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Watch Nick Gillespie on Kennedy (8 P.M.) & Red Eye (3 A.M.)

Set Tivos to stun: I’ll be on Fox Business’ Kennedy show tonight at 8 P.M. ET and on Fox News’ Red Eye with Tom Shillue at 3 A.M. ET.

On Kennedy, I’ll be appearing with Kat Timpf to talk about Gary Johnson’s fading chances to get into the presidential debates, his endorsements from newspapers, and which major party will end up adopting Libertarian Party platform policies after it gets blown out in November.

On Red Eye, I’ll be appearing with Timpf once again, plus Jimmy Failla and Mike Baker. TV’s Andy Levy will be in the mix, too, as we discuss the ethics and impact of email leaks from Colin Powell and other government figures, how the note that Winston Churchill’s doctor gave him to get around liquor prohibition rates compared to health revelations but Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, and more.

The first presidential candidate who will have a similar note about medical marijuana HAS ALREADY BEEN BORN. And has probably already fallen asleep on the couch while getting dressed to go out and vote for herself.

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Trump Maybe (Maybe Not) Wants Thiel on SCOTUS, Clinton Back on Campaign, Sandra Bland Family Gets Settlement: P.M. Links

  • Trump votersToday in Donald Trump: Peter Thiel is denying a report that Trump is considering him for nomination to the Supreme Court. Trump Jr. says they’re not releasing Trump’s tax returns because they’ll distract from the main messages of his campaign. Trump’s doctor says he’s overweight and takes drugs for cholesterol, but is otherwise in good shape.
  • Today in Hillary Clinton: Clinton is back on the campaign trail after her bout with pneumonia. And the State Department has delayed a response to a Freedom of Information Act request for communication between the federal agency and a consulting firm full of political movers-and-shakers until after the election.
  • Police in Columbus, Ohio, shot and killed a 13-year-old boy who allegedly pulled a BB gun on them in a confrontation over his suspected involvement in an armed robbery. Police say the gun looked just like a real gun. Another participant in the alleged robbery claimed that the teen was running away when police shot him.
  • The family of Sandra Bland, who died in jail in Texas following a heavily criticized arrest during a traffic stop, has agreed to a $1.9 million wrongful death settlement.
  • A man has been arrested for damaging and trying to burn down the mosque attended by the Orlando nightclub shooter. According to a police report, he said he didn’t want to hurt anyone and was “embarrassed” by the crime.
  • A hitman testified that Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte presided over the extrajudicial killings of thousands of criminals and political opponents when he was a mayor and ordered some of the killings himself.
  • The push continues to try to convince President Barack Obama to pardon Edward Snowden.

Follow us on Facebook and Twitter, and don’t forget to sign up for Reason’s daily updates for more content.

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Three ways the banks are scamming you

Yesterday we talked about how the banking system is MUCH riskier than most people are led to believe.

And there is a growing chorus of high ranking regulators and officials saying the same thing, ranging from the Vice Chairman of the FDIC to former US Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers.

I compared the banking system to airport security. As we discussed yesterday, airport security isn’t real security. It’s merely the illusion of security.

It’s the same in the financial system.

It’s not to say that banks are on the verge of collapse. But most of these new tough banking regulations are just smoke and mirrors designed to create the illusion of bank safety.

I’ll give you a few examples:

1. Bank “stress tests” are totally useless

As part of new financial regulation, the Federal Reserve conducts annual “stress tests” of US banks to determine whether or not they will be able to withstand a financial crisis.

These tests are totally useless.

The Fed essentially throws a bunch of scenarios at the banks to see what will happen to their balance sheets if, say, the stock market crashes and GDP grinds to a halt.

This sounds like a great idea.

But what these stress tests fail to take into consideration is that in a real crisis (like we saw in 2008), just about every nightmare scenario occurs at the same time.

Markets crash. GDP goes negative. Unemployment surges. Then major institutions collapse, which causes other major institutions to collapse.

The Fed’s stress tests assume that bank failures happen in a vacuum. They don’t. When one major bank fails, it drags the other banks down with it.

That’s precisely what happened in 2008. Lehman Brothers went under, creating a financial maelstrom that nearly brought down the entire financial system with it.

Bottom line, the Fed’s stress tests are far too rosy and academic to be worthwhile. As Bloomberg’s editorial board points out,

“[The Fed’s stress test] also assumes that a thin minimum layer of equity capital — just $4 per $100 in assets — would be enough to maintain the market’s confidence in a bank’s solvency. These flaws make a passing grade almost meaningless.”

Yet even though the stress test results are pointless, the Fed publishes them as an ultimate blessing that the financial system is healthy and sound.

