While thousands of teachers in Oklahoma protest for more funding from the state government, taxpayers are spending millions covering up fraud committed by state agencies that face no accountability.
The post EXCLUSIVE: As Teachers Forced to Beg for Money, Govt Can’t Find $1 BILLION They Should Already Have appeared first on The Free Thought Project.
(RT) Residents across Oklahoma and Texas were jostled from their daily routines after hearing a loud boom Tuesday afternoon. Many were left scratching their heads and watching the skies for the source of the explosive phenomenon.
While the US Geological Survey has not reported any earthquakes in the region, the National Weather Services in Norman, Oklahoma has said it is possible that the deafening boom was the result of “a ‘bolide’ or the breaking up of a meteor.”
A flurry of baffled residents shared their comments online, trying to make sense of the afternoon shocker. One nearby resident offered his account of the mysterious heavenly “green light” he spotted that afternoon.
“Meteor flew over Oklahoma City today at about 16:20, with a sonic boom and some shaking in nearby Norman! Was beautiful green and orange streak in the daylight,” he tweeted.
Chief Meteorologist for KFOR-TV OKC Mike Morgan was completely befuddled by the extraterrestrial visitor and asked others to clarify.
One resident’s speculation revolved around reports that China’s first space observation station was due to fall into Earth’s orbit at any moment.
“I was wondering if the meteor reports in North Texas and Oklahoma were actually Tiangong-1, but it looks like we’re still a week or so from that possibly happening,” he said.
Oklahoma is no stranger to unexplained booms, which have been attributed to an assortment of different causes. Last year, Midwest City residents were perplexed by large underground booms comparable to underground explosions, one witness stated.
“It turns out, this is a really neat deal. It has to do with water underground,” said Meteorologist John Slater. “With these cold fronts coming through, the water just freezes rapidly. And as it turns out, when it freezes, it expands.”
On January 25, 2014, News On 6 speculated that F-16 fighter jets from the 138th Fighter Wing division in Tulsa peppered the area with sonic booms powerful enough to rattle furniture and windows. However, the cause of the disturbances still remains a mystery.
Another shockwave dubbed the “Bama Boom” was felt across cities in Alabama on November 14, 2017. No explanation was offered other than either a hypersonic aircraft or meteorite shower.
The post Mysterious Loud Boom Shakes Oklahoma, Locals Report Green and Orange Flashes appeared first on The Sleuth Journal.
Alcohol abuse can result in health problems including memory loss, poor decision making, fetal damage, liver diseases, hypertension and cardiovascular problems... but "tis the season...
As Statista"s Niall McCarthy notes, a recent report by the United Health Foundation found that 18.5 percent of U.S. adults engage in binge or chronic drinking.
You will find more statistics at Statista
Binging is defined as having four or more (for women) or five or more (for men) drinks on one occasion in the past 30 days. Chronic drinking is having eight or more (for women) or 15 or more (for men) drinks per week. The U.S. has an annual average of 87,798 alcohol attributable deaths while 12,460 road deaths were due to alcohol consumption between 2006 and 2010.
An estimated 2.5 million years of U.S. life have been lost due to alcohol abuse between 2006 and 2010. As well as its massive impact on human health, alcohol also has huge financial and economic repercussions. Excessive alcohol consumption cost the U.S. $249 billion in 2010 or $2.05 for each beverage consumed.
The lowest rates of excessive drinking in U.S. states were recorded in West Virginia (11.8 percent), Oklahoma (12.8 percent) and Utah (13.4 percent).
The infographic above shows the 10 states with the highest levels of binge and chronic drinking with Wisconsin on top with 26.2 percent. North Dakora comes second with 25.9 percent while Minnesota rounds off the top three with 22.9 percent.
Residents of a small Oklahoma town fear they are being used by Homeland Security as test subjects for the chemical/biological warfare testing.
Newkirk, OK – A planned chemical/biological test by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has residents of a small Oklahoma town in fear that they are being used as human guinea pigs, as the federal government prepares to carry out plans for biological testing in the area next month.
DHS announced plans to conduct chemical and biological testing near the border between Kansas and Oklahoma in January and February, and again in June and July, to determine how much protection people would receive from being inside a house or an apartment in the event of a biological terrorist attack, according to a statement on the Homeland Security website.
The DHS press release notes:
The study is part of the Department’s ongoing commitment to preparedness and the shared responsibility of protecting the nation’s critical infrastructure. The purpose of this study is to gather data that enhances our predictive capabilities in the event of a biological agent attack.
Specifically, this work will help in predicting the extent to which an intentional release of a biological agent may penetrate single family and multi-family structures. These tests will release inert chemicals and biological materials that will be used to measure the amount of material that penetrates the buildings under varied conditions.
“This helps responders and emergency managers decide how to respond and save lives. It helps in planning for evacuations…and other tactics,” John Verrico, DHS’s science and technology directorate spokesman, said in an email to Newsweek. “It also helps us to understand how materials settle and stick to surfaces.”
Verrico claims that no one has been injured or adversely affected by chemical tests performed by Homeland Security.
Contrary to the assertions of Verrico, area residents dispute that the chemicals are harmless to humans, animals, and the environment, and are working to stop the planned biological/chemical tests.
A resident of a nearby town, Jill Wineinger, collected almost 9,000 signatures on a petition to block the testing after Homeland Security placed a legal notice inviting the public comment about the tests during a 30-day open comment period.
“We just don’t really know or trust that everything that they’re saying is what they’re doing,” Wineinger told Newsweek.
DHS is reportedly reviewing approximately 300 comments received by email from the public before deciding whether to go forward with the testing, according to Verrico.
The chemical agents DHS plans to use in the testing are titanium dioxide, fluorescent brightener, urea, and Dipel, an insecticide.
“I’m really sorry that everyone is so afraid in Newkirk because these are very benign products,” Kitty Cardwell, a professor at Oklahoma State University and director of the National Institute of Microbial Forensics for Food and Agricultural Biosecurity, who has been involved in other Homeland Security projects, told Newsweek.
Cardwell believes the chemicals are non-toxic at that minuscule amount and likely wouldn’t reach populated areas.
Interestingly, while Cardwell and the U.S. government claim the chemicals used in the testing won’t adversely impact human health or the environment, the EU has proposed to classify titanium dioxide as a carcinogen—meaning that it is suspected of causing cancer – specifically when inhaled.
