Multiple Police Officers Reported Shot During Protest In Downtown Dallas – Live Feed

Earlier today we said that we expected violent retaliations during tonight’s numerous rallies to protest the shooting of Philando Castile, and sadly just a few hours later, we were proven right. According to local news sources, several Dallas police officer have been reportedly shot down during a protest, causing the demonstrators to run out to clear the area. The armed suspect is reportedly on the loose, and police are urging people to avoid the area.

Dallas is one of the cities where #BlackLivesMatter protesters have been marching in tonight in response to two police shootings this week.

As KDFW reports, an officer on the scene confirmed that at least two officers were shot but their conditions are unknown. The shooting happened just before 9 p.m. as the protesters were marching near Lamar and Main St.

A uniformed officer confirmed that two officers were shot, a Fox News reporter on the scene has reported. G.J. McCarthy of the Dallas Morning News caught video just after shots were fired.

 

Live feeds below

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As Gun Violence Drives Sales, Shooting Ranges May Aid Local Education Efforts

Emotions are running high in the US following a recent spate of violence at home and abroad. The gun debate, as exhausting as it has been, continues to rage on. Data shows us that the percent of total households who claim to have a gun has been declining, down to 36% in June from 53% back in January 1994.  

 

At the same time, we have been witnessing YoY increases to the number of FBI background checks, aka NICS. Even though some polls show ownership rates are declining, it's not surprise to see gun sales increasing.  As we have covered in prior posts, using the FBI background checks – or NICS as they are known – we can reasonably deduce the demand for weapons in the US (excusing the fact that the dataset is incomplete given that we cannot track private gun sales which account for a material amount of overall sales).

We have an increase of repeat buyers. And this cycle only grows as each violent event brings about increased government chatter of more regulation which then sparks fear in gun-owners and results in a spike in background checks and typically boosts sales.

This morning Bloomberg noted the surge in background checks following the Orlando nightclub shooting:

They also supplied an annotated chart of seasonally adjusted background checks:

The rub here lies within education and maintenance of self-defense awareness. In 2015 IBIS published a report on shooting ranges in the US. Oddly, the areas with a greater concentration of shooting ranges relative to the population concentration in that region there was a lower degree of gun-related violence.  

The following image shows regional concentration in percent of the total population of Establishments (shooting ranges) and the US population.  

The southeast has roughly 25% of the US population concentrated there but only about 22% of the total Establishment (shooting range) population in the US is located in that same region. New England, Plains, Rocky Mountains all have a greater concentration of the total Establishments (shooting ranges) relative to their overall concentration of the US population.  

Compared that with the next chart from the LA Times, one wonders if proper gun-owner education is what we should all be discussing since the areas with a higher human population and lower relative shooting range population appear have a higher level of gun violence:

It is not as if the ranges lack use either.  Shooting ranges bring in about $1.3 billion in revenue annually and there are about 2100 businesses operating. Those are locations where education should and often does take place. People are influenced by other responsible gun-owners and safety always comes first. These are the places on the corner of your neighborhood near the county thruway maybe or in the commercial district just minutes away from a neighborhood. Amid swelling gun interest and sales, we have a way to not only control the upside insanity to what is legally allowed to be sold, but also have a way to work with those already packing heat and can help promote intelligent self-defense if only the current population of localized shooting ranges could be used more efficiently.

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What’s Starting Now Will Overturn The Entire System: “Complete Collapse of Everything”

Submitted by Mac Slavo via SHTFPlan.com,

 

“There’s too much of everything…” The debt, the currency collapse, the global economy, and the institutions we’ve all taken for granted.

All of it is head for prolonged collapse, and revolution.

economic-collapse-consequence

Michael Krieger of Liberty Blitzkrieg warns about the immense scale of the problems that have been triggered by the Brexit – and could lead to the complete disintegration of the European Union.

The status quo is being disrupted, and a major, major event is coming. This one may well be big enough to wipe everyone out, that is those who aren’t able to duck out and survive.