Once again, it’s not real safety… merely the illusion of safety.

(It’s also ironic to point out that the Federal Reserve itself is nearly insolvent and would fail to pass its own Mickey Mouse stress test.)

2. Regulations for increased bank capital are a complete joke

Many of the new financial regulations require banks to increase their levels of capital. And these rules are perhaps even more useless than the stress tests.

In banking, capital is like a bank’s emergency reserve fund.

If things go horribly wrong and their assets start plummeting, a bank with generous capital reserves will be able to stay solvent. Poorly capitalized banks will collapse.

Lehman Brothers is an easy example.

It used to be one of the top investment banks in the world. Yet died a painful death in 2008 because its capital reserves were tiny compared to its massive investment losses.

As a result, regulators started requiring banks to hold more capital.

But there are so many loopholes in these rules that banks can easily hide their true financial condition.

It’s so bad that the FDIC’s Vice Chairman stated last month that the system “too easily allows banks to conceal risk,” and that the banking system’s true levels of capital reserves are “inadequate for bank resiliency”.

3. The Volker Rule farce

This one is probably the most hilarious.

One of the toughest provisions in all the new financial regulations, the Volker Rule, restricts banks from buying risky assets or engaging in risky investment behavior that doesn’t benefit their customers.

Duh. Did they really need to pass a law about this? Apparently so.

But here’s what’s interesting: by the time the Volker Rule was passed, bank balance sheets were already stuffed full of these prohibited assets.

So the banks were given until July 21, 2012 to liquidate risky assets.

That didn’t happen, and the deadline was extended. And again. And again. Now the deadline is out to 2022… ten years after the original one.

Why? Simple. Because no one wants to buy those risky assets, certainly not at full price.

If the banks sold their riskiest assets now, they’d suffer enormous losses… which means their capital levels would take a big hit (see #2 above).

Neither banks nor regulators want that.

So rather than tell the truth about their real financial condition, they keep extending the deadline.

Meanwhile, banks are allowed to continue holding these risky assets on their balance sheets at full value, as if they’re worth 100 cents on the dollar.

There’s a word for this: fraud. But it’s totally legal when banks deliberately conceal the truth.

These are just three tiny examples of what’s really happening in the banking system.

Sure, they publish glowing stress test results and financial statements that show generous capital reserves.

Politicians and regulators point to their tough rules that have ‘cleaned up Wall Street.’

But it’s all an illusion.

And it only takes a quick peek under the hood to realize that there are SUBSTANTIAL risks in the banking system, certainly more than we are led to believe.

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British PM Theresa May: Safe Spaces Threaten Open Debate on Campus

MayBritish Prime Minister Theresa May said Wednesday that safe spaces were an “extraordinary” new trend and a threat to open dialogue on university campuses.

“We want our universities not just to be places of learning but places where there is open debate. which is challenged and people can get involved in that,” said May, according to The Guardian. “I think everybody is finding this concept of safe spaces quite extraordinary, frankly. We want to see that innovation of thought taking place in our universities. That’s how we develop as a country, as a society, and as an economy, and I absolutely agree with my honorable friend.”

May was referring to statements made by Victoria Atkins, who expressed concern that entitled students were using safe spaces to undermine free speech.

Lest anyone show too much admiration for May’s position, Spiked editor and Reason contributor Brendan O’Neill writes that May’s support for free speech is disingenuous.

“Theresa May wouldn’t recognise freedom of speech if it got up on to her despatch box and showed her its arse,” he wrote.

O’Neill continues:

As home secretary she zealously ‘No Platformed’ – to use student parlance – various so-called extremists, preventing them from setting foot in Britain lest they warp our tiny minds. She forcefielded Britain against right-wing American bloggers who are stingingly critical of Islam. Against a white nationalist from the American South. Against the Florida pastor Terry Jones, who likes burning Korans. Against the American rapper Tyler, the Creator, for the crime of having once rapped some sexist lyrics. Against the doofus pick-up artist Julien Blanc, for being disrespectful of women.

If these targets sound familiar, that’s because they’re the same people student officials ban. Islamophobes, sexists, rappers or singers who aren’t sufficiently PC: May and the student Safe Spacers she’s railing against are one and the same in their belief that bad or eccentric ideas are best dealt with by censorship. May bans a pastor who has a problem with the Koran; students ban secularist critic of Islam Maryam Namazie. May bans Tyler, the Creator for being sexist; 30 students’ unions ban Robin Thicke’s ‘Blurred Lines’ for being sexist.

For more on students’ demands for safe spaces, read my latest: “Crazed Yale Students Attack Staffer for “Creating Space for Violence.”