Wineinger disputes the idea that these substances are harmless, noting that she’s allergic to urea and could be hospitalized if she’s exposed to it. She also expressed concern about individuals with asthma and fears the area’s crops could be contaminated by the chemicals.
“It could saturate our homes and it could saturate our water supply,” Wineinger said.
Kansas Congressman Ron Estes, in response to the planned chemical and biological testing, said federal agencies, “need to be 100 percent certain this test is safe for the residents of south-central Kansas,”noting that he has “numerous questions.”
Estes serves on the Houses Committee on Homeland Security, and in a statement released on Thursday, said that he is “monitoring the situation very closely.”
“I have numerous questions regarding this proposed test,” Estes said. “While it’s important for our federal agencies to test their abilities in response to threats, we need to be one hundred percent certain this test is safe for the residents of south-central Kansas.”
One comment on Wineinger’s petition presciently asked, “Why not test it in a more likely area to be hit by an attack, like NYC?”
“Maybe because people there have the money and clout to protect themselves from our [government]. An Indian school in the middle of nowhere. Yeah, just like the Tuskegee syphilis study. No one who matters gets hurt.”
The chemicals will be released at the now-abandoned Chilocco Indian School.
The Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male is a notorious secret research experiment conducted by the U.S. Public Health Service in Alabama from 1932 to 1972 involving 600 African American men.
Researchers conducted the study without participants consent as a means of tracking the progression of the deadly sexually transmitted disease—and participants received no treatment. Disgustingly, those unfortunate human guinea pigs were instead monitored until they died and then examined post-mortem.
The idea that citizens are being subjected to a potentially dangerous situation by DHS, without consent, certainly raises some serious questions as to the methodology being employed.
Please share this article to raise awareness about chemical/biological testing being carried out on an unsuspecting American public!
Jay Syrmopoulos of thefreethoughtproject.com. The Free Thought Project is dedicated to holding those who claim authority over our lives accountable.
The post Residents Outrages as DHS spraying Town with Chemicals – Using them as Human Guinea Pigs appeared first on The Sleuth Journal.
Millennial homeownership rates are essential to understanding the housing market because they facilitate additional home sales for other people.
How does this work? As HowMuch.net explains, suppose you make an offer on a house. The current owner is also probably on the market, and he or she likely has a contingent offer on another house. This sets off a chain reaction throughout the economy. Millennial homeownership rates are therefore an easy way to judge the economic vitality of any given area.
That’s why HowMuch.net created this new map...
Our viz takes millennial homeownership data from Abodo and maps it by metro area across the country. Abodo adopted the data from the U.S. Census Bureau, which regularly collects a variety of information about the population, including the age of homeowners, the estimated value of their homes, and how long it would take to accumulate a 20% down payment. Our numbers are from 2015. We then overlaid this information across metro areas with bubbles representing the portion of millennial homeowners in each market: the bigger the bubble, the more millennial homeowners there are. We also color-coded each bubble to represent the median value of their homes—dark red circles mean the homes are worth over $500k, and dark blue means under $200k. This gives you a quick snapshot of the overall economy and the housing market.
The first trend you can see on the map is a clustering of red circles on both the West Coast and along the Northeast.
The most expensive city in the country for millennials is San Jose, CA, where the average millennial buys a home worth $737,077. Seattle, WA in the Northwest is also relatively expensive at $342,769. These are population-dense areas with booming tech sectors. At the other end of the spectrum, you can see clusters of blue bubbles across the Midwest in old manufacturing cities like Detroit, MI ($148,404) and Cleveland, OH ($160,251). Memphis, TN is the cheapest place for millennials at $142,795. Southern states like Texas and Florida are also relatively affordable thanks in large part to their suburban sprawl, which Zillow predicts will expand next year.
It’s no surprise that homes are more expensive in California (think Silicon Valley) than the industrial heartland, but consider how homeownership rates change based on affordability. The red bubbles all tend to be smaller than the blue bubbles. This means that as homes get more expensive, millennials become increasingly unable to afford them. It’s not like there’s a surplus of ultra-rich millennials buying up all the houses in California and New York. Millennials are just as sensitive to high prices as everyone else.
Let’s break the map down into a top ten list of the urban areas with the highest rates of millennial homeownership, combined with the average price of their home. A full 42% of the millennials living in Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN own their own home, the highest rate in the country.
1. Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, MN-WI: 42.4% and $222,528
2. St. Louis, MO-IL: 40.2% and $167,791
3. Detroit-Warren-Dearborn, MI: 40.2% and $148,404
4. Louisville/Jefferson County, KY-IN: 38.5% and $158,974
5. Pittsburgh, PA: 37.5% and $152,731
6. Indianapolis-Carmel-Anderson, IN: 37.4% and $161,856
7. Kansas City, MO-KS: 37.1% and $170,254
8. Nashville-Davidson--Murfreesboro-Franklin, TN: 37.0% and $213,090
9. Oklahoma City, OK: 36.7% and $172,485
10. Baltimore-Columbia-Towson, MD: 36.3% and $272,805
Buying a home is often the biggest financial decision anybody makes, and that’s especially true for young people. And there’s a lot to consider when buying your first home, but one thing other than affordability to keep in mind is how many other millennials are in the same situation. If you’re a millennial looking to buy a home, and you want to live next to other young people, you just might have to move to the Midwest.
Despite numerous headlines indicating a tax bill deal early next week, Republican Senator John Cornyn just told media that there "may be a tentative tax bill deal today." Algos liked the news and immediately bid stocks higher (despite no knowledge of what is in the "deal").
“It’s possible,” John Cornyn, the No. 2 Senate Republican, tells reporters of tax bill, according to Bloomberg.
The Senate has “ping-ponged” offers back and forth with House and is making good progress, he says.
And stocks popped on it...
Of course, its also "possible" that the deal is not done today... and that"s why we were intrigued to see "high tax" stocks underperforming...
The main areas of contention: AMTs and treatment of SALTs (Republicans were planning to tweak corporate rate from 20% to 21-22% to pay for some of the changes but this idea is facing fierce resistance from the business community – Washington Post).