As Michael Krieger tells Greg Hunter at USA Watchdog:

Former Wall Street analyst and journalist Michael Krieger contends the recent so-called “Brexit” chaos is signaling something much bigger than coming economic trouble. Krieger explains, “I think the biggest thing with Brexit, and I think it is far bigger than an economic downturn, is the disintegration and ultimately the overthrow of the entire status quo regime, the entire post WWII establishment. That’s way bigger than an economic decline. It’s way bigger than the economic decline in 2008 and 2009. When you think about it, since 1945, we’ve had all kinds of economic declines. We’ve had bear markets and bull markets, but the status quo, the establishment, the basic principles that have been guiding the world for, let’s say 80 years now, those are what are going to be overthrown, and that is a way bigger deal than an economic downturn, in my opinion.”

 

On the odds of a financial crash, Krieger contends, “In my writings, when I first came out of Wall Street, I focused on debt, I focused on economics and I focused on financial markets. I did all of that stuff, but I stopped doing that for one simple reason.

 

It was obvious to me . . . that this thing had only one way to go, which is a complete collapse of everything. We’re going to need to start over. There’s too much debt. There’s too much corruption. There’s too much BS. There’s too much war. There’s too much everything that is bad in this world, and debt is one aspect of it. Are we going to have to wipe out the debts one way or the other? Of course, we will. I guess the reason I have stopped talking about that and writing about that is because it is so obvious. So, what I have been doing over the last three years is getting people aware and engaged on everything, not just the economics, but the political corruption. Every single industry in this world is basically hitting peak corruption, peak shadiness, peak violence and peak everything. So, it’s not just the debt or the economies that are going to collapse, it’s everything, the political establishment and the social fabric. All of these things we have been living under our entire lives will be replaced by something else. . . . The only question is, are we going to get something better or are we going to get something worse?”

Things have reached fever pitch, and the populists are fed up with the system, and ready to revolt. Technology has changed all the arrangements, and literally everything, not only in economics, but in politics, and throughout society, is about to change in a transformative way.

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The Number One Goal to Own Gold and Silver is NOT What You Think It Is

The number one reason to buy physical gold and physical silver (not paper gold and paper silver, which is not the same thing) is very likely not what you think it is. I can deduce the number one reason why most people buy gold and silver simply from the disproprotionate amount of questions I receive about buying gold and silver whenever gold and silver prices are rising significantly versus when gold and silver prices are falling. In other words, most people believe that that top reason they should buy gold and silver is to profit from rising prices. However, this is far from the best reason to buy physical gold and physical silver. The number one reason to buy physical gold and silver, bar none, is the global currency rot that is happening today, that is relentless, and that Central Bankers are now helpless to stop (though they are responsible for creating it). Of course, some may say that benefiting from rising fiat currency prices of gold and silver is the same reason as protecting onself against currency rot, but in reality, these two reasons for buying gold and silver are as different as night and day, and here’s why. Of those that want to benefit from rising fiat currency prices of gold and silver, the vast majority are looking for a quick score, and they buy gold and silver for this reason without even taking the time to truly understand the value of gold and silver. Those seeking a quick profit from ownership of gold and silver typically fail to understand that:

(1) the true value of gold and silver is immutable and defined by its weight in grams or troy ounces;

(2) that gold and silver should never even be priced in terms of illegitimate fiat currencies; and

(3) during periods of time when fiat currency prices of gold and silver drop, a dropping fiat currency price is only indicative of an incredible opportunity to buy similar values (weights) of gold and silver while spending less fiat currencies to do so.

As an example of this incorrect mindset, a the end of this past May, I informed a couple of friends that gold was making a short-term low at about $1200 and silver was doing likewise at $16. Because both PMs have risen considerably in fiat currency prices since then, one of these friends incredulously asked me at the start of this week if he should sell his gold and silver because both PMs had moved significantly higher in such a short time-span. In hearing this inquiry, I realized that he didn’t understand the number one reason to buy physical gold and physical silver in the first place – the protection it affords all of us against Central Banker-induced global currency rot.

