Get a load of this, CNN hires Valerie Jarret’s daughter to cover the DOJ in the fall of 2016…this will make your blood boil!
Secret FBI Team That Coordinated Set-Up of Trump Was Pressured by CNN – Guess Who Was CNN DOJ Reporter at the Time? May 22, 2018
On Monday Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) sent a letter to the FBI Director regarding phony Steele Russia dossier.
Explosive new e-mails show FBI brass discussed dossier briefing details with CNN.
Senator Johnson accused the FBI of having a “sensitive matter team” as reference by FBI Chief of Staff Jim Rybicki in an January 6, 2017 email to unspecified recipients.
Senator Johnson outlined the time line of events and communications between FBI officials, President-elect Trump and CNN.
January 6, 2017, 9:44 a.m. FBI Chief of Staff James Rybicki sent an email to unspecified recipients stating, “the director is coming into HQ briefly now for an update from the sensitive matter team.
January 6, 2017, afternoon. Director Comey met with President-elect Trump.
January 7, 2017. Director Comey memorialized his discussion with President-elect Trump via an email to senior FBI leadership. Director Comey wrote, “I said there was something that Clapper wanted me to speak to PE [President Elect] about alone or in a very small group.” Director Comey wrote, “I then executed the sessions exactly as I had planned,” and “I said media like CNN had them and were looking for a news hook.”
No telling “what” will be the straw that breaks the camel’s back …we do know it will be “something”…
Breaking: E-mails Show FBI Brass Discussed Dossier Briefing Details With CNN May 21, 2018
Newly revealed e-mails show that former Federal Bureau Investigation (FBI) deputy director Andrew McCabe was keenly aware of CNN’s internal understanding of a secret briefing about the infamous Steele dossier, days before CNN published any stories on the matter. The e-mails, which were obtained by Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.), also reveal that top officials used coded language to refer to the salacious and unverified allegations made by Steele.
Former FBI director James Comey briefed then-President-Elect Donald Trump on January 6, 2017, on at least one unproven allegation contained in Steele’s dossier, which was jointly funded by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee. CNN broke the story about the dossier briefing on January 10, 2017, touching off a firestorm of hysteria that culminated in not just the firing of Comey by Trump, but the eventual appointment of Department of Justice (DOJ) special counsel Robert Mueller.
Comey claimed that he was compelled to brief Trump on the dossier because “CNN had [it]” and was “looking for a news hook.”
How about not paying players for the game if kneel during the anthem? If the NFL did this, I would consider watching next season…
NFL’s Proposed National Anthem Rules: Penalties for Kneeling Being Considered May 22, 2018
ATLANTA — On Tuesday, NFL owners put three hours aside for a privileged session to speak—amongst themselves and family members—about the most sensitive of topics.
One was how the league will handle players kneeling during the national anthem going forward. An idea being floated in the room goes like this: It would be up to the home team on whether both teams come out of the locker room for the anthem, and, should teams come out, 15-yard penalties could be assessed for kneeling.
The league is currently being sued by Colin Kaepernick and Eric Reid, with the two unsigned free agents alleging that NFL teams colluded to keep them unemployed. Kaepernick was the first NFL player to kneel during the national anthem, to protest police brutality, starting a trend that swept across the league in 2016 and ’17.
The NFL addressed the anthem issue at its meetings in October and March, with plans to further discuss it at this meeting. The league also met with the Players Coalition in October, and agreed to a seven-year, $89 million social-justice partnership.
They just figured his out?…Jim has spoken of this on our weekly call too many times to count!
An Unexpected Warning From Goldman Sachs: “Something Is Not Quite Right” May 22, 2018
It was just over 9 years ago today when we wrote “The Incredibly Shrinking Market Liquidity, Or The Upcoming Black Swan Of Black Swans” in which we explained how as a result of the growing influence of HFT, quants and central banks, the market itself was breaking. We also highlighted what the culmination of the market’s “breakage” could look like:
liquidity disruptions could and will lead to unexpected market aberrations, such as exorbitant bid/ask margins, inability to unwind large block positions, and last but not least, explosive volatility: in essence a recreation of the market conditions approximating the days of August 2007, and the days post the Lehman collapse…
We even laid out some possible catalysts for a possible market crash: “continued deleveraging in quant funds, significant pre-market volatility swings as quants rebalance their end of day positions, increasing program trading on decreasing relative overall trading volumes.”
We saw all of the above elements briefly come together when on February 5 the market finally did break in one spam of exploding volatility, as its topology was torn apart by various, disparate elements, resulting in virtually all of the above materializing, if only for a short time, and blowing up the VIX, which soared by the most on record, rising from the lower teens to above 50 in the span of hours, while bankrupting countless vol sellers.