Brady Says Compromise Likely Coming Friday (reported at 1035ET)
House Ways and Means Chairman Kevin Brady, who’s overseeing the House-Senate conference committee for tax negotiations, said the panel will likely come to an agreement on final legislation by Friday.
“We are on track for this week,” Brady told reporters, referring to a so-called conference report.
Conference reports generally go point-by-point through areas of disagreement and say how each was resolved. For example, if the House position on a provision is the one they’ve agreed on, the report will say that with respect to that provision, the conferees propose that the Senate recede from its position and concur with the House’s position.
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy told GOP members the goal is for the House to vote on the tax bill next Tuesday, Dec. 19, according to Representative Lamar Smith of Texas.
Representative Tom Cole of Oklahoma said he heard that the goal was Tuesday, but there wasn’t an announcement about it directly.
“The time frame of a vote next week is very realistic,” said Representative Tom Reed of New York. -- Erik Wasson
Update: Mitch McConnell has confirmed that the Republicans have the votes to pass the Senate"s tax-reform plan. McConnell"s comments put a slight bid back in stocks, which have fallen sharply following Mike Flynn"s guilty plea.
McConnell says Republicans `have the votes" for Senate tax bill https://t.co/WdC1mWiyJd pic.twitter.com/cGbSwodXxx
— Shailendra Nair (@shailendra_nair) December 1, 2017
* * *
John Cornyn, the No. 2 man in the Republican Senate leadership, said Friday that they have secured enough votes to pass the Senate version of the Republican tax reform bill, according to the Washington Post. Earlier in the morning, James Lankford of Oklahoma and Jerry Moran of Kansas, both said they’d support the bill, but Maine’s Susan Collins had said she’s still unconvinced. Hours later, Lindsey Graham echoed his claims.
Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin said he planned to back the bill after announcing last week that he would vote against it because it didn’t provide enough tax relief to taxpayers who use the pass-through rate. Steve Daines of Montana, who objected to the bill on similar grounds, also said he’d vote for the bill.
Cornyn said the leadership had “at least 50” votes, but are working to secure one more ‘yea’ vote to provide a buffer against any surprises, like when John McCain voted to kill the senate’s repeal and replace plan over the summer.
Speaking with reporters outside of a meeting with the Republican caucus,Cornyn said “We have at least 50, and we’re still working."
The comments from Cornyn, the second-ranking Republican in the Senate, came just hours after Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) said he planned to back the bill. He was one of the final holdouts, though the GOP needed a little more help to ensure they had the 50 votes they needed. Cornyn did not say who else had committed to support the package.
Johnson’s support followed a late night of negotiations, following a standoff on the Senate floor Thursday when Johnson and two other members aired concerns about the bill.
He has long complained that the tax cut package does not provide enough benefits for a certain type of business, though he has requested numerous changes in recent days and it could not be immediately learned what precisely made him decide to back the bill.
Support from the Wisconsin Republican is a boost for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), but GOP leaders still need to win backing from at least one more holdout before they can be assured they have enough votes to pass the bill.
Unsurprisingly, Tennessee’s Bob Corker and Arizona’s Jeff Flake were two of the last confirmed holdouts. Both men were pushing measures that would reduce the bill’s impact on the deficit by paring back some of the proposed cuts. As the Post points out, the two men represent a unique challenge for the Republican leadership because they aren’t running for re-election.
Collins has suggested that she plans to support the tax package, but she is insisting on several changes of her own, including a plan to allow Americans to deduct up to $10,000 in property taxes and an expansion of the child tax credit. Collins already helped vote against the Republican repeal and replace plan and has a history of voting against tax cuts.
GOP leaders were meeting in McConnell’s office Friday morning to try to resuscitate the bill after a proposed trigger that would raise taxes if revenue targets were missed was rejected by the senate parliamentarian.
“I think Senator [Steve Daines (R-Mont.)] and Senator Johnson are supporting the bill, and we’re working hard to get the last two members we think we need to get onboard - Senator Flake and Senator Corker,” said Sen. John Cornyn, the second-highest ranking Republican in the Senate.
Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) was also attending the meeting in McConnell’s office. As he entered, he told reporters that lawmakers were still trying to figure out how to resolve the concerns raised by Corker and Flake. Corker had wanted to put a provision in the bill that would automatically raise taxes after five years if the growth projections that GOP leaders had promised did not come to fruition.
The tax increases would kick in through a “trigger” mechanism that was somehow tied to economic growth.
But the Senate’s parliamentarian told Corker on Thursday evening that there were issues with how the trigger would be designed. GOP leaders then had to decide whether to try to craft a new trigger or simply add new taxes back into the bill to lessen the impact on the debt.
On Friday morning, Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) said, “I think we’re doing real well.” When asked whether he believed Republicans had the votes to resolve the trigger issue, Hatch said, “I think so.
Corker and Flake are pushing for as much as $350 billion in tax cuts to be reversed if Republicans want the final bill to pass. There’s still no guarantee that the bill makes it to Trump’s desk - it will need to go through the reconciliation process, then be passed against by both the House and Senate.
Republican leaders are hoping to take the vote tonight.
A former state-sponsored scientist revealed that he was ordered to alter his findings on the links between fracking and earthquakes.
This report was originally published by Tyler Durden at Zero Hedge
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is preparing to simulate ‘biological attacks’ on critical infrastructure near the border between Kansas and Oklahoma. The first round of drills will occur on January through February of next year, along with the second round in the summer.
For some time, we have been documenting the increased drills, the United States Government is actively preparing for or underway in a field training exercise. More recently, the Department of Defense just conducted a drill simulating a total grid collapse across the United States. Days ago, Wisconsin released plans on an upcoming drill to stimulate a grid collapse for mid-November. We find it strange the United States Government is drilling for apocalyptic scenarios, but provides very limited details to the American populace. It’s not strange and we’ll tell you why, if the public ever found out about the true nature of these drills it would lead to chaos. So frankly, most Americans will be left out of the dark of what’s coming…
The first drill starts in January and continues into February of next year at two buildings within the Chilocco Indian Agricultural School (Chilocco campus) in Newkirk, Kay County, Oklahoma. The location is about 6-miles south of Arkansas City, Kansas. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science & Technology Directorate (S&T) plans to release low-levels of inert chemicals and biological stimulant materials simulating a biological attack on critical infrastructure. S&T is studying the penetration capabilities of a biological stimulant against resident buildings.