 

Everywhere you look, there are stories from every continent in the world regarding currency collapse and the hundreds of millions of lives ruined by Central Banker-created currency rot. Of course, you will never hear of this critical global issue promoted by the  banker-bought-and-paid-for mainstream media even though these unfolding tragedies should be front and center on page 1 as these are critical stories of which everyone should be aware. And because these stories are largely ignored by the banker-bought-and-paid-for mainstream financial media, this is the number one reason most people are shockingly unaware of the global currency rot that is happening right now. Fortunately, with a tiny bit of effort and just a little bit of research online, one can easily track down and uncover these stories.

 

If you haven’t been asleep for the last five years, if one knows nothing else about this super important story of global currency rot,  the main story of currency rot everyone knows about is the rapid collapse of the Russian ruble from about mid-2014 to the end of 2015. Since then, the ruble has recovered slightly, but not enought to save anyone that stored large amounts of their wealth in rubles during this time period. Many times, people make the mistake of thinking that because their domestic currency has only devalued slightly up until now, that there will always be time to exit the currency and move to a sound currency like physical gold and physical silver. Thus, they endlessly delay executing strategies they know they should have executed at least a year ago, due to this “slow burn” that can be quite deceptive. For example, from early 2012 to the end of 2013, over 2 years, the Russian ruble lost 3% of valuation against the US dollar, a “slow burn” that tricked many Russians into remaining complacent about their faith in an unsound fiat currency. And in the first 7 months of 2014, the ruble lost another 3%. Again, many Russians were unhappy with the devaluation of the ruble, but they felt as though they could live with such devaluation and would take action if it became necessary, thinking they could front-run the event, even though warning after warning and red flag after red flag in the form of ongoing devaluations had already occurred that should have prompted every ruble-owning Russian to convert their fiat currencies into the sound money of physical gold that was far more stable. Then, while most Russians were still ignoring all the previous warning signs from July to the end of the year in 2014, the ruble fell off a cliff and collapsed, rapidly lost a massive 50% in purchasing power, and unfortunately, for the procrastinators,  rapidly destroyed their savings in the process. In other words, by the time the “event” happened for which Russians were waiting to trigger action, it was already too late to act. What about those that converted rubles to gold in mid-2013 because they had the foresight to plan for the time in which Central Bankers would ruin the ruble fiat currency? From mid-2013 to present day, their gold, priced in rubles, has risen by about 120%, more than enough to preserve their purchasing power in their home country and more than enough to help them avoid the fate of most of their fellow countrymen that lost much of their life savings in a very short period of time.

 

Though there are literally dozens more examples I can provide that are comparable to the story above and I will provide one more example in this article of a failing emerging market fiat currency, people that live in industrialized nations tend to believe that there domestic currencies are “safe” because they fail to understand that Central Bankers are ruining currencies in every single country in the world today. They make a huge mistake of thinking “I don’t live in an emerging market, and that problem in Russia is an emerging market and third world country problem that will never happen in my country.” They further mistakenly believe, “A 50% devaluation of my fiat currency in 6 months can never happen. That is a problem of emerging markets and not industrialized, ‘modern’ markets.” Thus, they mistakenly conclude, with great confidence, that the process of fiat currency devaluation in their country will be much less volatile, and therefore provide them with much more time to react to the problem when it develops.  In other words, they believe that there is no need to plan because they can just react to warning signs in the future without realizing that multiple red flags and warning signs are already here. The free fall in purchasing power of the Ukranian hyrvnia, the Russian ruble, the Venezuelan bolivar and the very significant 20% to 30% devaluations of fiat currencies in several industrialized nations and dozens of other emerging markets ARE the red flags for which residents of industrialized countries are waiting, but have failed to identify.