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Dismal Data Deluge Sparks Buying-Panic In Stocks

To summarize: Empire Fed MISS, Retail Sales MISS, PPI MISS, Bloomberg Consumer Comfort MISS, Business Inventories/Sales MISS, Industrial Production MISS, Capacity Utilization MISS  … Dow +200 Points!

 

A dismal data day – pushing US macro data to 2 month lows – and stocks loved it…

 

and pushing September rate hike odds to just 9%…

While stocks rallied and bonds sold off today, the correlation over the past 30 days is the highest in 9 years… since the market topped in 2007…

 

And breadth is bad and getting worse…

 

Another big short squeeze led the market higher today…

G89

 

And AAPL supported most of the major indices…

Soaring 12% in 4 days… ummm WTF!

 

S&P 500 cash was once again supported by the 100DMA…around 2121..

 

Helped by VIX slamming into tomorrow's quad witching…

 

On the day, look at the inflection as Europe Closed, and again as NYMEX closed….

 

On the week, all major stock indices (except Trannies) pushed back into the green...(Nasdaq soaring on Apple's back)

 

Treasury yields were very mixed today with 30Y notably higher (in yield) and 2Y lower…

 

2s30s has now steepened for 11 straight days – up 32bps (or 22%) – to June 24 (Brexit) levels…

 

The USD Index drifted lower led by JPY strength (commodity currencies also rallied along with crude)…

 

Copper continues to push higher as crude slides.. and PMs gently leak lower…

 

Stocks decoupled from oil once again…

 

Charts: Bloomberg

Bonus Chart: Probably nothing…

Bonus Bonus Chart: This is starting to get serious…

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Harvard Crushes The “Obama Recovery” Farce With 9 Simple Charts

A couple of months back we posted 9 charts that, at least in our minds, debunked the myth of the “Obama Recovery” despite suggestions from the administration that any such efforts were just a futile attempt at “peddling fiction” (our original post: “These Are The 9 Zero Hedge Charts Showing “Obama’s Recovery” That Angered The Washington Post“). 

Turns out that Harvard likes to dabble in “fiction peddling” as well:

Harvard

 

In a recent study entitled “Problems Unsolved and a Nation Divided” (study can be viewed in its entirety at the end of this post), Harvard University points out that, despite claims of an “Obama Recovery,” in fact, the U.S. economy has continued to deteriorate in the aftermath of the “great recession.”  Among other things, Harvard attributes the economic deterioration to a “lack of economic strategy, especially at the federal level” and a “political system was once the envy of many nations” but has now “become our greatest liability.”  Below are a couple of the key conclusions:

America’s economic performance peaked in the late 1990s, and erosion in crucial economic indicators such as the rate of economic growth, productivity growth, job growth, and investment began well before the Great Recession.

 

Workforce participation, the proportion of Americans in the productive workforce, peaked in 1997. With fewer working-age men and women in the workforce, per-capita income for the U.S. is reduced.

 

Median real household income has declined since 1999, with incomes stagnating across virtually all income levels. Despite a welcome jump in 2015, median household income remains below the peak attained in 1999, 17 years ago. Moreover, stagnating income and limited job prospects have disproportionately affected lower-income and lower-skilled Americans, leading inequality to rise.

Meanwhile, Harvard points out that “pessimism about the trajectory of U.S. competitiveness deepened in 2016” for the first time in 5 years. 

Pessimism about the trajectory of U.S. competitiveness deepened in 2016, for the first time since we started surveying alumni in 2011. Fifty percent of the business leaders surveyed expect U.S. competitiveness to decline in the coming three years, while 30% foresee improvement and 20% no change.

Harvard argues that one of the primary causes of the sustained economic downturn has been a lack of an economic strategy from the federal government which has instead chosen to rely exclusively on accomodative Fed policies.

The U.S. lacks an economic strategy, especially at the federal level. The implicit strategy has been to trust the Federal Reserve to solve our problems through monetary policy.

We assume Chuck Schumer agrees with that characterization…

 

Meanwhile, Harvard points out that the other key affliction of the U.S. economy is a completely broken political system that is “no longer delivering good results for the average American.”

The U.S. political system was once the envy of many nations. Over the last two decades, however, it has become our greatest liability. Americans no longer trust their political leaders, and political polarization has increased dramatically. Americans are increasingly frustrated with the U.S. political system. Independents now account for 42% of Americans, a greater percentage than that of either major party.

 

The political system is no longer delivering good results for the average American. Numerous indicators point to failure to compromise and deliver practical solutions to the nation’s problems. Political polarization has especially made it harder to build consensus on sensible economic policies that address key U.S. weaknesses. It is at the root of our inability to progress on the consensus Eight-Point Plan.