DHS’s strategical goal for the operation is to “detect and recover from biological attacks and inform and support biodefense planning, response, and restoration, particularly in consequence/risk assessment modeling of the indoor hazards posed by outdoor aerosols”.
Google image of the Chilocco Indian School and surrounding land.
DHS Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) explains the types of “biological stimulant” that will be released during the exercises..
Testing will be conducted through the release of (2) different inert powders as well as barcoded spores and are meant to simulate the behavior of harmful biological materials as they move from the outdoors into buildings.
The inert powders are 1) titanium dioxide (TiO2) and 2) urea powder mixed with 10% Cl Fluorescent Brightener 220 optical brightener. Both types of powders allow for the gross mapping of particle penetration into the different building types. TiO2 is a chemically inert powder commonly used in paints, food, cosmetics, and insecticides. Urea is the main chemical found in human and mammalian urine and is used throughout the world as a fertilizer. Optical brighter is a chemical whitener added to toothpastes and laundry detergents to increase fluorescence. For this study the optical brighter is added to the urea, to increase particle visibility for detection, at a weight percent of < 10%.
Part of the test is to determine how much protection occupants inside the residential structures will receive amid a biological agent attack. Test description as follows,
In the event of an outdoor biological agent attack, it is currently unknown the extent to which hazardous material will penetrate buildings and homes in the vicinity of such attack. Current models use a Building Protection Factor (BPF) to describe the permeability of a building to particulates in an outdoor biological attack. The BPF is defined as the reduction in dose received by a typical building occupant compared to a person located outside the building. An unprotected building will typically have a BPF of slightly above 1.2 In the DHS Bioterrorism Risk Assessment (BTRA), BPF values assigned are from 0-1 as a fraction, with 1 being most the most protective, but little to no experimental data exists to support these values. This project would further advance preparedness by providing improved estimates of the boundaries and levels of contamination in homes and buildings following an outdoor aerosol release of a biological agent under varied conditions. UML will release materials upwind of select buildings and experimentally determine the amount of material that penetrates the buildings. The data collected would facilitate modeling efforts that support response and recovery decisions and actions by local, state, tribal, and federal emergency managers.
Tentative quantities and release schedule for the drill:
Hiding on page 22/55 of the report, the building’s characteristics are said to resemble residential and apartment buildings within the United States. Here are additional characteristics of what DHS was looking for:
Local Republican U.S. Rep. Ron Estes of Kansas is not too fond of DHS’s drill and said last Thursday he is “monitoring the situation closely”.
“I have numerous questions regarding this proposed test,” Estes said. “While it’s important for our federal agencies to test their abilities in response to threats, we need to be 100 percent certain this test is safe for the residents of south-central Kansas.”
Bottom line: As millennials continue to urbanize America-moving out of their parents basements into multifamily complexes with the dreams of enjoying avocado and toast every morning for breakfast. There is a far deeper problem-jeopardizing the millennials’ city-life narrative and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is preparing for it: ‘biological attacks’ on apartment buildings…
After a steady march higher in the wake of the "great recession" nearly a decade ago, a note today from Rent Cafe reveals that average rents in the United States have now stalled for 4 months in row with September"s national average coming in at $1,354 per month, which is virtually flat from the $1,350 average reached in the summer.
National rents have barely moved through the entire peak rental season and into September, marking the longest period of stagnation in recent history — 4 consecutive months. Coming in at $1,354 for the month of September, the average rent is only 2.2 percent higher than this time last year. This is the slowest annual growth rate we’ve seen in more than six years — having reached a high point of 5.5%-5.6% peak growth around two years ago — a pretty good indicator that the rental market has entered calmer waters.
Still, that doesn’t mean rents have flat-lined everywhere. Though nationally and in the most expensive cities for renters prices have finally come to a full stop, there are still some holdouts—and it seems renters in smaller and mid-sized cities are not yet getting a break, on the contrary.
As we pointed out over the summer, just like almost any bubble, stagnating rents are undoubtedly the symptom of a massive, multi-year supply bubble in multi-family housing units sparked by, among other things, cheap borrowing costs for commercial builders. Per the chart below from Goldman Sachs, multi-family units under construction is now at record highs and have eclipsed the previous bubble peak by nearly 40%.
But, while rents are certainly slowing – and construction is indeed playing its part – the impact isn’t spread evenly across all markets as Rent Cafe notes that the construction boom in Texas has earned the state 6 out of 10 of the worst performing rental markets in the country.
The anticipated rent drops from Hurricane Harvey have not been realized in the city of Houston, but are seen in other Texas communities, with the biggest changes being outside of Harvey’s reach, as a result of the major apartment construction taking place throughout the state. Lubbock, located on the west side of the state, came in at No. 1 for biggest year-over-year rent decreases in the nation, with rents dropping 3.4 percent since 2016.
Rents for apartments in Round Rock, a suburb outside Austin—another city barely touched by Harvey, dipped to $1,092—3.4 percent below last year’s numbers. Round Rock took the No. 2 spot for biggest rent decreases of the year.
Texas claimed the third spot, too, with McAllen’s 2.6 percent drop in rents since last year, and three other Texas towns—College Station, Waco and Plano—also made the top 10, with decreases of 2.4 percent, 2 percent, and 1.1 percent, respectively. The rest of the list was spread throughout the nation, with California’s Simi Valley taking No. 4 (down 2.6 percent), New Orleans at No. 5 (down 2.4 percent), Manhattan, NYC at No. 8 (down 1.9 percent), and Tulsa, Oklahoma at No. 9 (down 1.5 percent.)
Meanwhile, areas with stronger job markets and/or better overall affordability are still seeing demand growth which, combined with a lack of capital investment, is driving rents considerably higher.
Though smaller and mid-sized towns used to be a haven for renters looking to avoid the sky-high prices of large urban areas, it seems those days are in the past. September’s list of fastest-growing rents is dominated by small and medium-sized towns—many boasting double-digit growth since this time last year.
The Lone Star State’s Odessa and Midland—both hubs of oil and gas activity—came in at the top two spots, with jumps of 24.7 percent and 20.7 percent, respectively. Odessa rents now clock in at $1,060 per month, while Midland’s reach even higher, coming in at $1,225.