 

Let’s use Canada as an example to make my point. No one ever thinks of Canada as anything but a modern, industrialized nation that would not suffer the same fiat currency problems as an emerging market country, and indeed, if you are not Canadian, you may be entirely unaware of the real and very significant struggles that have afflicted the Canadian dollar, or looney, in recent years. Like the Russian ruble, for the past two years, the Canadian dollar suffered some fairly significant swings in value against the US dollar but nothing that concerned most Canadians, though these swings should have been massive red flags to all Canadians of the already unstable nature of the looney. In 2011, the Canadian dollar swung 5% higher and nearly 7% lower from its starting point against the USD during the year but by year’s end was nearly unchanged, so most Canadians did not believe there was any need to diversify out of the Canadian dollar into a sound form of money like physical gold. The following year in 2012, during the course of the year, more red flags materialized as the volatility of 2011 continued, but again, the year closed with the Canadian dollar nearly unchanged against the USD, so most Canadians continued to ignore the massive red flag of currency volatility and instability, falsely believing that they still had time to respond reactively, instead of proactively, to the unstable Canadian dollar. However, as was the case with the Russian ruble, the fall came quick and hard for the Canadian dollar and in just 2-1/2 years, from mid-2013 to the end of 2015, the Canadian dollar plunged by more than 30% against the USD. Again, for those the Canadians that understood that Central Bankers are destroying fiat currency valuations in ALL countries and consequently moved out of the Canadian dollar intogold before this significant currency rot, their gold appreciated significantly in Canadian dollars over this same time period, helping to preserve one’s purchasing power, versus the substantial losses in purchasing power one suffered if one had just held devaluing Canadian dollars. If one needs to be reminded of how quickly a “strong” fiat currency (an oxymoron of word association) can unravel, merely recall the successful Brexit vote last month that caused the British pound fiat currency to plunge to 31-year lows in a single day.

 

Next, let’s look at the currency disaster that has afflicted citizens of Venezuela to provide a warning to everyone as to what they need to do to preserve their wealth during the continuing great currency rot and worldwide fiat currency collapse that is currently under way. In 2002, a USD could be exchanged for 1.6 Venezuelan bolivars. In April of 2016, many media sources reported that a dollar could be exchanged for more than 1,000 Venezuelan bolivars on the Venezuelan black market. Here’s how such a steep and rapid devaluation translates into real world problems. As of April 2016, Venezuelan media reported that a one kg bag of rice cost two days of wages for the average wage earner. And as of last month, the dailycoin.org reported that the average Venezuelan worker,  if they wished to buy a plane ticket to leave the country to escape this massive currency rot, would need to save two years of wages to purchase such a ticket! In other words, fiat currency collapse has ruined the life of the average Venezuelan. But what about those Venezuelans that took their cues from the currency rot events that had already been unfolding all around them and exchanged their bolivars into gold?  Within the past 5-1/2 years, gold priced in Venezuelan bolivars has soared by more than 444%, and this is just in terms of “official” government-set forex rates, which due to multiple “official” exchange rates, bizarrely range from 9 or 10 bolivars to several hundred bolivars per dollar. However, because the black market rate, as of Q1 2016, frequently reached in excess of 1000 bolivars per dollar, in essence, if one had changed bolivars into physical gold in Venezuela, and then sold some of this gold for US dollars to later be exchanged back into Venezuelan bolivars, not only would one be totally unaffected by the collapse of the Venezuelan bolivar, one would be prospering in such an environment of fiat currency collapse simply by having had the foresight to exchange intrinsically near-worthless bolivars into gold before the bolivar collapsed. And if no one wants Venezuelan bolivars, which is quite common, then one still owns gold, accepted as a universal money everywhere, or one can exchange gold into another fiat currency that is accepted. With the Venezuelan bolivar, this fiat currency is merely in the process of returning to its intrinsic value of zero, as is the destiny of all fiat currencies. In case one believes one is safe from our current orgy of Central Banker-induced fiat currency implosion by holding US dollars, remember two points.

 

One, the strongest option among a bunch of bad options is not a good option, and two, the destiny of all fiat currencies is to return to their intrinsic value of nothing, including the US dollar.

