-sensitive categories. At 0.7 inches above normal (population-weighted basis), we estimate that April snowfall may have lowered growth by around 20k in the region.

Job availability. The Conference Board labor market differential—the difference between the percent of respondents saying jobs are plentiful and those saying jobs are hard to get—rebounded by 4.8pt to 33.5 in April. However, other jobs availability readings were weak, as JOLTS job openings fell sharply (-538k to 7,087k in February) and the Conference Board’s Help Wanted Online index declined (-1.7pt to 102.3 in March). We note that the JOLTS measure may be somewhat backward looking at this point, and its signal may have already been reflected in the softer February payroll gain (+33k).

Job cuts. Announced layoffs reported by Challenger, Gray & Christmas declined by 13k in April to 39k (SA by GS). However, they remain modestly above their April 2018 level (+5k yoy).

Census hiring. The hiring of temporary federal workers ahead of the 2020 Census has so far proceeded very slowly, lagging those of the prior two decades (see Exhibit 3).

And while in April 2009 (the employment report exactly 10 years ago), Census hiring boosted nonfarm payroll growth by 114k jobs, we expect only a modest boost in tomorrow’s figures, likely between 1k and 10k. It appears that the recruiting process commenced only recently (and may have been delayed by the government shutdown).

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2Wtmds8 Tyler Durden

Submitted by Priceonomics

Since the end of the great recession, home prices in America have rebounded substantially. Since the dark days of 2009, prices have steadily climbed and are up over 50% on average from the lowest point.

This is great news for homeowners whose homes may be worth more than their pre-recession values, but less great news for homebuyers who can afford less house for the dollar. What’s more is that in some places, home prices have spiked much faster than average, while in other places, home prices have remained depressed.

So where in America are home prices increasing the fastest and the slowest? In light of fluctuating mortgage interest rates, tax reform that’s limited many homeowner deductions, and an affordability crisis in many urban areas, along with Priceonomics customer RefiGuide.org thought we’d dive deeper into the home price data published, aggregated and made available by Zillow.

Over the last year, the median home prices increased the fastest at the state level in Idaho, where prices increased by a staggering 17.2%. In just two states did home prices actually fall last year (Alaska and Delaware). The large cities with the fastest home appreciation were Newark, Dallas, and Buffalo where prices increased more than 15% in each place. The large city where prices decreased the fastest was Seattle, where home prices actually fell 2.4%.

Lastly, we looked at the expensive markets (where homes cost more than a million dollars) that had the highest price appreciation. St. Helena, CA, Quogue, NY and Stinson Beach, CA all had prices increase over 20% last year.

***

For this analysis, we looked at data from the beginning of March 2019 compared to prices one year earlier. We looked at Zillow’s seasonally adjusted median price estimate as published by Zillow Research Data.

Nationally, home prices increased 7.2% last year or about $15,000 more than the year before. However, in some states prices spiked much more than that.

Idaho leads the country with home prices increasing by 17.2% last year, driven by strong demand in the Boise market. In Utah the impact of a thriving economy and growing population is that prices increased 14% in just one year. Nevada, likewise is seeing strong home price growth as people migrate from California and the state’s low taxes are more favorable under the most recent tax reform. Alaska and Delaware have the distinction of being the only states where home prices fell over the last year.

Next, we looked at home prices in the top one hundred largest housing markets, as measured by population. Which cities were experiencing rapid home equity appreciation and which ones are not? 

At the city level, home prices have increased the fastest in Newark, NJ where prices have increased more than 17% as buyers who are priced out of New York City have purchased in this area. Dallas, a city with a strong economy and low taxes has seen home prices increase nearly 17% as well.

Notably, some of the most expensive and desirable cities like Seattle, Oakland and Portland have seen their prices decrease in the last year. Each of these locations has experienced price appreciation during this decade, however.