The rest of the nation’s fastest-growing rents can be found largely on the West Coast, with California, Washington, Nevada and Colorado taking up the remaining bulk of the list. The only Northeastern cities to see big year-over-year rent growth were Buffalo, New York, with an 11.2 percent jump over 2016, and Elizabeth, New Jersey, which saw rents climb 8.5 percent to $1,187.
Finally, here are the top 10 most and least expensive rental markets in the U.S. at the end of September 2017. To our complete lack of surprise, New York and California continue to dominate the expensive list while Southern and Midwestern markets continue to provide the best value...perhaps this is why all those domestic migration studies show a mass exodus from the cities on the left to the cities on the right? Just a hunch...
“The war on coal is over,” EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt declared in the coal mining state of Kentucky. The head of the Environmental Protection Agency said Monday that he will sign a new rule overriding the Clean Power Plan, an Obama-era effort to limit carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants.
Pruitt was among about two-dozen attorney generals who sued to stop former President Barack Obama’s push to limit carbon emissions, so the elimination of the Clean Power Plan is personal to him. Getting rid of the Clean Power Plan will mark the culmination of a long fight he began as the elected attorney general of the state of Oklahoma.
Pruitt has long rejected the government consensus that man-made emissions from burning fossil fuels are the primary driver of global climate change – or is it global warming? President Donald Trump, who appointed Pruitt and shares his skepticism of the often fabricated climate science, promised to kill the Clean Power Plan during the 2016 campaign as part of his broader pledge to revive the nation’s struggling coal mines and boost the economy.
Obama’s plan was designed to cut the United States carbon dioxide emissions to 32 percent below 2005 levels by 2030. The rule dictated specific emission targets for states based on power-plant emissions and gave officials broad latitude to decide how to achieve reductions. However, it was the broad executive overreach Obama became known for that some states took issue with. The Supreme Court put the plan on hold last year following legal challenges by industry and coal-friendly states.
Pruitt is expected to declare that the Obama-era rule exceeded federal law by setting emissions standards that power plants could not reasonably meet. Appearing at an event with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Pruitt said, “The EPA and no federal agency should ever use its authority to say to you we are going to declare war on any sector of our economy.”
“This president has tremendous courage,” Pruitt said Monday. “He put America first and said to the rest of the world we are going to say no and exit the Paris Accord. That was the right thing to do.”
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Author: Mac Slavo
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Date: October 10th, 2017
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Authored by Nick Cunningham via OilPrice.com,
The pressure on shale drillers to throttle back on their aggressive drilling continues to crop up in new places, and there are growing signs that the Permian is slowing down.
Shale companies spent just $5 billion on land deals in West Texas in the last six months, a fraction of the $35 billion spent in the prior nine-month period, according to the Houston Chronicle, citing Wood Mackenzie data.
It’s the latest piece of evidence to suggest that “Permania” might be easing. The hottest shale basin on the planet has suffered from rising costs as too many companies pour money into West Texas. The crowded field has pushed up the price of land, labor, oilfield services, rigs and more. That has led to a rude awakening for a lot of shale drillers. "It"s just taken the edge off the Permian," said Greig Aitken, head of upstream oil and gas mergers and acquisitions at Wood Mackenzie, according to the Houston Chronicle.
Many signs suggest that the falling costs of production have stopped falling. In fact, production costs are on the rise again, for a few reasons.
First, the low hanging fruit of cost cutting has ended - there’s no fat left to cut and deeper reductions would mean cutting into bone.
Second, as mentioned before, there is cost inflation in a lot of areas, including labor, fracking crews and acreage.
But arguably the most troubling development for shale drillers would be if the production figures from the oil well disappoint - and there are pieces of evidence that indicate there is cause for concern.
Over the summer, Pioneer Natural Resources reported a much higher than expected gas-to-oil ratio (GOR), raising alarm bells for investors worried about Permian production problems. The anxiety was compounded by the fact that many consider Pioneer one of the stronger shale drillers in the Permian. The company also revealed that it drilled some “train wreck” wells, although it reassured investors that it had solved the problem.
But as The Wall Street Journal notes, the “solution” added an additional $400,000 to each well. In other words, costs are adding up in many places, which will ultimately push up the breakeven price for shale drilling. Meanwhile, other E&Ps have had to lower their production guidance because of the backlog for oilfield services, which are delaying operations.
There’s a growing consensus that the pace of shale drilling needs to slow down, or else E&Ps will destroy value.
“All these factors are pointing to slower, more methodical development,” said David Pursell, managing director at Tudor Pickering Holt, according to the WSJ.
“That needs to happen.”
A shift toward more “methodical” development would likely mean that U.S. shale undershoots growth forecasts. While the EIA expects U.S. oil production to top 10 million barrels per day, the more prudent approach advocated by more and more shale investors would likely mean output remains flat for years to come, never topping 10 mb/d, according to BTU Analytics.
“There are no new shale plays that have come forward,” Mark Papa, CEO of Centennial Resource Development Inc., told the WSJ.
“Their ability to spew forth infinite streams of oil is really just a myth.”
The EIA estimates that shale production is still on the rise, but further gains will be much harder to obtain. The rig count is still slowly ticking up, but the large weekly increases in rigs appears to be over. Because there is a lag between movements in the rig count and subsequent shifts in oil production, the recent slowdown in the rig count raises the possibility of oil output plateauing later this year.
Moreover, with several years of data on the books, it appears that while breakeven prices vary from company to company, the industry in the aggregate appears to start and stop at around $50 per barrel. With WTI struggling to hold gains above that threshold, there’s little room to run for shale companies. The explosive growth in the shale patch will need much higher oil prices if it is to continue.
The recognition that the Permian bonanza might be overdone could mark the dawn of a new era in which shale companies feel compelled to take a more cautious approach and live within their means.
Some activist investors are seeking dramatic changes to executive compensation as a way of incentivizing profits rather than simply higher levels of drilling. Pioneer Natural Resources’ CEO Tim Dove recently told an industry conference in Oklahoma City that he was feeling the heat from a “thundering herd” of investors, pressing him to focus on shareholder returns.
A new study of public pension returns by Cliffwater LLC has found that the median U.S. state pension plan returned just 5.9% annually over the 10 years ended June 30, 2016. Meanwhile, as Pension and Investments notes, the top performing state pension, the $15.6 billion Oklahoma Teachers" Retirement System, was the only fund that managed to eek out a return over 7% during the same period.