 

As I’ve stated above, procrastination is the enemy of wisdom, as procrastination in exchanging fiat currencies into sound money literally translated into an extreme difference between financial suffering and misery and financial prosperity in Venezuela today in less than a 6-year time span. Who will be the next country to become the next Venezuela? Most likely it will be another emerging market, but this probability does not negate the likely probability that these same problems will find their way back home to the industrialized nations that started these very problems as well (well, at least to the nations of the Central Bankers that rule these industrialized nations). And when it does, as we have all learned from the example of Venezuela above, you will either be prepared for it before it happens or try to react as it happens, but react too late,  and be wiped out financially.

 

The Central Banker destruction of all fiat currencies in every country of the world today demands a proactive approach and a reactive approach will fail.  

 

The example of Venezuela has taught us that we all have been provided ample and adequate warning to prepare for currency rot before it truly escalates in our own nation, but that shockingly, only a few among us will take the necessary actions  to survive it when currency rot rapidly escalates in our own country. Unfortunately, even those that see the beginning and intermediate stages of what has happened in Venezuela happening in their own countries, as is the currently the case in Canada, Australia, the UK, Portugal, Greece, Italy, Spain, Ireland, Kenya, Brazil, and on and on, likely will still ignore these red flags, simply because banker propaganda has prevented most of us from realizing the simplest of solutions – converting fiat currencies into the sound money of physical gold and physical silver.

 

In other words, not only is it human nature to not believe something can happen until it actually does happen,but it is also human nature to incredibly discredit an event as it unfolds before us, as long as it does not directly impact us significantly, until it invades our own personal space, directly affects us and denial of the truth is no longer plausible.

 

If you have read this article and are still skeptical, I urge you to study the current cases of fiat currency collapse that have happened/ and are happening right now in Venezuela, Russia, Mexico, Colombia, Argentina and Brazil. Studying and understanding the timeline of these currency collapses should truly awaken you to the very sobering probability of severe fiat currency devaluation and/or collapse in your country, no matter where you live.  Please refer to our prior two articles, “Three Charts that Show We’re Just Getting Started in the Second Leg Higher For All Gold and Silver Assets”, and “Why Intelligent Gold and Silver Mining Company CEOs are Deferring Sales of Current Production” to gain a fuller understanding of the global currency crisis.

 

To listen to a recent interview about where silver is heading, given by our Managing Director, JS Kim, to the SGT Report, click here.  Click here to learn more about the best junior gold and silver mining stocks in our Platinum Membership (mainly for accredited investors) and click here to learn about our flagship Crisis Investment Opportunities portfolio, up more than 16% in just the past month (3 June to 6 July). To be informed of our articles when we first release them (we originally released the above article on our website on 2 July 2016), please subscribe to our SmartKnowledgeU RSS feed. For occasional unpublished content, similar to this article, and unavailable anywhere else, sign up for our free newsletter.

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Measuring America – 30-Year-Olds: Then & Now

A lot has changed for 30-year-olds in the last 40 years… apart from median incomes…

 

In 1975, nearly 3 in 4 30-year-olds had married, had a child, had left school, and lived on their own. In 2015, just 1 in 3 30-year-olds have these characteristics.

And as Census.gov details, that's not all…

Measuring America: 30-Year-Olds: Then and Now

[Source: U.S. Census Bureau]

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It’s Time to Stop Saying – “But Cops Have A Dangerous Job”

Submitted by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,

Earlier today, I mentioned that I couldn’t muster the energy to write more words about the police murder of Philando Castile. Things have changed.

As is often the case, it was a series of tweets I composed that provided the inspiration for this piece. One tweet in particular really set things off:

 

I wasn’t expecting the enormous reaction this tweet generated, but I was happy to see that it really connected with so many people who had never heard of me and never read my stuff before. I continued with my tweet storm until most of my angst was out, and then realized I needed to put these thoughts into a post. So let’s start with the title of this post.