With that, here’s a look at some of our favorite charts.

First, the labor force participation rate has continued to decline after the “great recession” and currently stands at the lowest level since 1982.

Harvard

 

But the total labor participation rate over the past couple of decades has benefited from women entering the work force.  If you just look at male labor force participation the drop off is even more pronounced.  

Harvard

 

The key problem is that job creation has failed to recover to the levels experienced prior to the “great recession.”

Harvard

 

Meanwhile, labor productivity has collapsed.

Harvard

 

And, of course, poor job growth and declining participation rates results in lower real household income.

Harvard

 

Per the chart below, the only counties across the country that have experienced real income growth in recent years has been areas where the economy is dominated by oil production…ironically, the industry that Obama has tried hardest to crush (as evidenced by his recent decision to unilaterally halt the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline).

Harvard

 

Moreover, people in the lowest income brackets, those Obama claims to care most about, have suffered the most under his presidency. 

Harvard

 

While stalling in the early 2000’s, entitlement spending has soared under the Obama presidency as investment has declined. 

Harvard

 

Meanwhile, the Harvard survey finds that all of Obama’s major policy initiatives were identified as the key reasons for our under-performing economy, including, a health care, high personal income taxes, high corporate taxes and a burdensome regulatory environment.

Harvard

 

And, lastly, this all comes as the American electorate has completely lost all faith in politicians.

Harvard

 

Harvard Study on US Economy Under Obama

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Revisiting the Run on Deutsche Bank: Making the Hypothetical Frightenighly Realistic – You’ve Been Warned!

Following up on “What Happens to Banks When the Real Funding Rate Appears?“, we will take a look at could happen to Deustche Bank when LIBOR does this…

… and depositors realize Deutsche Bank as Ground Zero?, thus contemplate Deustche Bank and the Anatomy Of A European Bank Run: Look at the Situation BEFORE The Run Occurs, from which they may learn this…

… and this…

… consequently doing this…

As explained in “What Happens to Banks When the Real Funding Rate Appears?“, bank funding and derivative benchmark costs are going up. In the past, banks have manipulated these numbers to increase their perception of creditworthiness and to synthesize profits from their derivative positions. Reference Wikipedia’s description of the LIBOR scandal:

WSJ Libor study

Libor manipulation to lower rate

Hi Guys, We got a big position in 3m libor for the next 3 days. Can we please keep the lib or fixing at 5.39 for the next few days. It would really help. We do not want it to fix any higher than that. Tks a lot.

Barclays Bank trader in New York to submitter,
13 September 2006[25]

On 16 April 2008, The Wall Street Journal released a controversial article, and later study, suggesting that some banks might have understated borrowing costs they reported for the Libor during the 2008 credit crunch that may have misled others about the financial position of these banks.[26][27] In response, the BBA claimed that the Libor continued to be reliable even in times of financial crisis. Other authorities contradicted The Wall Street Journal article saying there was no evidence of manipulation. In its March 2008 Quarterly Review, the Bank for International Settlements stated that “available data do not support the hypothesis that contributor banks manipulated their quotes to profit from positions based on fixings.”[28] Further, in October 2008, the International Monetary Fund published its regular Global Financial Stability Review which also found that “Although the integrity of the U.S. dollar Libor-fixing process has been questioned by some market participants and the financial press, it appears that U.S. dollar Libor remains an accurate measure of a typical creditworthy bank’s marginal cost of unsecured U.S. dollar term funding.”[29]

A study by economists, Snider and Youle, in April 2010, however, corroborated the results of the earlierWall Street Journal study that the Libor submissions by some member banks were being understated.[30]Unlike the earlier study, Snider and Youle suggested that the reason for understatement by member banks was not that the banks were trying to appear strong, especially during the financial crisis period of 2007 to 2008, but rather that the banks sought to make substantial profits on their large Libor interest-linked portfolios.[31] For example, in the first quarter of 2009,Citigroup had interest rate swaps of notional value of $14.2 trillion, Bank of America had interest rate swaps of notional value of $49.7 trillion and JPMorgan Chase had interest rate swaps of notional value of $49.3 trillion.[32] Given the large notional values, a small unhedged exposure to the Libor could generate large incentives to alter the overall Libor. In the first quarter of 2009, Citigroup for example reported that it would make that quarter $936 million in net interest revenue if interest rates would fall by .25 percentage points a quarter, and $1,935 million if they were to fall by 1 percentage point instantaneously.[33]

Central banks aware of Libor flaws

The Governor of the Bank of England, Mervyn King, by the end of 2008, described the Libor to the UK Parliament saying “It is in many ways the rate at which banks do not lend to each other, …it is not a rate at which anyone is actually borrowing.”[34][35]