U.S. state pension plans returned a median annualized 5.9% for the 10 years ended June 30, 2016, vs. 6.8% for the 10 years ended June 30, 2015, said Cliffwater"s most recent annual state pension performance report.
The average 5.7% return for the 10 years ended June 30, 2016, fell within a wide range of individual pension plan returns (3.7% to 7.1%).
Once again, the two top-performing state pension plans for the period were the $15.6 billion Oklahoma Teachers" Retirement System, returning 7.1%, and the South Dakota Investment Council returning 6.8% for the $10.5 billion South Dakota Retirement System. In third place was the $7 billion Missouri Local Government Employees Retirement System, returning 6.7%. All returns cited are annualized figures.
Of course, as we"ve noted on numerous occasions, the problem with those returns is that most public pensions in the U.S. have randomly decided to assume a long-term return of 7.5%, or 1.6% higher than what they"ve actually been able to achieve in practice. All of which only serves to mask the true scale of the pension crisis in the U.S. by discounting future liabilities at an artificially high rate.
As we noted in a post entitled "An Unsolvable Math Problem: Public Pensions Are Underfunded By As Much As $8 Trillion," lowering discount rates from just 7.5% to 6.0% could result in a 65% increase in underfunded liabilities.
But you don"t have to take our word for it, even Kentucky"s State Budget Director, John Chilton, admitted in a recent letter sent out to the Kentucky Employees’ Retirement System that if pensions were subjected to the same rules governing single-employer private plans that their underfunded level would double and federal law would have already required "that all benefits be frozen and the plans terminated." Per The State Journal:
“It is well known that all of the Commonwealth’s pension plans are in a crisis. Using the same investment rates of return that corporate plans are required to use – the Corporate Bond Index rate – the aggregate underfunding for all of Kentucky’s eight plans goes from $33 billion to $64 billion,” he wrote in the letter.
“Furthermore, if Kentucky plans were subject to federal standards for single-employer private plans, six of the plans would be designated as having severe funding shortfalls because their funded status is less than 60 percent. As such, federal law would require that all benefits be frozen and the plans terminated. This is true even using the old 2016 actuarial assumptions, rather than the more realistic discount rates and other assumptions required of private plans.
“The need for significant reform is evident to anyone looking at the health of the Commonwealth’s plans within that larger context.”
The letter said total employer contributions for Fiscal Year 2017, which ended June 30, were $857,311,370. If there is no legislative action, that rises to an estimated $872,677,346 in FY 2018, the current fiscal year, and $1,483,863,927 in FY 2019, an increase of over $611 million, from this fiscal year.
Adding insult to injury, Cliffwater found that well over 50% of public pension funds (adjusted for hedge fund allocations) are invested in public equities...
The alternative investment consultant"s report also looked at pension funds" asset allocations and performance by asset class.
As of June 30, 2016, the plans had an average asset allocation of 48% public equities (down two percentage points from 2015), 26% alternatives (up two percentage points), 24% fixed income (up one percentage point), and 2% cash (down one percentage point).
According to Cliffwater, most of the alternatives increase for the year was directed to private equity, private debt and opportunistic investments. Within alternatives, the average allocation as of June 30, 2016 was 36% private equity, 30% real estate, 18% hedge funds, 13% real asset and the remainder in other alternatives.
Looking at alternative performance, the median return for private equity was 9.9% for the 10 years ended June 30, and 5.8% for real estate. Individual pension funds" real estate returns varied the most of any asset class for the 10-year period, Cliffwater noted.
...All of which raises two very important questions: (1) how is it possible that pension underfundings continue to surge when 50% of assets have participated in one of the biggest equity bubbles in history and (2) when the current equity bubble bursts, which in inevitably will, will it result in a cascading failure of retirement systems across the country and finally expose the public pension ponzi for great lie that it has always been?
It"s Friday night and with stocks at record highs, Trump"s approval ratings jumping to 4-month highs, and Mueller scraping the bottom of the barrel for anything to pin on anyone, the media has their red meat for the weekend now as DHS has notified 21 states Friday that their election systems were targeted before the 2016 election.
The government told The Associated Press last year that more than 20 states were targeted by hackers believed to be Russian agents before the 2016 elections. But for many states, the calls Friday from the Department of Homeland Security were the first official confirmation of whether their states were on the list.
DHS Spokesman Scott McConnell said in a written statement to The Hill...
"[R]ecognizing that state and local officials should be kept informed about cybersecurity risks to election infrastructure, we are working with them to refine our processes for sharing this information while protecting the integrity of investigations and the confidentiality of system owners."
"As part of our ongoing information sharing efforts, today DHS notified the Secretary of State or another chief election officer in each state of any potential targeting we were aware of in their state leading up to the 2016 election. We will continue to keep this information confidential and defer to each state whether it wishes to make it public or not.”
So the government did not release a list of what states were notified. However, as AP reports, after contacting every state election office on Friday...
While not all of them responded immediately, those that said they were targeted were Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Iowa, Maryland, Minnesota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin.
Federal officials said that in most of the 21 states, the targeting was preparatory activity such as scanning computer systems.
The targets included voter registration systems but not vote tallying software.
Officials said there were some attempts to compromise networks but most were unsuccessful.
The government did not say who was behind the hacking attempts or provide details about what had been sought.
But election officials in three states said Friday the attempts could be linked to Russia.
The Wisconsin Election Commission seem utterly convinced that the state"s systems were targeted by "Russian government cyber actors."
Wisconsin Notified of Unsuccessful Russian Hacking Attempt
This afternoon, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security notified the Wisconsin Elections Commission for the first time that “Russian government cyber actors” unsuccessfully targeted the state’s voter registration system in 2016.
WEC Administrator Michael Haas has informed WEC Chair Mark Thomsen, who directed Commission staff to investigate why election officials were not notified earlier and report to the Commission at its meeting Tuesday.
“This scanning had no impact on Wisconsin’s systems or the election,” Haas said. “Internet security provided by the state successfully protected our systems. Homeland Security specifically confirmed there was no breach or compromise of our data.”
Wisconsin is one of 21 states whose chief election officials were notified Friday by DHS officials that their systems were targeted by Russians, said Haas. DHS did not disclose which other states were notified, but said the states were free to disclose the information.