One of the tiresome things I often hear immediately after one of these inhumane police executions is that “cops have a dangerous job.” So what’s your point?

I grew up with the understanding that the role of a police officer was to “Protect and Serve,” a motto which has been used by the Los Angeles police department since 1955, and has since been adopted by police across the country. So let’s think about what that means: Protect and Serve. The first word implies courage and the second implies sacrifice. As such, we should expect police officers to first and foremost see themselves as selfless guardians of public safety. Ask yourself, do you see cops this way? I don’t.

Personally, I am and always have been very privileged, yet I can’t say my experience with police has been particularly positive. In the affluent communities in which I’ve spent my entire life, police have never acted violently or illegally toward me, but they haven’t been especially kind or generous either. My interactions with police have pretty much consisted of them taking my money for minor infractions. Moreover, in most cases they seem to take a considerable degree of pleasure in doing so. Again, this is the experience of someone who is extremely privileged.

As such, I can only imagine what the day-to-day experiences of the marginalized and poor might be like. Unfortunately, these days I no longer have to imagine since we have almost daily video evidence of what it’s like, and it’s too often simply inhumane.

I don’t know exactly when it happened, but police no longer seem to view the general public as citizens under their protection. In poor communities they seem to literally view the public as the enemy and the streets as some sort of combat zone. In affluent communities, the public is often seen as a captive audience to be abused financially. This didn’t come out of nowhere, and it’s very much a top down problem.

One of the key factors in all this relates to how the U.S. government is systematically and intentionally arming police departments around the country with weapons of war. I’ve covered this trend repeatedly in the past, and to bring home the point, see the following excerpt form the 2014 post, The Militarization of Police Continues…Machine Guns, Grenade Launchers, Silencers and More:

During the Obama administration, according to Pentagon data, police departments have received tens of thousands of machine guns; nearly 200,000 ammunition magazines; thousands of pieces of camouflage and night-vision equipment; and hundreds of silencers, armored cars and aircraft.

 

The equipment has been added to the armories of police departments that already look and act like military units. Police SWAT teams are now deployed tens of thousands of times each year, increasingly for routine jobs. Masked, heavily armed police officers in Louisiana raided a nightclub in 2006 as part of a liquor inspection. In Florida in 2010, officers in SWAT gear and with guns drawn carried out raids on barbershops that mostly led only to charges of “barbering without a license.”

This deliberate militarization of police trains cops to view the public as milk cows to be fleeced at best, and the enemies in a war zone at worst. To prove the point, watch the following recruitment video for the Portsmouth, Virginia police department highlighted in the post, Iraq War Veteran Blows the Whistle on Shameless Propaganda Being Taught at Police Academies:

So how do we reverse this trend? First, the militarization of police departments must be stopped and reversed. The American landscape is not a combat zone and it shouldn’t be treated as such. It’s unnecessary, counterproductive and uncivilized. Second, the nation needs to move toward community policing. What does this mean? It means police officers should ideally come from within the communities they police. They should view the public they have promised to “protect and serve” as human beings as opposed to an easily pillaged captive audience.

So how to we get there? It has to be from the top down. There should be accountability for the Chief of Police when one of his or her officers acts in the manner that the officer in Falcon Heights, Minnesota did. He should lose his job immediately. If there’s no accountability for the people at the top then nothing will really change. Kind of like with bankers and politicians.

To conclude, I’d like share a couple more tweets to summarize my points.

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“Maybe You Can Reverse Brexit” – Jamie Dimon Chimes In On How To Ignore The Voters

There's been much fearmongering around Brexit and how it will impact the people of the UK specifically, and the broader global markets. What the people of the UK truly need, just like a hole in the head, is some friendly advice from Jamie Dimon.

Thankfully, everyone can relax, because Dimon has imparted his wisdom on the Brexit situation – with a bit of a carrot for listening to him as well, in true banker fashion.