The New York Federal Reserve chose to take no action against them at that time.[36][37] Minutes by the Bank of England similarly indicated that the bank and its deputy governor Paul Tucker were also aware as early as November 2007 of industry concerns that the Libor rate was being under-reported.[38][39] In one 2008 document, a Barclays employee told a New York Fed analyst, “We know that we’re not posting an honest Libor, and yet we are doing it, because if we didn’t do it, it draws unwanted attention on ourselves.”[37]

The documents show that in early 2008, a memo written by then New York Fed President Tim Geithner to Bank of England chief Mervyn King looked into ways to “fix” Libor.[40][41] While the released memos suggest that the New York Fed helped to identify problems related to Libor and press the relevant authorities in the UK to reform, there is no documentation that shows any evidence that Geithner’s recommendations were acted upon or that the Fed tried to make sure that they were. In October 2008, several months after Geithner’s memo to King, a Barclays employee told a New York Fed representative that Libor rates were still “absolute rubbish.”[37]

Alas, as you see in the first graphic of this article, LiBOR is going up, and it’s going up for real this time. Banks are paying practically nothing to depositors who are now forced to take the brunt of the risk that banks entail, while others taking the exact same risks are offered considerably higer rewards and payouts. We’re talking the EU bail-in laws that put unsecured creditors on equal footing – that includes depositors. So, using our favorite healthy bank, DB, how would this play out of the smarter of our constituency decided to either be properly compensated for this risk or opted not to take it at all?

DB balance sheet liquidity

Assets with maturity within 1 year or less held the major part of total financial assets of Deutsche bank. In 2014 & in 2015 it constituted more than 75% of total financial assets of Deutsche Bank. And assets on demand comprises more than 60% of total financial assets of Deutsche Bank.

The total financial assets of Deutsche bank decreased by almost 90 billion euros from 2014 to 2015. Deutsche Bank’s financial assets designated at fair value through profit & loss reduced by almost 122 billion euros during the same period. Deutsche Bank’s Derivative assets also reduced by almost 115 billion euros.

Among the total financial liabilities, on demand liabilities constituted almost 70% in both 2014 and 2015. And liabilities with maturity within 1 year or less comprises more than 90% of total liabilities.

Deutsche Bank’s total financial liabilities increased by almost 75 billion euros from 2014 to 2015. Out of the total on demand liabilities dues to bank and customers both increased by almost 50 billion euros in aggregate during this period. Financial liabilities designated at fair value through profit & loss also increased from 2.6 billion euros in 2014 to 18.42 billion euros in 2015. This increase was mostly driven by increase of 16.2 billion euros in securities sold by Deutsche bank under repurchasing agreement.

There’s an imablance of about 3.5:1 of truly liquid, stable liabilities to truly liquid, stable assets. This means, if depositors really started withdrawing overnight and on demand deposits from DB, DB goes bye-bye! Why would this happen? Ask the ECB, the Fed and their Z/NIRP propensities.

banks charging for deposits

I’ll close out with a video from everone’s favorite old school investor, Warren Buffet.

We have posted a deep dive analysis of:

Subscribers to any of the advanced research get a Veritaseum-powered Deutsche Bank Short token. It will be funded with a nominal amount of BTC and will represent the short side of a Deutsche Bank bearish smart contract. The token will go up in value as DB goes down in value, and vice versa. We will offer you this token (as well as the Veritaseum client to observe it’s movement in value) free of charge. This is an innovative way of showcasing the power and flexibility of the Veritaseum platform. Subscribe to our research to get started.

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Millennials Just Aren’t That Into Hillary Clinton, and it Could Cost Her the Election

A number of new polls shows Libertarian presidential nominee Gary Johnson doing very well with millennials and Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton underperforming with the same demographic that helped President Obama build winning coalitions in 2008 and 2012.

A New York Times/CBS poll shows 26 percent of voters under the age of 29 supporting Johnson and a further 10 percent supporting Green presidential nominee Jill Stein. Similarly, a Quinnipiac poll shows Johnson at 29 percent of young voters, and Stein at 15. In that poll, Clinton barely edges out Johnson among young voters, getting 31 percent. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump is at 26 percent among that demographic in the poll. Further, a Global Strategy Group poll of millennials in 11 battleground states found 73 percent of millennials saying that Trump was a racist, and just 38 percent supporting Clinton in a 4-way matchup.