According to DHS, it appears that Internet-facing election infrastructure in Wisconsin was targeted by Russian government cyber actors. They scanned internet-connected election infrastructure likely seeking specific vulnerabilities such as access to voter registration databases, but the attempt to exploit vulnerabilities was unsuccessful.
Haas said the Commission is seeking more specific information, including when the scanning activity occurred in 2016.
The news that 21 states were targeted was first announced by DHS at a U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on June 21, 2017. Coincidentally, Haas also testified at that hearing and said in response to questions that the Elections Commission had not been notified by DHS and concluded that Wisconsin was not one of the targeted states.
Which reads more like WI officials wanting to crows of their security and pin the blame of Russians (when we know from what AP reported that no blame was asssigned, merely notification of targeting).
Colorado said the hacking wasn"t quite a breach.
"It"s really reconnaissance by a bad guy to try and figure out how we would break into your computer," said Trevor Timmons, a spokesman for the Colorado secretary of state"s office.
"It"s not an attack. I wouldn"t call it a probe. It"s not a breach, it"s not a penetration."
Only Illinois reported that hackers had succeeded in breaching its voter systems.
With each passing day and each new ICBM launch from a seemingly unhinged North Korean dictator, the fears of an attack on the U.S. mainland, though faint, increasingly weigh on the hearts and minds of Americans, particularly those in California. As The Guardian points out today, those fears have even prompted a group of California public health officials and emergency responders to gather for a strategy session with Hal Kempfer, a retired marine lieutenant colonel, to discuss which areas are the most likely targets and how citizens should respond to an attack.
Hal Kempfer, a noted international security expert, is getting a roomful of California public health officials and emergency responders to think about the unthinkable – a nuclear bomb exploding at the port of Long Beach, about four miles away.
“A lot of people will be killed,” he said, “but a large percentage of the population will survive. They will be at risk and they will need help.”
“If you want to mess up southern California, if you want to mess up the west coast, if you want to mess up our country – where do you attack?” Kempfer asks. “If I’m sitting in North Korea and looking at possible targets, I’m going to be looking at Long Beach very closely.”
He talks about the port and downtown Long Beach being “toast” – no exaggeration, since the blast wave is likely to vaporize everything in its immediate path. But the city health department, the Long Beach airport and fire department might not be; they are all somewhat protected by a hilly area that is likely to halt the initial blast wave. And so the city can, tentatively, think about setting up a center of emergency operations.
Of course, the radioactive fallout created as the explosion gathers up tremendous quantities of dust and ocean water and spits them into the atmosphere would represent a secondary grave risk, especially in the first hours after an attack.
Not to mention the electromagnetic pulse that is likely to knock out electronic systems including phones and computers, the pile-ups expected on the freeways as drivers are blinded by the flash of the explosion, the rush for food, water and gasoline as millions of Angelenos attempt to drive out of the region, and the terror triggered by even the idea of a second, follow-up attack.
Meanwhile, lest you think this was all just a creative way for some public employees to skip work for a day, Ventura County, located just northwest of Los Angeles, has even taken the unusual step of prepping a 250-page plan on how to respond to the humanitarian crisis that would result from a nuclear attack in Los Angeles.
In fact, their efforts even include this truly bizarre public service announcement that instructs folks to shelter in place and cover windows with plastic.
Of course, as we pointed out back in August, while a global nuclear confrontation is generally viewed as a bad thing, for Ron Hubbard, President of Atlas Survival Shelters in Los Angeles, it has resulted in an economic windfall as a staggering number of Californians have suddenly turned into doomsday preppers.
“It’s crazy, I’ve never seen anything like it,” Ron Hubbard, president of Atlas Survival Shelters, told Fox11. “It’s all over the country. I sold shelters today in North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Oregon, Washington, Arizona, California.”
The company, based in Montebello in eastern Los Angeles, sells shelters priced from $10,000 to $100,000. Hubbard told the station that the shelters are designed to be buried 20 feet below ground and can sustain survivors for up to one year, depending on the size and model.
He told the station he had sold more than 30 units in recent days, including to customers in Japan.
All that said, Kempfer points out that there is a silver lining here because any attack from North Korea likely wouldn"t result in "your traditional nuclear apocalypse scenario" because Kim Jong-Un probably only has weapons capable of destroying about 1 square mile at a time.
Rather, it’s likely to be a Hiroshima-sized bomb – large enough to obliterate everything within a square-mile radius and kill tens of thousands of people, either immediately or through the lingering effects of radiation. But still leaving millions of survivors across the region who would need help.
“We’re talking about smaller North Korean things,” Kempfer emphasized, though the word “smaller” sounds very far from reassuring. “This is not your traditional nuclear apocalypse scenario.”
So, Californians at least have that going for them, which is nice.
ATTOM Data Solutions today released its Q2 2017 U.S. Home Flipping Report which reveals that residential home flippers, the same speculative crew that nearly blew up the entire global financial system in 2008, are now making more money than ever. In fact, in 2Q the average flipped house generated gross profits of $67,516 which is well above the $60,000 peak previously set back in 2005.
The report also shows an average gross flipping profit of $67,516 for homes flipped in the second quarter, representing a 48.4 percent return on investment (ROI) for flippers — down from 49.0 percent in the previous quarter and down from 49.6 percent in Q2 2016 to the lowest level since Q3 2015. After peaking at 51.1 percent in Q3 2016, average gross flipping ROI nationwide has decreased for three consecutive quarters.
“Home flippers are employing a number of strategies to give them an edge in the increasingly competitive environment where flipping yields are being compressed,” said Daren Blomquist, senior vice president at ATTOM Data Solutions. “Many flippers are gravitating toward lower-priced areas where discounted purchases are more readily available — often due to foreclosure or some other type of distress. Many of those lower-priced areas also have strong rental markets, giving flippers a consistent pipeline of demand from buy-and-hold investors looking for turnkey rentals.
“In markets where distressed discounts have largely dried up, flippers are showing more willingness to leverage financing when acquiring properties, often purchasing closer to full market value and then relying more heavily on price appreciation to fuel their flipping profits,” Blomquist added.
So where are flippers earning the highest returns these days? Attom says that lower cost states like Pennsylvania, Louisiana and Ohio seem offer the most attractive returns while cities in the flipping paradise of California are only managing to generate lackluster mid-20% returns on their investment.