"Brexit has put a lot of uncertainty in the markets and in the economy. The markets will calm down a bit." Dimon said

Alas, as we reported earlier the Nasdaq erased all Brexit losses this morning – so far so good Jamie, so far so good.

Dimon's next comment, as reported by Bloomberg, is the key – Dimon was discussing the results of Brexit and specifically the use of the "passport rule" which currently enables companies with operations in the UK to sell their services to the other 27 nations in the bloc. If the UK can't win continued use of the passport rule, Dimon said he would be "forced" to consider shifting his 16,000 UK-based staff…

"If we have that passport after Brexit, we likely would not have to make any change at all. But I think the European Union will not accept that. It will put more conditions on the UK and might force banks to become smaller in London."

However that wasn't the end, that was actually Dimon setting himself up for this amazing comment – suggesting that Brexit could actually be reversed, if the "right" people were involved in the decision making.

"Maybe you can even reverse Brexit. There are always solutions to the problems, as long you have the right people in the room."

And there we have it – in Jamie Dimon's world, you just need to have the right people in the room to override the voters. It's that simple.

* * *

In summary, here is a quick translation of Dimon's comments: if the elites could just take control and ignore the will of the people everything would be resolved, and oh by the way, JPMorgan won't yank its staff of 16,000 out of the country.

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State Department Re-Opens Clinton Emails Probe, Hints At “Administrative Sanctions”

Just over three months ago the State Department 'suspended' its internal review into whether former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton or her top aides mishandled emails containing information now deemed "top secret." Now that The FBI's review is over – finding her recklessly negligible and unsophisticated enough to know she was doing anything wrong – AP reports State is reopening the probe warning that Hillary (and/or her scapegoats staff) may still face "administrative sanctions."

In April we reported that:

Spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau said the department had paused the review to avoid complicating or impeding an ongoing FBI investigation into Clinton's use of a private server while she was America's top diplomat.

 

She said the review would remain "on hold" pending completion of the FBI probe. The review could result in counseling, warnings or other action if findings show information was mishandled.

And now, as AP reports,

The State Department is reopening an internal investigation of possible mishandling of classified information by Hillary Clinton and top aides.

 

Spokesman John Kirby says the emails probe is restarting now that the Justice Department isn't pursuing a criminal prosecution. The State Department suspended its review in April to avoid interfering with the FBI's inquiry.

 

Kirby set no deadline for the investigation's completion.

 

Clinton was secretary of state until early 2013. Most of her top advisers left shortly thereafter.

 

But Kirby said this week former officials can still face "administrative sanctions." The most serious is loss of security clearances, which could complicate Clinton's naming of a national security team if she becomes president.

 

Beyond the Democratic front-runner, the probe is most likely examining confidants Cheryl Mills, Jake Sullivan and Huma Abedin.

As The State Department explains…

Which has sent the odds of Federal charges being filed surging higher once again…

 

 

We can only imagine the level of outrage from the American people should the State Department also clear her after what FBI Director Comey has detailed about her recklessness.

However, given her non-stick nature…

We suspect it will be her former staff – specifically Pagliano and Abedin – that will find themselves awkwardly under the bus.

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Obama’s Civilian Drone Death Count up to 500% Higher Than US Mass Shootings

Submitted by Claire Bernish via TheAntiMedia.org,

Obama’s drones have ‘officially’ killed more innocent people than mass shooters – despite paranoia surrounding gun control and propaganda about unhinged loose cannons shooting civilians en masse.

According to President Obama’s administration – in a years-in-the-making report – drones used in military combat overseas killed between 64 and 116 civilians between 2009 and the close of 2015 – almost certainly a paltry representation of the true total, considering accurate record-keeping remains a near impossibility.

But the voluntary disclosure, praised by some human rights advocates, nonetheless proffers an official U.S. tally for innocent lives lost in various geopolitical melanges.

“It’s hard to credit this death count, which is lower than all independent assessments,” director of the ACLU’s National Security Project, Hina Shamsi, told the Intercept.