The results have yielded unsurprising hand-wringing from older liberals who feel the vote of millennials belongs to them. Clara Jeffrey, editor-in-chief of Mother Jones, tweeted that she has “never hated millennials more” in response to the NYT/CBS poll, which earned refreshing responses from millennials. New York Times columnist Ross Douthat, meanwhile, quips that it looked “like ‘liberaltarianism’ is a real thing” and that Donald Trump was “very glad” of it.

While Republicans have a few politicians who could be called ‘liberaltarian’ (two former Republican governors) who might be called that are on the Libertarian party ticket after all, Trump is not. In a tight race, those votes could be crucial, and Trump has nothing to offer them. Not something to be glad about. The same goes for Democrats, whose nominee has nothing to offer a demographic that has increasingly become more libertarian-friendly.

A Reason-Rupe poll of millennials in 2014 found 66 percent of them believing government was wasteful and inefficient even as many said they planned to vote Democrat in that year and in 2016. The drop off in support for Democrats is unsurprising, given that the rhetoric about government that Democrats deploy does not match the reality on the ground. That reality was bound to catch up with millennials who, even when they are fans of government, give authority the side eye. Many of the responses to Jeffrey’s tweets encouraged her sarcastically to keep alienating millennials if she wanted Clinton to win.

The narrative of the older generation of liberals is that Donald Trump is so bad, voters have to hold their nose and vote for Clinton. The option alone of a third party vote is skewered online, mostly by establishment liberals who have increasingly come to represent the poor policy making that has led to a mammoth-sized debt and veritable police state in the U.S. and U.S. warfare state abroad. Donald Trump does not “scare” millennials as much as the mess older voters have made of the country. Clinton’s courting of neo-conservatives and figures like Henry Kissinger only serves to alienate millennials more. Johnson’s refusal to play political games, like powering through a question about Aleppo without knowing what it’s in reference to, while it makes him an easy target for the media establishment to mock, likely ingratiates him to millennials who see both Trump and Clinton as products of a corrupt political system their parents’ generation has glorified.

Clinton and President Obama’s decision to call Trump a break from Republican tradition instead of the inevitable evolution of it, as more dishonest partisans might frame it, has also placed Johnson and the Libertarian party in a better position. Millennials are used to start-ups. They are early adopters whose behaviors and decisions are helping drive old giants of industry out of business, from Blockbuster to taxicabs. The latest polls suggest they have the potential to disrupt the political industry in this country in the same way they’ve disrupted so many others. All the fearmongering over Trump, the cries of false equivalency, and the attempts by millennial “influencers” like Vox.com to frame the Clinton campaign as something transformative millennials ought to get behind, won’t bring millennials to heel in the way major parties were able to in days gone by. Neither will false alarms about “spoilers” (spoiler: third parties aren’t spoilers, shitty candidates are).

The persistence of never Trump Republicans (even if they don’t go for Johnson), combined with Obama and Clinton’s refusal (as of yet) to smear the principles of limited government, freedom, and Constitutionalism with Trumpism because of Republicans’ history of running on those principles while never acting on them, and the Libertarian party’s decision to nominate socially tolerant and fiscally responsible candidates (as many millennials describe themselves) means millennials have the chance to catapult the Libertarian party into major party status, if not through this election cycle alone, almost certainly in cycles to come. Both millennials and Libertarians should expect the smears and attacks to become more vociferous and detached from reality as the old establishment partisan order slowly but surely comes to an end.

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The Mainstream Media Bet The Farm On Hillary… And Lost

Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

The MSM has forsaken its duty in a democracy and is a disgrace to investigative, unbiased journalism.

The mainstream media bet the farm on Hillary Clinton, confident that their dismissal of every skeptical inquiry as a "conspiracy" would guarantee her victory. It now appears they have lost their bet. Let's do something radical and be honest for a moment: the mainstream media has smoothed the path to Hillary's coronation in countless often subtle ways.

MSM "Opinion" hacks have unleashed unrelenting attacks on legitimate inquiries with accusations of "conspiracy" and obsequious kow-towing headlines such as "Can we please stop talking about Hillary's health?"

Suggestions that the Clinton Foundation engaged in "pay to play" during Hillary's term as secretary of state are glossed over; yes, it looks bad, the MSM reluctantly admits, they they hurry to add that no impropriety can be proven in court.

Given the foundation is run by attorneys who obfuscate the meaning of the word "is," do you really think they're going to leave tracks that can make it to court?

The Democratic National Committee's corruption was downplayed, and the mainstream media's pathetic lack of inquiry was of a piece with old Soviet "news": a scapegoat or two is cut out of the leadership photo, and the DNC corruption machine moves on untouched.