Since then, the same elements that coalesced in 2017 to pressure and keep the VIX at its lowest level in history reemerged, and the “selling of volatility” once again reappeared as a dominant trading strategy, but not before Goldman Sachs wrote a report in March in which it echoed everything that we warned about over 9 years ago, and which increasingly many have said in the past decade, namely that the advent of algo trading and HFTs have collapsed market liquidity to the point where the market itself has become precariously brittle, prompting increasingly frequent flash crashes, and leading Goldman to conclude that, when it comes to market risk factors, “liquidity is the new leverage” in a world in which HFTs are the marginal price setters:
Greyerz – 10s Of Millions Are Already Struggling To Survive In The US But This Is The Scary Part May 20, 2018
As the world edges closer to the next crisis, today the man who has become legendary for his predictions on QE and historic moves in currencies, told King World News that tens of millions are already struggling to survive in the US, but this is the really scary part.
51 Million Households In Trouble
May 20 (King World News) – Egon von Greyerz: “There are 51 million American households that cannot make ends meet. This means that 43% of American households can’t afford a basic middle class life. Of these, 35 million are dubbed ALICE which stands for Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed with a further 16 million households living in poverty…
Struggling To Survive
Egon von Greyerz continues: “It is absolutely remarkable that in the world’s biggest and “richest” country, just under 50% of the households are struggling to afford a basic middle class life and that 50 million people live in poverty. And this is after decades of prosperity and economic growth. What this proves is that the average person in the US is seeing no prosperity at all. All the official figures of employment, production, growth, GDP, etc, are just humbug. They are fake data which is completely misleading and paints a totally false picture. The official unemployment figure is 4% but the real figure is 22%. There are 95 million Americans capable of working who are not in the labour force.
And the definition of a paid Informant is in the intelligence industry = secret agent, certainly not NOC.
FBI Informant Stefan Halper Paid Over $1 Million By Obama Admin; Spied On Trump Aide After Election May 21, 2018
Less than a week after Stefan Halper was outed as the FBI informant who infiltrated the Trump campaign, public records reveal that the 73-year-old Oxford University professor and former U.S. government official was paid handsomely by the Obama administration starting in 2012 for various research projects.
A longtime CIA and FBI asset who once reportedly ran a spy-operation on the Jimmy Carter administration, Halper was enlisted by the FBI to spy on several Trump campaign aides during the 2016 U.S. election. Meanwhile, a search of public records reveals that between 2012 and 2018, Halper received a total of $1,058,161 from the Department of Defense.
Halper’s contracts were funded through four annual awards paid directly out of the Pentagon’s Office of Net Assessment (ONA). Established as the DoD’s “internal think tank” in 1973 by Richard Nixon (whose administration Halper worked for), the ONA was run by foreign policy strategist Andrew Marshall from its inception until his 2015 retirement at the age of 93, after which he was succeeded by current director James H. Baker.
“John Brennan is panicking. He has disgraced himself, he has disgraced the Country, he has disgraced the entire Intelligence Community. He is the one man who is largely responsible for the destruction of American’s faith in the Intelligence Community and in some people at the….
….top of the FBI. Brennan started this entire debacle about President Trump. We now know that Brennan had detailed knowledge of the (phony) Dossier…he knows about the Dossier, he denies knowledge of the Dossier, he briefs the Gang of 8 on the Hill about the Dossier, which….
…they then used to start an investigation about Trump. It is that simple. This guy is the genesis of this whole Debacle. This was a Political hit job, this was not an Intelligence Investigation. Brennan has disgraced himself, he’s worried about staying out of Jail.” Dan Bongino
– Benchmark Revisions Knocked Off Roughly Two-Percent Real Growth from Manufacturers’ Shipments and Related Economic Activity Since 2015
– Monthly Gains of 0.7% in Both March and April 2018 Industrial Production Were a Decline of 0.1% (-0.1%) and a Gain of 0.1%, Net of Prior Months’ Revisions
– First-Quarter Industrial Production and Manufacturing Revised Sharply Lower: Production Now 0.43% (-0.43%) Below Fourth-Quarter 2014 Peak (Previously Recovered); First-Quarter Manufacturing Now 6.07% (-6.07%) Below Its Pre-Recession Peak
– April Manufacturing Hit a Record 124 Months of Economic Non-Expansion
– April Freight Index Rose to a Post-Recession High, With Strong Annual Growth, Albeit Off Peak, with Activity Still Shy by 6.65% (-6.65%) of a Full Recovery
– April Real Retail Sales Gained 0.08% in the Month, 2.20% Year-to-Year, With Likely Major Downside Benchmark Revisions Looming on May 25th
– Despite Upside Revisions to February and March Real Retail Sales, the Somewhat-Narrowed First-Quarter Contraction of 2.05% (-2.05%) Still Was Deepest Since the 2009 Depths of the Great Recession
– Given No Apparent Improvement in Reporting Quality, Annual Revisions to Nonsensically-Volatile Housing Starts Were Nil; Inconsistent Building Permits Revised Higher by 2.1% Only in 2017
– Starts and Permits Continued in Low Level, Non-Recovering Stagnation, Still Down by 43.4% (-43.4%) and 40.3% (-40.3%) from Pre-Recession Highs
“No. 950: April Retail Sales, Industrial Production, Housing Starts, Freight and Benchmark Revisions”
What…these countries don’t trust us to hold their gold?