Indeed, as Ryan Devereaux pointed out:

“Organizations such as the Long War Journal, the New America Foundation, and the Bureau for Investigative Journalism estimate that at least 200 and as many as 1,000 civilians have been killed by American drone strikes in nations where the U.S. is not at war since Obama took office. The administration offered no individual accounts to explain where its numbers came from, or who the civilian casualties were.”

 

As the Guardian summarized, “Between 2009 and 31 December 2015, the administration claimed that it launched 473 strikes, mostly with drones, that killed between what it said were 2,372 and 2,581 terrorist ‘combatants.’”

Assessing the true number of civilians killed during combat operations can be a matter of interpretation — to an extent. But lowballing estimates already widely considered conservative typifies the severe curtailment of transparency the public has come to expect from the government Obama once aggrandized as “the most transparent administration in history.”

For all that pellucidity, Obama’s drone assessment went public immediately prior to the July 4th holiday weekend — as if it were hoped no one would notice — complete with a number of glaring flaws.

“In releasing only aggregate figures that did not include when or where the strikes occurred, the administration shielded those claims from meaningful public scrutiny, even as it sought to bolster its own assertions about the accuracy and effectiveness of the operations,” the Washington Post keenly explained.

To wit, in explaining how the administration arrived at its altogether opaque numbers, a vague description devoid of any meaningful analysis left many scratching their heads:

“The information that was provided to the [Director of National Intelligence] regarding combatant and noncombatant deaths is the result of processes that include careful reviews of all strikes after they are conducted to assess the effectiveness of operations. These review processes have evolved over time to ensure that they incorporate the best available all-source intelligence, media reporting, and other information and may result in reassessments of strikes if new information becomes available that alters the original judgment.”

In comparison to this exercise in semantics gymnastics and its dubious underestimation of innocents killed, a count of those killed in mass shootings in the U.S., compiled by the Los Angeles Times last month and noted by Rare, offers telling insight into Obama’s drone program — if you overlook the administration’s laughable figures.

According to the Times, 168 people have perished at the hands of mass shooters between 1984 and the end of 2015 — 218 when including the 2016 massacre at Pulse nightclub in Orlando. Both figures massively undercut the up-to 1,000 — and likely far more — civilians killed by drones in the aforementioned conservative estimates noted by the Intercept. This means Obama’s drone program abroad, when looking at independent estimates, has killed up to 500 percent more innocent people than mass shootings in the United States.

In these times of hot tempers and the seeming imperative need by many to swiftly assign blame, it’s necessary to emphasize this article isn’t intended to condone wanton violence — no matter who perpetrates it. Nor does this article seek to condemn guns or call for any measure of gun control.

But what must be noted are the lengths the government goes to in order to obfuscate exactly how deadly its drone warfare program can be — treating innocent lives as meaningless through statistical legerdemain for the sole purpose of justifying its continuance — while simultaneously posturing about gun violence at home.

This is heightened hypocrisy at its finest. And we would expect nothing less.

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

A Photographic “Day In The Life” Of A New York Fed Intern

While he may not be the infamous Kevin Henry, so well-known to Zero Hedge regulars, here is another Kevin, who is not a “trader/analyst” at the NY Fed but merely a lowly intern, and who today took over the Twitter feed of the NY Fed to show what a “day in the life of a NY Fed intern” looks like.

Let’s follow.

Alas, not exciting at all, and certainly nowhere near the recent, first of its kind, video tour of the ECB’s trading desk

We would be far more impressed if the NY Fed were to do a “day in the life” series of any or all of the following NY Fed Trader/Analysts, perhaps starting with an explanation of why the NY Fed needs “traders” in the first place, and what precisely is it that these individuals are actually trading?

We do know, however, that among the extensive list of skills exhibited by the above individuals are, but not limited to, painting the tape, the “market open” ramp, the “3:30pm pre-ramp” ramp, the “3:30pm ramp”, BTFD and BTFATH.

via http://ift.tt/29ldt32 Tyler Durden