This Is How Much It 'Costs' To Get An Ambassadorship: Guccifer 2.0 Leaks DNC 'Pay-To-Play' Donor List

Consider the subtle Orwellian play of The New York Times sidebar headline after Hillary's collapse on 9/11: "Hillary leaves 9/11 event early." Oh really? This was the substance of what happened, that the candidate "left early"?

All through the primaries, when Hillary won the NYT et al. splashed huge headlines declaring her victory. When Bernie won, headlines read "Hillary gains ground," not "Bernie wins another primary."

Rampant election fraud in the Democratic primaries was left uninvestigated, calling to mind the way Too Big To Fail banking fraud was left untouched by the mainstream media, which happily swallowed whole suspect official pronouncements that "subprime is contained" even as the financial system was veering into complete collapse in 2008.

There is an easy way to identify bias that we can all play at home: substitute "Sanders" or "Trump" for "Hillary" or "Clinton". If Donald Trump collapsed on the sidewalk and had to be tossed in the van like a sack of rice, do you think the mainstream media would be bleating, "can we please stop talking about Trump's health?" Please don't even try to claim that oh, yes, the MSM would rush to run that headline.

Do you honestly think CBS would edit out a reference to Bernie Sander's fainting "frequently"? Get real, people: the MSM only edits out negative stuff on Hillary.

CBS Caught Editing Clip, Transcript In Which Bill Clinton Says Hillary Fainted "Frequently"

Do you honestly think an MD who questioned Donald Trump's health would find his show immediately taken off the air? Rather then being summarily taken out and shot for questioning the MSM's scheduled coronation of their candidate, his show would have been pushed into prime-time and placed in rotation.

The mainstream media has failed: it has failed its sacred duty in a democracy to report the facts and let the voters decide what is or isn't important, it has engaged in orchestrated deception, refusing to report facts that cast a shadow over their chosen candidate, it has failed to cast a skeptical eye on its chosen candidate's actions and private accumulation of wealth, and it has attempted to block legitimate inquiries into Hillary's wealth and health with crass, propagandistic attacks and smear campaigns against anyone who dares question Hillary's MSM-granted "right" to be coronated president in January 2017.

Look, we understand your fear of crossing the Clintons. Their Enemies List makes Richard Nixon's infamous Enemies List look like a squabble over seating at a church social. The body count of those who were in a position to rat-out the Clintons reminds observers of the way an astonishing number of eyewitnesses to JFK's assassination turned up dead under mysterious circumstances.

Once again, substitute names. Would the mainstream media be so incurious if Bernie Sanders had accumulated a $100 million fortune via foreign "donations" to his foundation while he was serving as Secretary of State?

If acquiring $100 million in "donations" from overseas dictators and corrupt officials is "normal" for the secretary of state, then where is John Kerry's $100 million in "donations"?

Look, if you love Hillary to death, that's your right. But we as a nation cannot afford to blind ourselves to blatant media bias and propagandistic suppression of legitimate inquiry, even on behalf of politicos we favor.

Correspondent Joe H. offered up an insightful question:

What happens when the status quo media turns a presidential election into a referendum regarding the media's ability to shape public opinion and direct "purchasing" choices?

They put their ability to command advertising revenue at-risk.

Hubris convinced the media that they are king makers, even though the Deep State sees them as little more than useful idiots.

Should Trump win, the media should not be fearful of a vindictive Trump. They should be fearful of advertisers rebalancing the way the spend their advertising dollars:

–Defunding the bloated, bloviating media that bores its (few) readers and viewers with condescending tripe

–Sending those dollars to the increasingly fragmented world of the internet.

That is the same internet that has defied efforts to put-a-meter on it. That is the same internet that defies the artificial gates that permit orderly bilking (sorry, billing) and vertical integration that enables huge paychecks.

So, clearly, having planted their flag, the media simply cannot allow anybody but Hillary to win. Regardless of the costs.

But what if she loses anyway?

That's an interesting question. The MSM bias is so painfully obvious that its remaining credibility has been squandered. That loss of credibility will usher in a banquet of consequences, perhaps including a decline in eyeballs and revenues.

Print media revenues are already tanking:

Newspapers: Fact Sheet (June 15, 2016)

Now that CNN et al. have "done everything we can to help Hillary," what happens to their audience ratings and revenues should Hillary lose or drop out of the race for health reasons?

Dear mainstream media: you have lost your credibility because you are incapable of skeptical inquiry into your chosen candidate or official statistics/ pronouncements. Your dismissal of skeptical inquiries as "conspiracies" or "hoaxes" is nothing but a crass repackaging of the propaganda techniques of totalitarian state media.