Were there any smaller cities and towns that experienced home prices rising faster than the big cities? Below shows the fifty places in the United States where home prices increased the most this last year:

Across the Midwest and South, numerous smaller cities experienced price appreciation much greater than 25% last year. In Nettleton, MS prices increased 49% in just one year! Notably, almost none of these high-price growth cities are located on the coasts.

Lastly, what are expensive places to buy a home in America that are just getting more expensive? To conclude we looked at locations where the median home price was over one million dollars and the prices keep rising:

In this rarefied group, prices increased the most in Saint Helena, CA. In this tony town in Napa Valley, prices increased over 25% last year. In second place was Quogue, NY a town in the Hamptons. In fact, 9 out of the top 10 expensive cities with high price appreciation are in California or New York. More specifically, many of these locations are in the vicinity of San Francisco and New York City, the two very large economic engines that are driving home prices.

***

After nearly a decade of vibrant stock market and real estate returns, this year home prices have continued to climb at a steady clip. In only two states in America did prices actually fall, and in five states prices grew more than 10% in a year. As the economy has continued roaring, places that were once known for being affordable like Idaho, Utah, and Nevada have seen home prices spike. While expensive cities like Seattle, Portland and Oakland have seen prices level off in the last year, and places like Newark, Dallas and Buffalo have become less affordable. In this stage of American economic expansion, the once affordable places are seeing their prices escalate.

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2GYsiYD Tyler Durden

Authored by Will Chamberlain via HumanEvents.com,

In June 2018, Bill Barr, then in private practice at Kirkland & Ellis, wrote a detailed legal memorandum to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. This memo came to light in December, when Barr was nominated for Attorney General.

Reading Barr’s June 2018 memo alongside the last twenty pages of the Mueller Report is a curious experience.

Together, they read like dueling legal briefs on the meaning of 18 U.S.C. § 1512(c)(2); the type of material one would expect to see from adversarial appellate litigators.

So-why did Robert Mueller dedicate 20 pages of his report to a seemingly obscure question of statutory interpretation? Why did Bill Barr write a detailed legal memorandum to Rod Rosenstein about that very same statute?

And how, exactly, did Bill Barr know that that § 1512(c)(2) was central to Mueller’s obstruction theory – in June 2018, when he was still in private practice at Kirkland?

After some consideration, I arrived at a theory that I believe answers these three questions, and others as well. For example – why was AG Jeff Sessions asked for his resignation the day after the midterms? Why was Bill Barr the only name ever seriously floated for AG? And is it merely a coincidence that six weeks after Barr’s confirmation, the Mueller probe came to an end?

…

This is a story about a legal chess match played for the highest stakes imaginable: Trump’s Presidency – and whether it would be under the cloud of an endless special counsel investigation – hinged on the result.

John Dowd, Ty Cobb, Jay Sekulow, and the rest of President Trump’s personal legal team were on one side. Mueller, Andrew Weissmann, and the Special Counsel’s office were on the other.

The dispute was a year-long struggle over the meaning of 18 U.S.C. § 1512(c)(2).

No judge ever ruled on who was right about the meaning of this obstruction statute. No formal decision was ever rendered.

All the same, Trump’s legal team prevailed on February 14, 2019.

That’s the day William Pelham Barr was confirmed as United States Attorney General.

So why, exactly, was the interpretation of 18 U.S.C. § 1512(c)(2) so contested?

Let’s start by looking the statute, excerpted here:

(c) Whoever corruptly—

(1) alters, destroys, mutilates, or conceals a record, document, or other object, or attempts to do so, with the intent to impair the object’s integrity or availability for use in an official proceeding; or

(2) otherwise obstructs, influences or impedes any official proceeding, or attempts to do so [is guilty of the crime of obstruction]. (Emphasis added).

Why was this so important to Mueller?

…

In hindsight, however, it’s clear that Barr was the assassin Democrats feared.

Within six weeks of his confirmation, the Mueller probe was over…

Read the full story here…

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2Vd7u88 Tyler Durden