Turkey Repatriates All Gold From The US In Attempt To Ditch The Dollar May 20, 2018
After Venezuela, Germany, Austria and the Netherlands prudently repatriated a substantial portion (if not all) of their physical gold held at the NY Fed or other western central banks in recent years, one month ago Turkey announced that it too has decided to repatriate its gold stored in the US Federal Reserve and deliver it to the Istanbul Stock Exchange, according to reports in Turkey’s Yeni Safak. As we reported at the time, it wouldn’t be the first time Turkey has asked the NY Fed to ship the country’s gold back: in recent years, Turkey repatriated 220 tons of gold from abroad, of which 28.7 tons was brought back from the US last year.
And now, according to a report by the Swiss Schweiz am Wochenende, the repatriation is complete with the Turkish central bank withdrawing all of its gold reserves from the U.S. due to the “tense political situation.” However, in a strange twist, instead of moving the physical gold to Istanbul as the Turkish press reported in April, the Swiss newspaper notes that around 19 tons of Turkish gold is now stored at the Basel-based Bank for International Settlements.
It was not immediately clear why Turkey would shift its gold from the NY Fed to the BIS, whose historical “gold rehypothecation” tendencies have been well documented over the years.
…they meet to talk about the end of the US dollar?
Putin to meet Merkel to talk Iran and Ukraine May 17, 2018
Sochi (Russia) (AFP) – Russian President Vladimir Putin is due to meet German Chancellor Angela Merkel in the Black Sea resort of Sochi on Friday, as Moscow and Europe make rare joint efforts to save the Iran nuclear deal.
The pair’s first face-to-face meeting in a year will take place less than a week before French President Emmanuel Macron is due to visit Russia.
The meeting will take place in Putin’s Sochi residence and is expected to be dominated by US President Donald Trump’s decision to pull out from the Iran agreement.
The fallout over the Iran deal is a rare topic for rapprochement between Europe and Moscow, whose relations are marred by disagreements over the Syria conflict, Moscow’s 2014 annexation of Crimea and the subsequent war in eastern Ukraine.
Interesting relationship between reserves and oil.
#Oil as the party spoiler: Each time the ratio of CenBank reserves to the oil price has fallen by -25% in prior 2yrs, “agitation” has occurred in currency mkts, and fairly soon after a US recession has unfolded, GK’s Charles Gave warns. pic.twitter.com/rGxtaFDRAT
— Holger Zschaepitz (@Schuldensuehner) May 18, 2018
If yesterday’s sale in one minute was real physical gold, it would have been gobbled up faster than it could be sold!
China Gold Demand Off To Hot Start May 15, 2018
It looks to be another boom year for gold. Investors are anticipating a continued demand for the precious metal for the fifth year in a row, driven by geopolitical uncertainties and less-than-strong predictions for the U.S. economy and the U.S. dollar in 2019.
In times of economic turmoil, gold has always served as a hedge against the decreased value of stocks or currency. Faced with unusual market volatility, people around the globe are turning to the yellow metal as a haven and safe investment diversifier. The price of gold rose by 14 percent in 2017 and is likely to go higher.
While the U.S. dollar is expected to lose some value in 2018, the Euro and other currencies are showing a modest gain.
India has historically turned to gold not only for investment purposes but for jewelry. Its traditional wedding season is approaching, and gifts of gold jewelry are the norm, even among India’s more impoverished population.
Dollar Collapse Coming: EU To Ditch The Us Dollar In Payments For Iranian Oil
May 16, 2018
The dollar’s collapse is nearing. The European Union is planning to switch its payments to the Euro for its oil purchases from Iran, eliminating United States dollar transactions.
Just one more nail to the US dollar’s coffin. Its collapse is all but imminent at this point. The EU has successfully found a way to scoff at potential future sanctions on Iran by openly defying the US; and as an “added bonus,” they’ve helped seal the dollar’s fate. According to RT, a diplomatic source with the EU has told a news outlet of the decision. “I’m privy to the information that the EU is going to shift from dollar to euro to pay for crude from Iran,” said the diplomatic source.
Brussels has been at odds with Washington over the US’s decision to withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal, which was reached during the administration of Barack Obama. President Donald Trump has pledged to re-impose sanctions against the Islamic Republic as soon as he is able to do so. The Trump administration also has had plans to topple the current regime in Iran, according to leaked documents, and it looks like they’vejust given themselves the go-ahead:
My Dad told me at an early age “you can’t fix stupid”, I guess he was right?
Debbie Wasserman Schultz: The NRA Is ‘Just Shy Of A Terrorist Organization’ May 15, 2018
Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) had stern words for the National Rifle Association on Tuesday, responding to the gun group’s new president attacking student survivors of the shooting in Parkland, Florida, for allegedly engaging in “civil terrorism.”
“The NRA is kind of just shy of a terrorist organization,” Schultz told HuffPost. “They have done everything they can to perpetuate the culture of violence that we have in our country with the spread of assault weapons across the nation.”
In an interview with The Washington Times last week, newly elected NRA president Oliver North accused students of Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School of using “intimidation and harassment and lawbreaking” in the anti-gun efforts they launched following the Valentine’s Day massacre that left 17 people dead at their campus.