Homes flipped in Pennsylvania yielded the highest average gross flipping ROI nationwide in Q2 2017 (103.1 percent), followed by Louisiana (100.0 percent), Ohio (88.9 percent), New Jersey (81.7 percent), and the District of Columbia (81.2 percent).
Among 101 metropolitan statistical areas analyzed in the report, those with the highest average gross flipping ROI were Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (146.6 percent); Baton Rouge, Louisiana (120.3 percent); Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (114.0 percent); Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (103.3 percent); and Cleveland, Ohio (101.8 percent).
Metro areas with the lowest average gross flipping returns in Q2 2017 were Honolulu, Hawaii (17.8 percent); Boise, Idaho (23.5 percent); Austin, Texas (26.0 percent); San Jose, California (27.0 percent); and San Francisco, California (27.1 percent).
Of course, capital tends to follow out-sized returns which is presumable why 1 in 4 homes sold in the following zip codes are now flowing through speculative flippers.
Meanwhile, here are the other markets around the country where flipping is also heating up.
Counter to the national trend, 54 metropolitan statistical areas — 53 percent of the 101 metro areas analyzed in the report — posted a year-over-year increase in home flipping rates in the second quarter, led by Baton Rouge, Louisiana (up 72 percent); Rochester, New York (up 39 percent); Daphne-Fairhope-Foley, Alabama (up 29 percent); New York (up 24 percent); and Modesto, California (up 24 percent).
Other markets where the Q2 2017 home flipping rate increased at least 10 percent from a year ago included Birmingham, Alabama (up 22 percent); Grand Rapids, Michigan (up 20 percent); Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas (up 13 percent); Oklahoma City, Oklahoma (up 12 percent); St. Louis (up 11 percent); Providence, Rhode Island (up 11 percent); and Cincinnati, Ohio (up 10 percent).
All that said, flipping isn"t always easy in every market. Take Denver, for example, where real estate investor Paul Schemmel said it became so difficult to flip houses at a profit that he had to "evolve" his business strategy...so now he just pays full price for existing homes, bulldozes them and builds brand new mcmansions. Genius plan, if we understand it correctly.
“I’ve constantly evolved to make money in the Denver market,” said Schemmel, who said he has flipped hundreds of homes since 2008 but was finding it harder to compete in the conventional home flipping arena. “Why don’t I just buy at full price, scrape the lot and build a new house. … And then I started making money again. I don’t even rehab any more. I demolish and I build a new home. … I can pay full price for a property, but my competition cannot.”
Of course, you should not worry at all that flipped homes are increasingly being financed with mortgages...
More than 35 percent of homes flipped in Q2 2017 were purchased by the flipper with financing, up from 33.2 percent in the previous quarter and up from 32.3 percent a year ago to the highest level since Q3 2008 — a nearly nine-year high.
The estimated total dollar volume of financing for homes flipped in the second quarter was $4.4 billion, up from $3.9 billion in the previous quarter and up from $3.4 billion a year ago to the highest level since Q3 2007 — a nearly 10-year high.
Among 101 metropolitan statistical areas analyzed in the report, those with the highest percentage of Q2 2017 home flips purchased with financing by the flipper were Colorado Springs, Colorado (68.4 percent); Denver, Colorado (56.1 percent); Boston, Massachusetts (53.3 percent); Providence, Rhode Island (51.7 percent); and San Diego, California (49.0 percent).
“Across California the gross dollar profits available for property flips remains one of the highest in the country; however low market inventories, increases in home prices, and decreasing home affordability have decreased the number of opportunities available to secure prospective properties to invest,” said Michael Mahon, president at First Team Real Estate, covering the Southern California housing market.
....we"re sure that flippers and their banks fully learned their lesson back in 2008.
Equity investors today failed to follow through on initial efforts to "Buy The Fucking Fire and Fury Dip" but they are apparently rushing out to buy their very own doomsday bunkers on the off chance that President Trump wasn"t joking yesterday when he offered the following warning to North Korea:
President Trump: If North Korea makes any more threats to the U.S., "they will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen" pic.twitter.com/8dQed79L1W
— NBC News (@NBCNews) August 8, 2017
Apparently the comments have spooked some folks on America"s west coast who are thought to be within Kim Jong Un"s nuclear strike radius. And while a global nuclear confrontation is generally viewed as a bad thing, for Ron Hubbard, President of Atlas Survival Shelters in Los Angeles, it has resulted in an economic windfall. Here"s more from The Sacramento Bee:
“It’s crazy, I’ve never seen anything like it,” Ron Hubbard, president of Atlas Survival Shelters, told Fox11. “It’s all over the country. I sold shelters today in North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Oregon, Washington, Arizona, California.”
The company, based in Montebello in eastern Los Angeles, sells shelters priced from $10,000 to $100,000. Hubbard told the station that the shelters are designed to be buried 20 feet below ground and can sustain survivors for up to one year, depending on the size and model.
He told the station he had sold more than 30 units in recent days, including to customers in Japan.
Meanwhile, Bloomberg reports that Vivos, another shelter manufacturer in Del Mar, Calif., near San Diego, also has experienced a spike in business.
“Japan’s going hog wild right now,” said Ron Hubbard, owner of Atlas Survival. The Montebello, California-based company makes about a dozen different underground refuge models intended to be inhabitable for six months to a year, some outfitted with escape tunnels, decontamination rooms and bulletproof hatches.
“People are getting off the fence – we’ve got thousands and thousands of applications,” said Robert Vicino, founder and chief executive officer of Vivos, Spanish for “alive.”
Vivos sells models for individual and communal use, and the company has built subterranean survival communities in the U.S. and Europe. The latest, xPoint, covers 9,000 acres in South Dakota with 575 off-grid dugouts. Planned amenities include a community theater, hydroponic gardens, shooting ranges, restaurant and bar. Shelters in the community are available for lease with an up-front cost of $25,000. Vicino told Bloomberg about 50 units have been leased or reserved.
Of course, for now we can only speculate that Trump and Putin must have colluded in efforts to spark a global nuclear confrontation while quietly buying up bunker manufacturers behind the scenes to make a little extra cash. We demand that Special Counsel Mueller expand his investigation to look into this rather suspicious development immediately.