Dear MSM: You have forsaken your duty in a democracy and are a disgrace to investigative, unbiased journalism. You have substituted Orwellian-level propaganda for honest, skeptical journalism. We can only hope viewers and advertisers respond appropriately, i.e. turn you off.

Here's the mainstream media's new mantra: "skepticism is always a conspiracy or a hoax." The Ministry of Propaganda and the MSM are now one agency.

via http://ift.tt/2crlx4O Tyler Durden

Merkel Braces For More Misery With Humiliating Berlin Election Rout

Two weeks ago we reported that chancellor Angela Merkel was facing humiliation, political defeat in in an election in her home state. Sure enough, she lost by a wide margin, with the anti-immigrant AfD party soaring in the first shock result of the current political cycle. That, however, was only the beginning because as Reuters writes today, still reeling from the state election rout, Angela Merkel’s conservatives “are bracing for further losses in the Berlin city vote on Sunday.” 

Following the CDU’s disastrous performance in the election in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Merkel’s home state, which pushed Merkel’s party into an unprecedented third place by the AfD, her conservative CSU allies in Bavaria have blamed Merkel personally and demanded a migrant cap, which she rejects. Polls show the center-left Social Democrats (SPD) may be able to drop Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) as coalition partners in the capital’s assembly.

Meanwhile, with the ruling coalition in shambles as a result of Merkel’s widely unpopular immigration policies, the AfD, which has won seats in nine of Germany’s 16 states, has soared by successfully playing on immigration concerns, validated most recently on Wednesday night by the violence between locals and refugees in the German town of Bautzen.

Meanwhile, even the locals are pushing back against Merkel: Berlin candidate Georg Pazderski has said: “I favor educating these people (immigrants) but not integrating them. We must prepare them for going back.”

Not surprisingly, then, after its humiliation in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, the CDU continues to slide. An INSA poll this week put the CDU on 18 percent in Berlin, down more than five points from the 2011 vote and only four points ahead of the AfD. The SPD – which is in coalition with Merkel at the federal level – is expected to remain the biggest party in Berlin and aims to form a coalition with the Greens and radical Left. They are led by printer Michael Mueller, who acknowledges he falls short in the “glamour” stakes compared with his party-loving predecessor Klaus Wowereit who dubbed Berlin “poor but sexy”.

Meanwhile Merkel, cheered by modest 2,500 conservative supporters at a recent rally in the leafy western suburb of Lichterfelde on a sunny evening, knows what is at stake, especially as it is only a year unril the next federal election. The chancellor’s “open door” policy decision a year ago to open German borders has crushed her popularity and dominated the campaign, boosting support for the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD)party. What is most surprising is that judging by her actions, she still fails to realize this.

And while she has no obvious rival, Reuters writes that the losses have raised questions about whether she will even run for a fourth term in 2017.

Merkel defended her policy, appealing to Berlin’s openness. “Berlin, its whole history, the success of what was West Berlin, its openness has served it well and must be preserved,” she said, stressing the humanitarian duty to help war refugees.

Since the fall of the Wall, 27 years ago, Berlin has transformed itself from the front line of the Cold War into a trendy capital, attracting artists and start-up entrepreneurs although it accounts for only 4 percent of the German economy.

However, such nostalgic fallbacks will no longer help Merkel: many CDU voters say they are worried about the crisis which saw about 1 million refugees enter Germany last year. Some 80,000 arrived in Berlin, a city of 3.5 million. Voters are focused on the cost, integration and security.

“Merkel made a mistake letting everyone in. She will pay the price and so will Germany, our children,” said Moritz Daul, 48, who will nonetheless vote CDU. He said Merkel’s days were numbered but she was the best chancellor candidate for now.

* * *

Merkel’s problem was evident at the rally on Wednesday, where up to 30 hecklers booed, whistled and yelled “Merkel must go”. One, sporting a German eagle on his T-Shirt and the slogan ‘Wir sind das Volk’ (‘We are the People’), said he would vote AfD.

The slogan was coined by East Germans protesters before the end of Communism and has since been adopted by the anti-Muslim PEGIDA group.

The worst news, however, is if Merkel’s ongoing collapse leads to a schism in Germany’s ruling coalition. Carsten Koschmieder, political scientist at Berlin’s Free University, predicted further damaging splits between the CDU and CSU if voters reject conservatives in Berlin.

“Critics of Merkel will get louder while her supporters in the CDU will blame (CSU leader) Horst Seehofer for using destructive rhetoric,” he said.

* * *

Tune in on Sunday for the results of what promises to be another humiliating election for the woman who until recently was the most powerful in all of Europe, and suddenly looks is hanging on to preserve if not her suddenly imperiled political career, then certainly her legacy.

via http://ift.tt/2cByovW Tyler Durden